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It all began as a bad idea.
After having been an esteemed invited guest to partake in a summit of all the world?s top online smut peddlers in Panama (I would include more details, but this is a PG-13 blog), a decision to be made:
We could do ?more of the same? in Costa Rica.
Or do something ?really gangsta? and visit Cuba.
Over dinner, a business associate was telling us how awesome Cuba was, how he went all of the time, and could set everything up for us to go through his ?travel assistant? if we wanted . Honestly, I?ve always been curious about Cuba, so?
We opted for #2.
A few fun facts about Cuba:
Americans aren?t supposed to be there.
Because of the embargo: Any American ATM and Visa is useless.
There is no internet access.
You have no cell phone service.
There are probably 3 cops for every 10 persons and they are all on the take.
Cuba isn?t so much a foreign country ? it?s a fucking time machine!
After the end of a pretty good 5 day bender in Panama, I woke up at 8AM to catch a cab to the airport. We had booked 2 tickets on COPA Airlines from Panama to Cuba, ran up every bank card we had and managed to scrape together enough cash for 3 nights / 4 days in Havana. Our hotel was supposedly already paid for by the travel girl we?d given a check to, so we should have more than enough spending money for our stay.
Cuba is cheap, right?
Wrong!
When we got to the check-in counter, I was informed that my flight had been overbooked and would have to fly standby. We decided that if we both don?t fly, neither is going. When we get to the gate, COPA tells me that could put me on the flight BEFORE the one I was supposed to be on. They rushed me over to another gate, I got on the plane, and my bags would arrive on my original flight.
I hope you are still paying attention because here is where the shit hits the fan?
I tell my business partner (JC) that since I would be getting in first that I would just wait for him outside of immigration. I get in and wait on the bench at the side of the large room. This woman keeps coming up and asking me questions in very broken English. I try in vain to communicate.
She keeps coming back with more questions, but now with mean military looking guys carrying nice big automatic weapons and precious little English. Fumbling nervously through my English to Spanish dictionary in one hand and my Treo in the other, I typed up a sentence explaining my flight situation that probably read like:
?My name is payment deferred albatross. Would you please direct me to the nearest water buffalo although my hovercraft is infested with eels??
They were getting confused and keep coming back with a more menacing looking man in a higher level uniform and bigger gun.
Fuck, this is getting ugly.
This scenario plays out again and again through the course of the next 45 minutes. Finally when the flight I was supposed to be on arrives and I see JC. I feel relieved for one second but then the woman asks if this is mi amigo. I say "Yes". Next thing you know, she and the goonsquad are on JC like George Clinton on a crack pipe.
And the games begin.
They take our passports away; drag us into separate interrogation rooms and start working us over. This is before we even can get to our luggage spinning around on the carousel surrounded my a dozen drug sniffing cocker spaniels. We get our bags and the second phase of the interrogation begins.
They take us to another room where they start going through my luggage with a fine tooth comb. They have all pulled out these clipboards and are taking notes of everything I am saying. Any minute I am thinking something I?d forgotten from my ?extra curricular activities? (sniff, sniff) in Panama to drop out of some of my jeans and that would be the end.
Mentally, I was prepared myself for a 20 year stint in Guantanamo Bay.
While all of this is going on I see the customs officers drag JC off to the back room which he describes as ?loaded with pliers, hammers, and electrical equipment?. I thought that they had found something in his luggage for sure. In the meantime, the lady that is harassing me is giving me the business about the ?Samsonite 10 Year Warrantee? card that had broken into pieces in the pockets of in my suitcase!
Yes, people?the Mattress Police are real!
This was only level 2 interrogations. After that, I go through 10 other different sections of harassment, each, when I was thinking one would end only leads to another more severe tier.
?¿En qué hotel estás permaneciendo?? they press on.
?NL Hotel?, I respond. (its only the best known hotel in Havana).
?No hay tal lugar unhotel NL!? they mock.
They start going through some books I had taken for the flight. I had two Charles Bukowski books in my bag (Tales of Ordinary Madness and Hollywood).
?¿Quién es Charles Bukowski??
She suspected I had some form of anti-Castro propaganda and scribbled that down on her pad as well. They keep repeating the same questions using some antiquated Soviet Interrogation technique and going back and forth between JC and myself to see if our stories matched. This shit went on for over three hours.
The lady, finally satiated, and says?
?I?m sorry, welcome to Cuba.?
I step outside and it was literally like stepping into Zoloft-land. Everyone is happy. The sun is shining bright. I finally see JC emerge from immigration with a look of sheer terror on his face. We ask at the information counter about Hotel NL (Hotel National) and all of a sudden everyone on the other side of the door knows exactly where it is and speak English too!
Those sadistic muther fuckering customs fucks!
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