Africa - Day 4 - Timbavati Reserve, South Africa - "Like a fine wine"

Day 4 – Motswari Lodge, Timbavati, South Africa

Pre-breakfast begins at 6:00am for a 6:30am game drive departure time, so the guides come and wake us up at 5:45am (no clocks or phones in rooms).  Given that we hadn’t showered in, well, let’s call it long enough, we woke up around 5:15am to clean up a bit.  Our first breakfast was a quick coffee and muffin just to get us going.  We packed our gear and headed to our trusty Defender. 

We had the same group for our morning drive - the Swedes and the Chinese couple.  Richard warned us right away that due to a front that had moved in from Cape Town, the weather would be much cooler, very cloudy, and unfortunately very windy.  He set expectations that viewing with the high winds would be difficult because animals tend to hide/hunker down when they cannot hear or smell predators.  We were still on a high from yesterday's lion feast, so we figured whatever the day brought would be good enough.

As I read through my notes to write this, I can’t remember which animals we saw on the morning vs the afternoon drive, so I’ll blend all of our animal sightings for today together.

It is typically not difficult to spot the many impala and water bucks that seem to be everywhere, but there were noticeably fewer of them today. 

Our first interesting find was a group of giraffes that enjoyed posing for the camera.  50 pictures but not a single one with all 4 faces turned towards us.

We witnessed another truly gross animal habit particular to giraffes.  And yes, this entire thing is caught on video.  Apparently when a male giraffe is, how shall we say, ready to get to business with his lady friend, he will stick his nose in her behind to try to get her to pee.  When the female starts to pee, the male will drink the pee and slosh it around like a fine wine to test the hormone levels to see if she is ready to mate.  I’m not sure if shooting the pee out of his mouth along with an incredible amount of slime is part of the standard ritual, but it was for us.

Click Here for Giraffe Video

Apparently our lady giraffe was not ready to mate (she had a baby with her) and the male wandered off in search of another taste test.

We drove around for a bit (there is not an animal around every corner – we may drive an hour or more before a “sighting”) and stopped at an enormous termite mound with a big hole at the bottom.  In that hole, out pops a little hyena baby. 

Jacky had spotted the mother run across the road with a baby in its mouth - we assume to scout a new home - and left baby #2 behind.  We hung out for a few minutes and then we hear this baby animal squealing as baby #1 comes running back to us with mom in full pursuit.  Jacky thought mom put the baby down for a minute and it took off.  Baby #2 heard them and ran under our vehicle to find them.  Mom and #1 had gone in front of our vehicle and were at the termite mound searching for baby #2.

With our vehicle blocking line of sight and the wind preventing scent location there were a few tense moments until #2 made its way back to the termite mound and back to mom.   Whew – family reunited.  We stayed for about 20 minutes watching them.  Mom was very comfortable with us – she stood in front of our vehicle in a stare down for a while and eventually laid down. 

The babies were typical babies and just ran around jumping on top of each other fighting, chewing on sticks, and wrestling on top of mom.  One got really curious and came right up to our vehicle and started biting on the foot step. 

Eventually they started nursing on mom and everyone sort of laid down for a nap.

Next stop – more "antelope" animals.  We can add kudu and duiker to the list and we did see a small herd of actual wildebeests (for real wildebeests, not just animals I couldn't identify) plus lots more impala and water bucks.  Fun fact:  legend has it that when god created the wildebeest, s/he just used all of the leftover parts from other animals; zebra stripes, buffalo horns, cow body, lion tail and goat legs.  Judge for yourself: 

Another good find was a big old male water buffalo.  Richard said that it was extra exciting because a huge percentage of the buffalo population was wiped out last year during a major drought – he said they were dropping like flies – dead buffalo everywhere – starvation/dehydration either killed them or made them easy prey for lions who would kill them, eat just the “good stuff” and then go kill another one while leaving most of the buffalo to rot.  Very sad – so he was happy to see this one.  This particular buffalo had a pretty ornery look about him so we watched from a distance.

We did another circle of a watering hole and saw a few more crocs and caught glimpses of the hippos, but due to the wind, the hippos stayed almost entirely under water. 

