First night in Cuba

August 26.

Landed safely in Havana after Cubana Air had a 2 hour delay…..ah yes, a taste of Cuban Time before I even arrived!

Have to mention possibly the most appropriate typo ever…..on Cuba Immigration form says “if you ticked No box above, you are a Green Channel passenger. SING and hand over your form……” Ha ha ha, maybe they’d like a dance too.

Taxi driver quickly worked out I was a musician and spoke relatively good broken English (better than my broken Spanish). He proceeded to give me a music lesson in the Grammy Winning ‘Benny More’ by playing a large section of his music from his USB stick via the car stereo. Classic Cuban music from the 40’s, 50’s era. Lots of mambo and Cha cha cha. Driver would skip any tracks he didn’t want to listen to, in order to play me the “best of” tracks 🙂

Dropped me right outside Jacinto’s casa. Jacinto is a great percussion teacher here in Cuba who spent three years living and teaching in Australia in the mid 90’s as part of a cultural exchange. Taxi driver tried to casually bump up the fee, but I wasn’t buying it. Welcome to CUBA.

Jacinto gave me a warm welcome and introduced me to his household which included two other Melbourne percussion students…..wow, I instantly felt like I was in a home away from home 🙂

Jacinto even dubbed his lounge room the “Australian Embassy”.

After a short talk about what my priorities were I realised quickly That I was in good hands and that I was going to have a wonderful musical stay.

Welcome to CUBA.