Day whatever-it-is +1, Welcome to Hell Hotel.
As with the other hotel switches, we had to get up early (before noon) and load our bags onto the bus, preferably along with our personal selves. These changes were always great fun, as I'd spend most of the evening before a move checking, rechecking and then re-rechecking my bag to make sure I'd packed everything, then sleep fitfully wondering if I'd forgotten anything, and then get dragged out of my slumber by the alarm telling me to get up and get ready for the ensuing trip. A perfect combination.
After a couple hours on the road, we were dropped off at one of the absolutely essential points of interest on Cuba, namely the Che Guevara Monument, Memorial and Museum. I like to call it the 'CheMMM'.
First on the list was the memorial, where we went into a small room with low lighting, and looked at several plaques showing the (known) names of all the rebels who had been buried here along with their glorious leader. The room was decorated with quite a fair number of flowers, and Che's sarcophagus had a little flame burning on top of it. While we were in the room, we were asked to remove our hats and remain silent as a sign of respect for as long as we were in there.
The head kitchen lady apparently didn't get the memo, and immediately started gabbling on about the flowers the moment she stepped inside. Someone leaned in to whisper that we were supposed to keep quiet, but she's a teensy bit hard of hearing, so the room was filled with a loud "What?" instead of a calming silence as the helpful bystander was forced to repeat the message. She developed a rather rosy complexion after that little incident.
Moving on, we entered into the museum of Che. Here we got to see all sorts of various things he had touched during his lifetime, including his hat, his glasses, his pistol, his binoculars, his uniform, his belt...
Speaking of his uniform, Che Guevara was apparently not a particularly large man. He just ended up being one of those "larger-than-life" characters, I suppose. The museum also boasted a couple encased pages of Che's diary, as well as numerous photos taken of Che Guevara and his Merry Men. I think they may very well have had some of his cigars on display as well...
Once we were finished with the museum, everyone was herded outside so we could take our school photo with the monument.
Now, a little word about our dear, beloved principal... He seems to think he's a photographer. And, as with everything else he seems to think he is, he most certainly is not.
First, we took a few pictures while on the stone paving of the monument's platform. This involved crowding together, and kneeling down on the smooth, hard ground. For the first couple takes, it was uncomfortable. For the next six, it was brutal.
Everyone was pleading with him to hurry up and take a good one, or to just stop taking them, or to pick a different location. He just smiled happily to himself and kept shooting, completely oblivious to anything we might have been saying. When we were finally released, our breath of relief was cut off by his announcement that we would be taking another one down at the foot of the platform.
This, at least was on soft grass. But now we had a new problem. In order to fit everyone into the shot (along with part of the monument), we had to line up in about four-five rows of students. And unlike the photo on the platform, there were no significant elevation differences (steps), so the back couple of rows are completely hidden by the students in front.
A photo is snapped, and we in the back row realize that we will not appear in the photo unless something is done. We come up with the plan of simply jumping up at the right moment, thus also giving a little life to the shot. We shout to the principal that he should count to three before taking the picture, and then we crouch down in preparation of a jump.
From behind our student wall, we hear the click of a camera. He'd just taken the picture, without uttering so much as a peep. Someone tries to explain to him the process of counting from one to three, while everyone else (even a few in the front rows) ask him to take another photo.
Still smiling quietly to himself, he begins to pack up the equipment, obviously finished for the day.
I wasn't aware that I could hate that man more than I already did.
The photo which was picked out and printed on the back of the yearbook almost completely conceals the back row. All that can be seen is the top of a hat, some shades, one guy's arms reaching up, and Penguinman, who is calmly peering over everyone's heads. That guy is really rather disturbingly tall.
And that was that. Our school photo. Hurrah.
After that whole ordeal, we loaded back onto the bus and headed on down to the last
frontier hotel.
This place was just wrong from the moment we got there.
Here's the deal... Making a reservation for so many people is difficult on its own, but trying to give people specific room partner assignments just makes things even more complicated. All the hotels we had been to on the trip checked people in via a list. Roommates were listed together, and they would get called up to the desk to check in and take their key. Simple enough, right?
Well, someone had apparently lost the list. Yes, they had lost the overview of who was staying where and with whom.