During a 3-4 hour game drive, we typically stop for a food/drink break about halfway through - ahhh... second breakfast.  During the morning drive, we get coffee, tea and snacks, and during the afternoon drive, we get wine/beer/alcohol and snacks.  They set up a sweet spread for us and we all have the opportunity to stretch our legs.  Always in an open area with good viewing distance - don't want those predators sneaking up on us!  Although whenever I ask how far I can safely go when nature calls - they are always like - no worries - just keep an eye out!

Every day after the am drive, we get a HUGE breakfast (count, that is breakfast #3) followed by a mid-afternoon break.  Because lord knows we need to rest after 3 breakfasts and 4 hours of very intense sitting!  The free time lasts until our next feeding, I mean lunch, at 2:30 and the evening game drive at 3:30.  One would think that offers so much time to just sit around and relax, but somehow, the time just flies.  Admittedly, we did take a 2-hour nap, but that was well-deserved and much needed.  Around 2pm we wandered around our lodge property and spotted some elephants in our river bed and watched them from a bench swing for a while – they never got too close.

As part of the evening drive, all of the guides had been discussing whether the lions would return to the buffalo kill.  As soon as we got word that they were spotted, we raced back.  Apparently there are only about 2,000 lions in all of Kruger (over 7,500 square miles), so seeing them is pretty impressive.  When we arrived, the lions were in full on chomp mode and had gotten through about half of the buffalo.  When it comes to predators, lions are the kings.  Followed by leopards, hyena and wild dogs (I think in that order).  Lions can take their time with their kills because no other animal will come near until they are finished.  As soon as lions abandon a carcass, all of the other predators and scavengers move in.

We watched them rip and tear at the skin – buffalo are tougher than you might imagine so it was definitely gross – and work their way from hind quarters to head.  Eventually we had to make room for another vehicle and headed back to our lodge.

Click here for Lion video (GRAPHIC)

Side note:  Our afternoon drive introduced us to a great new group of people – a couple from Ushuaia, Argentina (Camila and Martin - pronounced "Martine") and a couple from Munich (Astrid - Austrian/Brazilian and Sven - Tanzanian/German).  We all really bonded and had a great group dinner together.  Damon and I always find it interesting meeting and talking to people from other countries – their mastery of English (all 4 of them) was truly impressive and we all have a love of travel.  As it turned out, Camila and Martin will go to the same second lodge as us and Sven and Astrid will be in Cape Town at the same time as us – so we all made plans to re-group.

When we got back to the lodge after our afternoon game drive, Jacky spotted a huge bull elephant in the trees right outside of the entrance.  The guides are very careful about where they shine the lights as it is possible to "blind" certain animals and make them easier prey or otherwise incapacitate them.  Elephants are included in that group, so we just knew that somewhere in the pitch black right outside of our camp was a giant bull elephant.  Richard gave us an “oh crap” type of sigh saying that there was a decent chance the elephant would wander through camp and he would have to stay up all night trying to shoo it out.  I faked like I was sympathizing but I really wanted that elephant to come through camp!!!

Dinner was with our safari group again but prior to that, during happy hour, we heard a really scary story that another group experienced.  Apparently they stopped for their afternoon sundowner and because it was so windy, they did not hear a huge bull elephant approaching, and presumably the elephant did not hear them.  There are different versions of what happened, but apparently the elephant is known and is mean and aggressive toward people – it is not afraid of people, which is unusual, and it charged at the group.  The guide stepped out in front and started waving his arms and yelling at the elephant until it stopped a few feet from him.  Rumor has it that death by elephant is pretty brutal as it involved getting slammed by 6,000 lbs of mass moving at up to 25 mph, then gored with the tusks, and then if you are not dead enough, you get kneeled on but the elephant.  I suppose that group is pretty thankful tonight and maybe an elephant in camp is not such a good idea.  Here's to hoping that the elephant outside of our camp is not el loco.

Another delicious dinner (I can see there will be challenging to not gain 80 lbs on this trip) and we headed back to our room.  We have the luxury of being right across from the dinner area so we can make a run for it in the dark without an armed guard.  Everyone else needs an escort due to the potential for animals in camp.  Dead asleep by 10pm.

Random picture of giant spider because why not.  It was huge.

