A day of many frustrations and long drive to Vinales (Vinales has an accent on the n but can't find it!)

Many frustrations and a few more photos from yesterday

Captain Flippie Vermuelen joins us in Andros 

If yesterday was heaven, today turned out to be a bit of hell!

It already started with a few problems: Phil and I were supposed to be at a local school to greet the children at the 8 o’clock opening ceremony. But the van picked us up much too late by which time the children had retreated back to the classroom due to a rain shower and in the end we spent an hour driving around the outskirts of Varadero to pick up various friends from yesterday only to return back to the casa where John and Flippie waited for us at breakfast.

A pre-landing circuit around Varadero airfield

Runway and the aeroclub of Varadero

By 9.30am we were finally ready for departure and headed along the northern shores of Cuba towards Havana. Knowledgeable balloon enthusiast Daniel kept us busy with many informative stories about the countryside and lifestyle. Nothing much has changed since we last drove in a hire car through the entire country. That was in 2007 and Phil and I spent 2 weeks crossing the whole of Cuba from Vinales to Santiago, 1500 kilometers and challenging roads. Many times we got hopelessly lost as there were no signposts , no maps and no internet.

there are still plenty of classic cars on the roads

But even now in 2018 transportation is rather basic:  horse carts, peddle trishaws and plenty of the good old famous American Chevrolets in all colours. Internet is also still hard to come by but tourists can purchase scrap cards and use hourly wifi at certain pubs. Banks have long queues where visitors can change money into the local currency, the ‘cuc’. 

After two hours on the road we stopped for petrol somewhere downtown Havana and Jorge and another friend boarded the now slightly crowded and hot bus (no back windows and temps of 28 degrees outside).

A long drive down the empty motorway followed to Pinar del Rio. Here we collected the local province chief and checked with the gas company that would supply us with refuelling bottles for our cylinders.

Streets in Pinar del Rio

 Finally at 3pm we made it to the world heritage site and tourist hub, Vinales. This was the area that we had thought would most suitable for ballooning and our local friends had done their absolute best to get us permissions for a free flight in this beautiful area.

Flippie and John enjoying their lunch

Vinales is famous for its ancient lime stone hills, deep caves and exotic wild-life. Having had to stay at one of the then only 3 designated tourist hotels, the Eremita Hotel, there are now over 1300 little private guesthouses where travellers can lodge for very little money. 

amazing views from the patio

a gorgeous sunset over the Magotes

This certainly is a massive change from 10 years ago and brings money to the thriving local community. We were even more lucky as Jorge and Iseult offered us a night at their most stunning house built on top of a hill overlooking this breath-taking scenery.

A big home-cooked late lunch followed with black beans, rice and deliciously tender meat. All fine for now, but then luck rapidly went down the drains:

the region is famous for their tabacco

First, our aviation friends were suddenly told that there was a military airspace ban covering three provinces of Cuba including this one and the entire area would be a no-fly zone for the next 4 days – no matter what…

Second, winds were still howling and not looking promising for the next 2-3 days! And that’s after our local paraglider friend told us that he couldn’t fly for the previous 4 days due to the lack of wind!! (sadly our names are not Paul or Chris who always seem to have more luck than us with the weather!)

And last and most awful, poor Iseult who was still at work in Havana and who had offered to drive her car with the balloon trailer out to join us here, got involved in a road accident! A huge shock to all of us.

central church in Vinales

Jorge jumped in a hire taxi and drove 2 hours back towards Havana to be with her. For now there was nothing we could do, but to wait and hope for news from Jorge and the civil aviation department (and the weather). 

Daniel showing Phil his compilation of balloon documents and stories

News came by 9pm: both car passengers were fine, but one vehicle suffered substantial damage and it took a long time to sort everything with the police. Jorge and Iseult arrived back at base way after midnight.All plans for flying in the morning were abandoned.

Arrival in Cuba with the Beech 18 and our balloon!!!

26.3. 

What a day! Words cannot describe the emotions and the friendliness in which we were welcomed here in Cuba!

But let’s start from the beginning of this long and eventful day: Phil and I looked out of the window at 6am and noticed that the trees were still flapping… not a good omen to go ballooning. The other issues were missing keys to a vehicle and no contact with the airport manager. In the end we had to give up the idea of flying in the Bahamas as sad as it was. But Cuba now was more important and we had to get going by 8.30 hitching a second expensive ride with the fierce and only taxi driver in Andros town, Mrs Sabrina.

 Arriving at the airfield we were just in time to film Sebastian and his 7 year old son Soren flying in with Flippie Vermuelen! Our private special ‘delivery’! A picnic breakfast in the departure hall followed by a hand-over briefing between John and Flippie and all was set ready to go for Cuba.

By 10.00am local Bahamas time we were airborne over Andros – an island that I certainly am not keen to visit again, unless somebody could guarantee me to fly a balloon there!

The flight of an hour and thirty minutes over the blue waters of the Caribbean was uneventful but both Phil and I were very excited and wondering what would happen next…how would the Cubans react to our arrival with our vintage Beech 18 and our balloon on board? 20 years of dreaming and 4 years of hard planning – will we succeed in flying the balloon?

