25-12-15
Well, I must say I’m a bit excited, it’s more than 2 years since I had more than a couple of days away from home and here I am off to Cuba, albeit on a guided tour! Also going to be in Mexico for a few days to catch up with my eldest son who’s been backpacking South and Central America since the beginning of May.
I was pretty sad Christmas morning, quite weird and lonely to be completely on my own so I was pleased to be spending the day travelling. I left home 7:30 on Xmas morning for the airport. and left Brisbane for Sydney at 9:30. I let a guy get off ahead of me when we landed and we talked as we walked out. He was going to Hong Kong for few days, visiting his sisters in Munich and London then going to Santiago in California for few days on his way home but was more interested in me going to Cuba. we ended up on same shuttle bus to the international terminal and he was asking me why I decided to go, what I was looking forward to, lots of questions and said he was putting it on his list of places to go! Was 12:30 by the time I got through customs and security and had a few hours to wait so had lunch and couple of wines and did a couple of sketches.
Had an aisle seat in middle row and no one next to me but still didn’t sleep much. It’s pretty ordinary being in economy on long flights, when the guy in front of me put his seat back I couldn’t fit my legs in straight. Got to Dallas 14 hours later and it was still only 1pm Christmas Day! Had couple of hours in Dallas and met another lady on the same tour, Jennie. Heaps of Aussies from my Qantas flight on the same plane to Cancun and none of us really knew if we had to collect luggage or not but took a chance and didn’t. At boarding we got told we had to go and check in again, some people not happy but didn’t really matter. Met another girl on the plane, Tanya, who is on same tour. When we got to Cancun I was late out of the plane and went to wrong baggage carousel with other people so was last one to meet the person with the Bunnik sign, still, no matter but was doing a minor panic!
First thing I saw outside the terminal was a Margarita Bar – cool. Turns out there was one other couple on the same flights as the three of us, Wendy and John from Darwin. At the hotel in Cancun it took ages to check-in as they didn’t have rooms assigned to us but the two young blokes on reception were really nice, laid-back and friendly. Being the end of a huge day/night/day we all had dinner in the restaurant at the hotel; mixed fajitas and 3 glasses of Chardonnay was US $20. A lovely long hot shower and off to bed felt so luxurious after all those hours in planes and airports; I slept like a log. An amazingly it was still Christmas day, about 10pm Cancun time but 1pm our time on Boxing Day.
MidLife Traveller 