Africa - Days 1-3 - (Chicago/Germany/South Africa) - "Neck Deep in Buffalo"

The first few days of this African adventure have been a whirlwind 3 days of flying, eating, flying, sleeping, and flying.  And eating.  With a little bit of African adventure thrown in at the end of this post just to keep things interesting.

Days 1 & 2:  Flying & Frankfurt

We left Chicago at about 6pm on Thursday night and flew direct to Frankfurt. 

As this was our second major long haul adventure, we were well prepared with noise canceling everything, eye masks, sleeping pills, comfortable clothes and a single minded purpose of going to sleep immediately after dinner and getting in 6-7 hours of sleep on the plane.  No movies.  No movies.  No movies.  We are lucky enough to be able to fly first/business with the miles I’ve acquired from my job travels, so we were in pretty good shape.

First 9-hour leg to Frankfurt was luxury; but with luxury comes a very long drawn out big delicious meal, and like idiots, we indulged in every course.  Lights finally went out around 8:30 or 9.  Sleeping pill never did kick in, but somehow we managed to get in a few hours of sleep before we woke up at 1:10am (8:10am Frankfurt time) for breakfast.  We landed an hour or so later for an 11-hour layover.

We met my friend, Liz, from college at the arrivals gate (she lives with her family in Frankfurt) for a quickie tour of the city.  Unfortunately, Damon wasn’t feeling well so we let him sleep while we walked her town, Kronberg, aka “Hansel & Gretel Village”.  When Damon felt better, we dragged him out to explore with us.

Kronberg has a forest with walking paths, cobblestone streets and buildings that are exactly how you would picture German architecture. 

We covered about 8 miles (measured 20,000 steps on my Fitbit!), which was awesome after a long flight, and then we just enjoyed the spectacular day; ate delicious German/Italian food for lunch, and took much needed showers before heading back to the airport around 7pm for our leg to Johannesburg.  Damon had gotten in a much needed 4 hour nap, but I was running pretty close to empty.

Our flight left at about 8:45pm and they wanted to serve us a full dinner but this time I passed on dinner and went right to sleep – or at least tried.  I don’t know if they were re-locating a plane full of tuberculosis victims or what, but I have never heard so many old men with hacking coughs before.  Thank goodness for noise cancelling headsets and white noise in the form of crashing waves.  Fast forward 10 hours and a fairly fitful night of on and off dozing and we got up to a very fast breakfast as we had made excellent flight time and they literally took the ½ full coffee out my hands so we could land early.

Day 3 - Johannesburg, South Africa

We were met at the gate by a guide who helped us to cut to the front of the customs line and get through in less than 5 minutes (shout out to Eyes on Africa for organizing our amazing hassle-free vacation!).  We found our luggage and were shuttled to a driver who took us to another airport about 15 minutes away where we awaited our next leg that would “hop” us to our first game park.  We had about 3-4 hours to kill in what was quite possible the cutest “airport” ever.  It was like a little ski lodge where they had food and drinks out, couches and chairs plus an outdoor seating/viewing area.

We were the first ones there and found “outlet corner” and hunkered down.  We realized very quickly that we had brought the wrong adapter, so Damon caught a ride back to the main airport so he could buy one while I “watched” our luggage.  And by watched, I mean that a lady brought me a fleece blanket and I curled up on the couch and took a nap. 

The lodge/airport filled up over the next few hours and then the flights started taking off around 11am.  I was sort of cracking up at all of the people in the airport – you have never seen so much head to toe khaki in your life.  People who likely have never stepped into the wilderness were decked out from hat to hiking boots in safari gear.  It was hilarious.

Moving on, our flight left at noon.  Damon could not have been more excited that we were flying a Cessna Caravan – capacity: pilot, co-pilot and 12 passengers. 

We had 9 people loaded in there.  We had an hour and a half flight to our first of three passenger drops without a toilet.  And anyone who knows me knows that is cause for major panic.  Spoiler alert – I made it just fine.  The flight was pretty cool – luckily, very smooth for the bulk of the trip.  The small planes fly low, so we had a good view the whole way.  Leaving Johannesburg, we flew over a number of what I guess were shanty-towns – I could see large clusters of corrugated tin roofs.  We very quickly left the populated area and got to more wilderness – flat lands and then ultimately wilderness, canyons, and bluffs.   I expected to see herds of Wildebeests running wild everywhere – but not the case.  FYI – I call any animal I don’t know the name of a Wildebeest.

