The civil registry strike completely disrupted our itinerary. Without the vehicle registration documents, my car couldn’t leave Chile. When one door closes, another opens, so we started planning Plan B. One day while browsing the internet, I spotted cheap flights from Santiago to Cuba. After thinking it over, I said to her, “Let’s go!” We had always intended to visit this distant and mysterious place when we first planned our South American trip. So we bought tickets to Cuba for a week later.
At that time, my knowledge of Cuba was limited to Buena Vista Social Club, classic cars, cigars, and, of course, Che Guevara. In the days after booking the tickets, searching online became a daily routine—I had to plan everything from booking homestays and attractions to arranging transportation between cities. Internet access in Cuba is extremely limited and very expensive.
Since Cuba and the U.S. are long-time adversaries, exchanging U.S. dollars incurs a 10% fee. Canadian dollars and euros are more widely accepted in Cuba. The problem? We only had U.S. dollars—talk about problems piling up every single day!!
Eventually, we figured out a solution: withdraw Chilean pesos from an ATM first, then exchange them for euros. Most ATMs in Chile have a withdrawal limit of CLP 200,000 per transaction. After searching for a while, we finally found one bank with a CLP 800,000 limit, which saved us quite a bit on fees.
During our few days in Santiago, besides researching and exchanging money, we also needed to find a parking spot to leave our car for three weeks. Our worst-case plan was to park at the airport, but the cost for three weeks was nearly CLP 160,000—and it was outdoors. We asked at many parking lots in downtown Santiago, but either the prices were too high or overnight parking wasn’t allowed. Just when we were about to give up, we found one that offered monthly rates—for CLP 110,000. Using our limited Spanish plus Google Translate, we managed to communicate with them.
“ 框enta mensual?”
“sí”
“ 棵uánto ?”
“Ciento diez mil”
之后的对话全靠伟大的Google Translate了，最后我们用了CLP80000租了三星期。(后来到复活岛时又找到了更便宜的停车地方) 现在所有事情终于都安排好了。
晚上12时35分的飞机，我们八时多就到达机场，机场水尽鹅飞，当时还以为是晚上的关系所以航班较少，谁不知，好戏在后头。。。。原来今天机场罢工！！！！我想去个旅行Uk，Registro civil罢工我咪走Up，机场你又罢工，你系咪玩我呀！！
当晚机场极混乱，地勤，出入境和保安都不工作，所有旅客都挤在机场禁区前，等待他们复工。我们只能等，寂寞到夜深。。。一直等到11时多终于开始工作，慢慢让旅客进入，但过了不久又把门关上，这时旅客们都开始焦急了，害怕赶不上飞机，有些人更哭了。。我们见势色不对，便手拉着手向前走，感觉好像逃难一样，慢慢地在人潮中向前挤，但是人潮把我们分开了，我成功挤进禁区，但她还在人潮中，管理人员不让我回去，我对着他大呀：“ she is coming with me!! she is coming with me!!!”然后管理人员就把她推向我。
好不容易出了关，这时己经12：15分了，我们拼命地向boarding gate跑去，终于赶上飞机，机上还坐满不到一半，应该有很多人赶不上来，然后飞机非常准时的起飞了。。。古巴之旅就这样开始了。
待续。。。。
Facebook page:
两个人，一辆车
https://www.facebook.com/theroadlesstravel2015TT/