We all introduced ourselves to each other (and promptly forgot each other's names). We all checked in (Me, Nikki, Ros, Jane, Peter, Andy, Chris, Dave, Chris, Mark, Jeff, Steve and Dominic) and finally went through immigration together and into a cafe to get some breakfast and drinks. This was a good chance to start to get to know everyone. My first impressions were that it was a really nice group of people and I immediately started to feel less nervous.
There are five more people to join us later; Julia, Sharon, Jools and Clare from Brussels will meet us in Madrid and Ken will meet us in Havana.
We flew with Iberia to Madrid, had three hours in Madrid airport, followed by around a 10 hour flight to Havana. I was sat on my own on during the flight, but chatted with different people as we all walked around the plane. I met Clare, Jools, Sharon and Julia (from Brussels) during the flight.
The journey seemed interminable as the inflight entertainment system was rubbish and I didn't manage to get any sleep.
We arrived at Havana at around 9:30pm after what seemed like an eternity. We met Alex, our tour leader for the expedition. He waited whilst we all changed money and then took us to the bus to meet Walter (or La Valla) who was to be our bus driver for the week. We then drove to St. John's hotel in Havana with Alex pointing out several points of interest on the way, such as Havana university and La Coppelia (famous ice cream parlour).
We then had the first of many of Alex's briefings in the hotel, followed by a welcome mojito (also the first of many) at the bar next door. My room mate, Ros and I went to bed after one mojito as we were really tired after the flight.
Our first of many mojitos!
No comments:
Post a Comment