As we were beginning our descent, we had a much better shot at actually seeing animals.  We were scanning everything looking for movement.  The woman in front of me got really excited and was pointing at a river – “look at all of those elephants” and I’m yelling “where, where!!!!” and she is pointing and I see nothing.  And then she says, I think there are hippos, too.  And I’m in full panic because I can see nothing and I’m literally missing everything.  Then she says (understand we were still sort of high up).  Well, they could just be rocks.  Really lady?  Yes, they were rocks.  And this was her sixth safari. 

As we got lower, I did actually see an elephant!!!  Damon saw a herd of them around a watering hole.  So pretty decent flight in, I’d say.  I also saw a lot of rocks.

Motswari Lodge, Timbavati, South Africa

Our landing was on a dirt strip and our “airport” was a tin roof with 4 posts. 

Four of us hopped out and got in the two waiting vehicles and the plane took off again.

It was about 5 minute drive to the lodge where we checked in to our room and I finally got to a bathroom.  Whew.

We are staying at the Motswari Lodge (recommended) which is in the Timbavati private game reserve attached to Kruger National Park, otherwise known as “Greater Kruger”. 





Now the fun stuff begins.  I have no idea how our lodge compares to anything else since it is our first one and there is literally nothing else around – the airstrip is just for our lodge.  They allow a maximum of 30 guests.  There is a reception area/hut where we were welcomed with homemade lemonade. 

All of the staff are so nice – they all introduce themselves and ask our names.  People could not be friendlier.  The rooms are all free standing “huts” (I’m sure there is a better term but I don’t know what it is) and blend into the surroundings quite well.  They are all named after animals – our room is Leopard so we are referred to as Mr & Mrs Leopard.  Roar.  There is very little landscaping here – they try to keep everything as natural as possible so if a tree falls, other than clearing the walking paths, they leave it.

We walked to our room and we have a fence with a bunch of bones on it and I asked our guide if that was the remains of prior leopard guests.  I’m guessing he heard that before because he informed me that it was just decoration.  I think I heard him roll his eyes.  Ha ha. 

Our room is so cute – giant 4-poster bed with mosquito netting that makes it super fancy looking; decorative flowers laid out on our bed and a thatched roof. 

We have a back door that leads to a little tiny courtyard that fits a giant stone bathtub with an outdoor shower.  Of course I’m like “wow, cool, an outdoor shower” and at the same time like “oh, crap, an outdoor shower”.  The courtyard is about 6’ wide and leads to an indoor fancy bathroom with another huge tub and shower.  Apparently we are the only room with an indoor and an outdoor bathtub and shower!  Score.

Our guide is explaining everything as he is showing us around – a few things that stick out.  There are no fences around the property.  We are in the middle of a game park with wild animals.  We are free to walk around on property during the day, but we must be escorted by an armed guide when it is dark out.  Sweet.  Then he opens our armoire and shows us a whistle.  He explains that there are no phones, so if there is an emergency, just keep blowing the whistle until somebody shows up.  Of course I have to ask, what is a whistle blowing emergency?  I imagine if I’m in a stare-down with a lion at my all glass front door, that might qualify.  And I also wonder if 15 huts area blowing the whistle because there is a herd of elephants in the property, who do they go to first?  Minor details.  He also pulls out a jump rope.  Yes, a jump rope.  So, what is the jump rope for?  “Lots of food, can’t go anywhere – this is for exercise.”  And on that note, he tells us lunch starts in a few minutes, so off we go.  Time for jumping rope later.

Spoiler alert, more on animals roaming the property in days 4 &5.

There are three common areas – open air hut type buildings, (Damon said they are called “Bomas”) - primarily for meals, lounging or socializing.

and there is a small swimming pool that overlooks a (now dry) river bed.  Damn that must be a sight when the water is flowing!  Hanging off the edge of an infinity pool watching the animals.  Oh well – it is dry season.  The lounge area with wi-fi is right across from us, so we get it in our room – nice benefit.