Cue an hour of sitting around and waiting while the teachers and hotel staff tried to work out some new system that allowed people to check in. We first had to get called up to assign ourselves to the list, and then we had to wait again for our name to be called from the list we had just checked off on.
When I finally did get the key, it was handed to me in a piece of paper with the room number on it.
No, not an envelope. No, not a pre-made slip for the card. This was a piece of paper that was torn off a larger sheet of paper.
The larger sheet of paper in question happened to be a printout of the client registry. So, the gal behind the counter had just handed me an overview of the name, nationality, and registration number of 3-some people. This was bad enough, but that happened to be the most legible item on the paper. I am, of course, comparing it to the room number. Which had been written on the back in pen.
To add to this, we had to carry our baggage to a special room for safekeeping and register it with the old fart who was sitting there. Naturally, we had to do everything ourselves. Including find the baggage room.
Several elevator rides and hall searches later (finding a room is a tricky enough deal as it is, and it most certainly doesn't help when you can't even make out what the number is or what floor it's on), we finally found our door.
After some shoving and arguing with the electronic lock, we managed to get the door open. The room looked pleasant enough, but it was a pretty basic hotel room. Then we noticed the first problem.
"Uhh... Where's the other bed?"
Now, I like Hatman. I do, really. But I don't like him
that way. A single bed just wasn't going to cut it.
We decided to just swap rooms with one of the couples from school, and discovered that a few other people had received single bed rooms. A couple of these lads had already swapped with the couple we were going to consult.
Having had just about enough for the moment, we wrassled our way back into our room, and decided to just sit out on the balcony for a bit so we could relax our minds to the point of near-sanity.
That was when we encountered the second problem. The sliding glass door would not budge.
Now, I've come up against some sticky doors in my time, don't get me wrong... I'm no stranger to the portals of unyielding will, who can only be overcome through extensive grunting and face-scrunching. This was not one of those doors. It was just stuck. Dead stuck. It was not going to move. Period.
By this point, I was pissed. I had just spent almost seven hours sitting on a bus in a none-too-comfortable position, I was tired from hauling my worldly possessions around with me all over the place, I needed to arrange for new sleeping accommodations, and all I really felt like doing then was just sitting down and relaxing in some goddamned fresh air.
We went down to the desk to complain. I ended up having to argue with the person about having two beds and a door that could be opened. Luckily, I was
more than happy to have an opportunity to argue with anyone representing this establishment, and I ended uphaving a roaring good time fighting this woman on the beds issue, and shooting down her response of "well, sometimes some of the doors stick. You just have to push harder" with a few tales of the coordinated shoulder-ramming escapades we had indulged in to get that friggin' door open.
Eventually, she yielded on the bedding issue, and said she would send a maid up with a new mattress. Good enough for me.
After we had settled in a bit, it was about dinnertime. So, we decided to group up with a few of the other folks and went downstairs to find someplace to eat (this in itself was a challenging endeavor, as someone had neglected to give us a map showing the abstract layout of the hotel). Eventually, we happened upon a restaurant that looked promising. We were about to head in when the doorman stopped us with an outstretched hand.
I was really starting to despise this place... Apparently, there was a dress code. No short pants allowed, and I think they had a problem with some of the shirts as well.
In a tropical resort. A tropical
beach resort. A tropical beach resort
in frikkin' CUBA!So we told that restaurant to go sod itself, and went on to the next. Same treatment. Apparently, this absurd dress code was standard for all the establishments in the hotel. Grudgingly, we all went back up to our respective rooms and got changed. Then we went back down, found a different place, and walked up. Doorman stuck out his arm again.
Paraphrased conversation between the doorman and one of our group members.
"Sorry sir, but you need a reservation."
"What? But there are lots of empty tables in there!"
"Those are reserved."
"Alright... In that case, I'd like to make a reservation for later tonight."
"We're fully booked sir."
"Uggh, fine. I'd like to make a reservation for tomorrow evening."
"Sorry sir, same-day reservations only."
"I will eat your children, you monkey-brained arsewhistle."
(That last comment may or may not have been made)
So that was that. We checked every damned restaurant down there, and we got the same schtick. No shorts allowed, must have a reservation, same-day reservations only.
