Cuba 5: Conclusion

We only had a few hours left before our flight back to Miami. It wasn't enough time to really go anywhere, so we just took one last stroll around Havana.

This is like my favorite picture of the whole trip.

The one peso note has the Plaza de la Revolución on the front which we visited on our second day in the country.

The back shows Cuban national hero José Martí.

Have you noticed that many of the famous Che Guevara pictures have him looking to one side, with a shadow on the lower part of his face?

The most famous of them plays that game quite well.

Turns out Che's beard looks like someone glued patches of pubes to his face while he was asleep. Tough luck bro.

You could always tell where one of the rare, rare wifi hotspots was by the crowd of people sitting and standing around staring at phones and laptops.

We hopped in one last Cuban cab and rode to the airport.

Things got very... propaganda-y the farther we got out of town.

"Socialism or death" was one of the cheery slogans on the highway.

So our taxi man pulls up to a terminal, which I don't believe is the correct one. I got out the car to check the place out, and in the mean time he pretty much sets our bags on the sidewalk and drives away. Well in the confusion I left my dang fedora in the cab! How will people know how classy I am now? Recall the time Athena herself stole the camo Keystone Light hat right off my head at the Acropolis in Greece.

We got to the airport super early quite unnecessarily, then sat and stared at each other for hours. Travel isn't all rainbows and socialism and death you know. This was a pretty special day to be stuck at the José Martí International Airport though.

There were a couple of large US military planes at the airport, which must be a pretty rare sight. I believe they were here in preparation for President Obama's arrival. I never really thought about it before but I guess they fly in his armored cars and stuff ahead of his visits to places. I sort of figured they just used local armored cars but I guess you couldn't really ever trust them.

Things got pretty hilarious when an American flight crew strolled in in their uniforms, hit the duty free shop, then walked out with arms full of rum and cigars.

We bounced back to the Cayman Islands before returning to Miami.

The airport was a little scary. We had our Cuban visit paperwork in order but I still didn't want to be grilled on it. When an officer asked me where I had flown from I said Grand Cayman. Which wasn't a lie. Hurray for obfuscation!

We stuck around Florida for another day and I was able to visit some family. Then back to St. Louis we went.

Lydia gets cold on planes.