We headed to the lunch area and saw a big animal chomping on a tree and hanging by the pool.  We later determined it was a Nyala.  It just sort of meandered through the property chomping away, walked by the pool and sauntered off. 

Lunch started with the staff of our lodge walking in single file singing an African song while balancing dishes and bowls on their heads.

They set up a buffet while singing and then invited us all to eat.  The food has been excellent! 

After lunch, we had a few minutes to prepare for our first game drive.  At this point, we haven’t had a full night of sleep or been in an actual bed in more than two days.  With adrenaline kicking in, off we went.

Day 3 (Still) - First Game Drive

We met our assigned tour guide, Richard, (aka African Google because he literally knows the answer to any question we ask) and our tracker, Jacky, at our tricked out Range Rover Defender.  We were joined by two other couples for our first 4 hour game drive.  One amazing thing about this lodge – no Americans!  Our vehicle mates today are from Switzerland & China.  Jacky sits in a little chair attached to the front corner of the Range Rover – they said it was easier for him to spot animal tracks and wildlife. To me he looked like the first thing an animal will eat before it gets to us.  Works for me.

We had no idea what to expect but quickly got the hang of it – sit and look for stuff.  We started easy with a bunch of Impala & Water Bucks. 

We quickly learned how to spot males and females (one big male to 30 little females).  We learned that the reason Water Bucks have a bright white circle around their butts is NOT because they were the first on the Ark and sat on toilets with wet paint (ha ha), but actually when animals have unusual butt markings it is so other animals can follow them when they are under attack in a panicked run and need to stay together. 

I’m now obsessed with looking at animal butts to see their different markings.

At one point, I tried to be helpful (not realizing at this point that Jacky is the most impressive tracker on the planet) and I excitedly pointed out that I saw something that “looked like a tiger”.  We drove backwards a bit and everyone humored me until we realized it was a female Nyala.  It is reddish in color and has white strips and all I could see was its rump – which looked very much like a tiger,  When I say that everyone humored me, it is because tigers are not found anywhere in Africa.  I just assumed lions and tigers and bears all go together.  Whatever.  They didn’t really start making fun until later.

We were in search of elephants that had been seen in the area earlier that morning and boy did we hit the “elly” mother load.  We came across a herd of about 50 elephants of all sizes – babies galore, which are too cute to even describe.  We saw them from across a dry riverbed and eventually made our way across into the thick of them.  We stopped and watched for a while and several young males came within a few feet of our vehicle.  I’m a sucker for elephants, so this was a pretty good way to start.  We noticed that as the males got closer, Jacky gave a flick of the wrist to stop them and they did back off – they got within a few feet of the front of our vehicle.  We took about 150 pictures of elephants, but I've narrowed it down to just a few.

Mama and baby

Family leaving + hilarious baby trying to walk up embankment

We saw two male bull elephants lock horns in a mock battle.  We saw moms with babies everywhere.  They are just so fascinating to watch I could have stayed for hours.  Eventually the herd moved on, so we kept going.  Hopefully we will get to see more later.

Preggers mom - expected to give birth any day

The poop eaters

A few interesting factoids about elephants – they eat their own fresh poop to get nutrients – apparently most of what they eat goes through them undigested, but as it passes it picks up intestinal enzymes.  We got some nice pictures of that! 

Aggressive bull approaching truck

Also, elephants are really destructive – they topple trees to get to the roots, which are also a source of nutrients for them.  We did see one take down part of a tree and you could hear trees breaking all around us.  Despite how cute and docile they seem, elephants do have a bit of a temper and our guides were very watchful of any change in their body language which gives warning when things are about to go south.  Keep in mind there were dozens of them around us and they can get up close and personal.

We drove around a big lake and saw a crocodile, a group of hippos (mostly underwater), some giant “ninja” turtles and a lot of colorful birds and geese.  Another thing that we passed regularly were GIANT termite hills.  These things are all over and some are the size of cars – they can be upwards of 8’ tall.  NOTE:  The abandoned ones make a great shield for those bio-breaks.

Our next big find was giraffes.  Throughout the afternoon, we saw several different groups of giraffes – seems they usually travel in groups of 5-6.  We even spotted a few babies – one that still had the umbilical cord attached, so it was pretty young.  We noticed that the giraffes had birds stuck to them –apparently a certain type of bird will eat the ticks and other parasites off of animals, so a win-win for both species.  They just sort of lumber along at a very slow pace – we have noticed most animals are like that.  We have yet to see them run from anything.