After much scouring, we eventually managed to find one (1) place that did not need a reservation. It was a little buffet place, complete with food, drink, and its own little quirks.
For instance, the drinking problem. 40-some tables, 30 drink glasses to go between them. Several raids were performed on the other empty tables in order to find something to drink out of. I think a couple people have have had to resort to using the flower vase as a cup.
And as for the liquids themselves, you had to run over to the drink table and pour yourself a ration from the cola bottle that had been sitting out there for who knows how long, and which had gone mostly flat. The reason you needed to do this was because although they had a drink dispenser set up, any attempt to use it would be met with a spray of clear, warm, tasteless carbonated water, along with a trickle of thick goo coming out of the joints of the machine. The syrup lines were disconnected.
Then there was the food. The "buffet" was divided up into a few segments... First, the dessert platter, then the breadrolls, then a vast expanse of watery fish, shriveled tomatoes and old potato(-ish) salad, then finally the one thing that looked like it might actually be mealworthy. Some pasta.
But, as with everything, there had to be a catch. This was not just some bucket of pasta you could scoop up from. No, this was one dude sitting behind a counter and
taking orders. You would select which ingredients you would like to have in your sauce, then he would make up a batch of pasta with that sauce from scratch, ladle out one serving for you, and
dump the rest into a trash can. Next order?
The line curved around the wall. This was stupidly wasteful, and also incredibly slow since each person had to wait in line, place their order, and then have him make it up from scratch before you could get some of it. Woe betide the hungry man who wishes for a second plate.
There was one dish of pre-made pasta sitting next to him, but it was lukewarm and also running rather low. I just scooped up from there, leaving a little for the next man in line, and went back to search for anything else that happened to be edible. I found rice.
No, not chinese fried rice. Just rice. White rice. White rice which had been given full opportunity to dry out over the course of the day.
My dinner was rice and pasta. Supplemented by some dried buns and flat cola. "Best hotel" indeed.
The pasta was utterly and completely tasteless. It obviously had some sort of sauce on it, but whatever combination of spices was put in there, it made the whole thing taste like absolutely nothing at all. All it had was texture, and that texture happened to be slime. Lukewarm tasteless slime.
I'm afraid, however, that I cannot extend such compliments to the rice. I have no idea how you manage to screw up
rice, but the expert chefs working there had done their damnedest on it. I'm assuming they found some unidentifiable dead rodent out back and snuck it into the rice pot when it was being cooked up.
After the meal, I decided to give myself a much-deserved treat... So, I walked over to the dessert tray and loaded up a small plate.
They tasted like water. Seriously, water. And it wasn't even particularly
good water.
After dinner, we went back to our rooms to get settled in a bit more. While walking down the hall, I noticed a new door that had opened up on one side, which apparently led into the service storage room. I saw a folded up bed in there, and became hopeful that the maid had indeed come by and set up a second bed for us.
Entering our room, my hopes were crushed yet again. No extra bed. The glass door was also untouched, as I had expected.
We waited for a while, thinking that maybe the maid simply got called off on something urgent while she was bringing the bed to us. Then, finally, my brain started putting two and two together...
That *was* the bed. Their method of providing a second bed for us was getting someone to stick it in the storage room on our floor and then leave the goddamned door open for us. I put my face in my hands as I tried to wake up.
Once my efforts to shed this horrible dream from my mind were proven futile, we went back down the hall to get the stupid thing. We rolled it out of the storage room, down the hall, and into our room. This was, absolutely and consummately, insane.
And then it got better.
After shoving the previous bed aside far enough to make room for the new one, we opened it up to find it was lacking something. Namely, sheets. Man, these people just went above and beyond the call of duty...
We visited a couple other rooms and borrowed their extra blankets until we had amassed a good enough number of rags to make something resembling a set of bedding. Then I took one of the pillows off of the other bed and finally plunked myself down for just a couple moments of rest from the day...
The bed sank down a good six inches, and screamed like a banshee while doing it. A foam mattress. Hilarious.
I really hated that place.
End of Day whatever-it-is +1.
<<Author's Note: This was actually the last recording I had, but we're still missing a day. Not sure what happened there. I'll try and patch up what happened from memory for next time. Luckily, I actually happen to remember a few things about that day, so it shouldn't be too difficult.>>
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