Despite fighting hard the cold Chris has been trying to resist won a battle last night so he ended up with very little sleep, this wasn’t really a problem as today is transfer day back to Havana. After breakfast we packed most things up then went up to the roof to relax and watch the world go by, our plan was to go for a walk a bit later then come back to the room and have a shower before being picked up about 5pm for our 8pm flight. Unfortunately the best laid plans and all that meant that there was a confusion about the room and it had not been extended to 5pm which luckily we found out about 12.30 as well as this our flight has been delayed by two hours so we we are not being picked up until 7pm. We quickly packed everything up and took our bags down to reception before picking up a drink and heading back to the roof, we have decided we will go and get something to eat a bit later to fill the time before we head off to the airport. We have had a great time in Santiago but I think we are both now at the stage where we just want to be back in Havana where at least we would be able to sit by a pool or go for a walk in the old town. Santiago doesn’t seem to be quite as geared up for tourists as some of the other places we have been, the main square which is only round the corner doesn’t have any shade or really anywhere to sit and watch the world go by, this seems to be the case with most of the squares in the area. We had originally planned to go the the Casa Granda as it has a slightly nicer rooftop terrace but in the end we stayed in our hotel and had something to eat here. We were picked up and driven round to the airport which wasn’t actually very far away. When we arrived the flight was posted as 22.35 and ‘on time’ which is an interesting concept as we had originally been scheduled to leave at 20.05! For a country that queues for everything they are really rubbish at it and they believe they can just push in when they feel like it, we soon stopped that and finally got to the departure lounge at the time we should have been taking off. Hopefully there won’t be any further delays and we can get into Havana and the hotel tonight. Despite the best efforts of a totally disorganised system we were on the plane and ready for takeoff at 22:40. The flight was actually only about an hour but the saga of the flight you couldn’t make up continued as the plane was parked at a walkway but for some reason we were not allowed to use it, instead after about 30 minutes what felt like the only set of steps they have in the airport arrived and we were finally allowed off. We think they may have parked at the international terminal as we then had a 10 minute drive round to the domestic terminal after which we had another wait until our bags finally arrived. We had a really nice taxi driver who made the observation that they had been waiting for our flight for ages, we pointed out so had we but this didn’t affect his cheerful mode, he was way to happy for what was by this time 1.30 in the morning. The good news is that when we arrived at the hotel they were expecting us, they had a room and they knew we had stayed here before so hopefully it will improve tomorrow. We decided to have a drink to celebrate our arrival then finally went to bed about 2am.