As the sun started to set – the sky turned an unbelievable pink and the stars came out.  It gets pitch black around 6:00pm and so we drove around with headlights and Jacky used a spotlight to look for things.  Richard stopped to explain a number of constellations – the number of stars was unbelievable.  We could see the Milky Way AND another galaxy that I can’t remember the name of.  Apparently the only other galaxy it is possible to see with the naked eye.

Without any big animal spottings, I think the adrenalin rush wore off, both Damon and I started to doze off.  I kept worrying about falling out of the Range Rover, so stayed just awake enough.  Then we truly hit the mother load.

We hear Richard say “watch your heads, we are going off-road” and we drive through these bushes and brambles to where two male lions were feasting on a buffalo they had killed earlier that day.  Someone had seen the kill in the morning and so there was a watch for when the lions would return.  As this is a private game park, there are very few vehicles around, they all talk to each other, and they are very respectful of no more than 2 vehicles at any sighting.  We were the second vehicle to arrive and had an unbelievable viewing experience of the lions literally neck deep in the guts of a buffalo chomping and grunting and snorting as they ate it.  You could hear the ripping and tearing as they chowed down - pretty gross (we do have video for the not faint of heart).  We were only about 40-50’ from the lions and they completely ignored us.

We watched the lions for a good 20 minutes and eventually had to make room for other vehicles to come in and take a look.  We headed back to the lodge for dinner in a common area where we sat with our safari group.  Before the meal, Damon looked at my head and said “don’t move”.  Never a good sign in Africa.  He pulled a giant albino mantis out of my hair.  Sweet.  At least it wasn’t a spider because there are spiders half the size of my hand around here, with webs that would trip an elephant.  Eventually we sat down and enjoyed another delicious meal that we shared with our safari mates and Richard, then headed back to our room, finally, at 9:30 for our first good night of sleep for several days in an actual bed.

Cuba - Day 8 – No more CUCs

Our last day in Cuba.  Soy triste.  

We woke up "early" (8am) to try to get in our last few hours, maybe buy some rum and cigars and soak in the last of Cuba.  We tried to find a place to get breakfast at 9 but of course no one was open so we wandered Havana Vieja until about 9:30 when we found a place that was opening soon.  We feel comfortable everywhere now and we must look like naturals because we saw this American couple frantically looking around in the restaurant – they were worried that everything was closed because they were too late!  With a small chuckle we said, oh, you must be new here.  Let us give you a few tips and pointers…

We bought our obligatory Havana Club souvenir rum, took our last stroll around the streets where, after days of searching, Damon finally got fresh hot churros.  

We eventually headed back to our Casa, finished packing and went to meet our taxi - a 51 Ford GTI with a Fiat steering wheel.  Enjoy - this is the last picture we took in Cuba :(

From what we could understand, the car had been handed down for three generations.  Or, the car was older than our driver's grandfather.  Damon and I differ on what the driver actually said, but we agree that the word grandfather was in there somewhere.  Our Spanish has improved dramatically and the driver even complimented my linguistic prowess.  Or maybe he was making fun of us – again, we will never know. 

We had allowed three hours to get to our flight, which proved to be a smart move.  Our driver had asked what terminal we were going to and we had no idea and our itinerary didn’t say, so he confidently dropped us off at Terminal 2 – where all flights going to the US depart from (or so he thought).  We couldn’t find Jet Blue listed and quickly realized that we were supposed to be in Terminal 3.  We asked about a shuttle bus, or tram, or anything since we were told the other terminal was about a mile away.  No such luck – this is Cuba.  We were attacked by the taxi drivers offering us a ride for 10 CUC to go 1 mile.  They didn’t know who they were dealing with.  Plus, we had almost no CUCs left and really wanted to eat before getting on the plane.  I countered with 3 CUCs and the guy laughed at me but came down to 5.  I said no, 3.  He said 4.  I said no, 3 because we had plenty of time and were fine walking the mile.  I may have gotten another bad word thrown at me as we walked away intending to hoof it, but not surprisingly, he chased us down with a friend in a totally run down “car” who said he would take us for 3.  Boom.  It was a 5 minute drive – 3 CUC was definitely reasonable.  Of course in hindsight, after seeing where we would have had to walk - in a ditch on the side of a road dragging our roll-aboards, I probably would have paid 10. 

Confident with all of the time we had, we walked into the airport and then mild panic set in when we saw the check-in line and the security line.  We probably were in line for about 45 minutes to check in, but thankfully the security line was quick, so we actually had a few minutes before boarding to blow our last few CUCs.  There was exactly one food counter with a huge line and nothing approaching barely edible, so we blew off lunch and hit the cigar shop.  The cigar Damon wanted was 13.80 CUCs and we only had 13.40 CUCs (including all of our random change), and the guy was like – close enough!   No day is complete without some commentary on toilet facilities.  I will say that as I squatted over my last seat-less toilet with a tiny wad of single ply toilet paper that I paid for with a 0.10 CUC coin I found in a pocket, while inhaling clouds of cigarette smoke, and washing my hands in a sink with a water trickle, no soap and no paper towels or hand dryers, I realized how lucky I am to have been born in a place where we have the ability to just take certain things, like American public bathrooms, for granted.

Thrilled that we were leaving the country penniless, we walked to our gate to get in line.  And as the line started boarding and I went to pull out my passport, I realized I still had 20 CUCs scrunched in my wallet - about $20.  We looked at each other, probably swore, and I told Damon – go, run, get us some food from the duty free!  Another mild panic as the last few passengers entered the jet bridge, but finally I saw Damon running back to the gate pleased that he was able to score another cigar, and the saddest assortment of saltine crackers and a strange cookie packet, although he did manage to get the vendor to throw in a second cookie packet gratis.  And so, we boarded the plane (last) and waived adios to Cuba. 

For those of you who have stuck it out this long, I can say that this was truly a wonderful experience and I would encourage anyone who has the ability to roll with a LOT of unknown to go and visit.  The Cuban people we interacted with were all intelligent, warm and welcoming and they all work their butts off to try to make better lives for their families.  The kind of lives that we were lucky enough to have been born into.  If you do ever decide to go, I made it a point to ask our guides what we should tell others to bring – what did they need most?  The most common answer – anything and everything.  When pressed for details, the list was:

-        Clothes – specifically jeans and gym shoes – they can buy clothes “legally” from government stores which rarely have anything in stock.  Most of what they buy is black market and expensive.

-        Medical supplies/vitamins - we brought a well-stocked first aid kit and ended up leaving everything.

-        Anything electronic – old phones (jail broke), computers (they can fix anything).  Many people are still using flip phones as there is not a huge need for smart phones when there is no cellular internet.

-        Kid toys – they all mentioned this.  We know they love Legos!

POST SCRIPT

As I sat on the plane headed to Ft. Lauderdale, I remember that we were probably in the air fewer than 20 minutes from the time we were airborne until they announced our initial decent.  And it hit me pretty hard how geographically close Cubans are to us, but how nearly impossible it is for them to get to get out of Cuba – even though, at times, they may be able to see the lights of Miami.  It does not surprise me that people are willing to hop in a raft and try to make it to our borders.  The freedoms we have, as compared to them, are unbelievable.  Think about it - 

-        We have the right to vote.  

-        We have the right to loudly express our opinions about our President or our government or our laws on any platform we choose.  

-        We have the right to leave our country whenever we want and are welcomed into almost any country we choose to visit.  

-        We have the right to pursue any career that we choose, work any job that we choose, live in any residence that we can afford.  

-        We have the right to work hard and make as much money as we want and spend it how we choose. 

I’m still trying to figure out how to end this as it sort of took a bit of a soapbox turn… I guess I’ll leave it at, as Americans, we really won the genetic lottery.  When life smacks you in the face, I guess we should just be grateful for the freedoms that we have.  And the toilet seats.

POST POST SCRIPT

A few days after we got home, I found another 55 CUCs in my wallet.  Apparently I am not allowed to hold the money anymore.

ADVENTRUES OF MONKEYHOUSE WILL CONTINUE IN LATE MAY WHEN DAMON AND I HEAD TO SOUTH AFRICA!  STAY TUNED…