 Our welcome into Matanzas International airport couldn’t have been more welcoming and surprising! We were greeted by various representatives of the aviation authorities and the local Aeroclub of Cuba/ Varadero. Then a nice lady took us in a massive public airport bus to clear immigration which was no hassle at all (but it had been a struggle to get our online visas as no form would allow for the fact that we didn’t arrive by scheduled flight but in a small private plane. In the end our international flight number was BA001 (Bristol Airways of course!) Beech 18 G-BKGM! It seemed to work.

The final step was to allow to lovely cute cocker spaniels on board of Betty sniffing out whether we had anything (other than a balloon!) on board. All cleared we taxied back out for our 10mins flight to the airfield of Kawame/ Varadero.

What now followed was beyond our wildest dreams and imaginations: at least 30-40 members of all divisions of the Aeroclub were waiting for our arrival. As John and Flippie taxied the Beech a group of young 11-12 year old Aeroclub scouts lined up in formation all dressed in their Cuban uniforms. As we stepped out of Betty each one came up with flowers for us and gave us a welcoming kiss.

The President of the Aerolub and the President of the Balloon Club (we didn’t know this even existed!) gave us a overwhelming welcome speech thanking us for coming to Cuba. It was for all of us the most incredible reception to any country that we have ever visited and that included Flippie Vermuelen – a senior flight captain who has flown all around the world.

Many photos and lovely chats with everybody followed and I was seriously impressed by the good English spoken and the sincere excitement and joy of those people to see us!

By 4 o’clock we were dying of thirst – so what better way to celebrate arrival in Cuba than at the nautical club with a good strong Cuba Libre! Salut!

Finally a  minibus took us to a cosy private casa run by Mrs Rosa whose father was a fighter pilot but sadly killed during the Revolution. Dead tired most of us crashed to bed but I couldn’t resist a dip into the blue waters of the Cuban Varadero seaside.

Later that evening we were invited to a marvellous fish dinner with friends of the ever so hospitable Iseult and Jorge. Both of them had been absolutely instrumental in our difficult communications and preparations for permissions to come here with the balloon and the aeroplane. Iseult – a Belgian national - has been working  for the Belgian Embassy in Havana for over twenty years. Her husband Jorge and her have gone out of their way to find contacts within the aviation industry and managed to get in touch with the Varadero Aeroclub and the other airsports guys who couldn’t be more enthusiastic about seeing our aeroplane and the balloon.

So now all we need is the winds to calm down and drive to Vinales where we hope to finally get airborne!

NOTE: internet is very difficult to obtain here and most places still don't have any wifi. I am now way behind the power curve to upload photos, sort them and write the rest of the story.

There have been serious disappointments and frustrations yesterday, but that's another story for later. keep following us but please be patient with uploads whilst we are here - and most importantly keep fingers crossed for that ever so important balloon flight!

Meeting Flippie - then off to Cuba!

An evening beer in Andros Bahamas talking about the plans for today's flight to Cuba. We are hoping to depart here at 10 am local time with an estimated arrival in Varadero for 12 o'clock. We will then be welcomed by the local aeroclub and the extremely helpful Belgium embassy staff that has done tremendous work for us in terms of preparations and liaisons to get us there. Keep fingers crossed!

We plan to spend 4 days there travelling out by car to Vinales in the hope to do some long-anticipated  ballooning. We sadly had to abandon any attempts to fly here in Andros due to the lack of resources, arriving on a sunday, too much wind and no time to wait... another time!

 Our romantic Motel in the Bahamas.... 100US per night, no breakfast but good coffee and a nice friendly landlady Diane

And my swimming hole - a river estuary with strong currents and some jelly fish but crystal clear waters and nice temperature. Better than nothing.

Fort Lauderdale executive to Andros town, Bahamas! Two different worlds within one hour!

There couldn't be more contrast between those two places....

farewell from Sebastian, Kirsten, Soren and Anne

 It was time to say good-bye to our ever so kind hosts, Sebastian, Kirsten and Soren and also to John's wife Anne who was planning to fly to Seattle to meet up with her son and family. In the meantime stand-by plans were made for Flippie - our other pilot who was late due to weather arriving from South Africa - to be greeted by Anne and spending the night in Fort Lauderdale. Then Sebastian would take him in his Cessna 340 out to Andros to meet us there in the morning.

take off from Fort Lauderdale 

headding out over the water ways of Fort Lauderdale

 What an amazing view!!

stunning view over the beach and the main hotel strip

coming over Bimini island where Phil was 30 years ago with his kids!

 A wonderful flight over gin clear waters heading towards Andros Island in the Bahamas

stunning crystal clear waters and amazing colours

approaching Andros Island in the Bahamas

 We landed after only an hours flight time cruising at about 8500ft in calm conditions. A friendly airport crew man helped us with our luggage and customs were cleared without any problems.

A quite determined rather large female taxi driver lady knew how to take advantage of 3 strangers and over-charged us quite a bit  for the 7 minute drive to Andros Town where we checked into our pre-booked motel. The outside certainly didn't come anywhere close to that dream hotel in the Bahamas that a  husband might offer to his wife!But to be fair to him, there wasn't anything else and even this place charged an quite outrageous fee...

 Walking around this pretty forlorn place we realized that the Bahamas had been hit by a massive hurricane only 6 month ago and those were the results: blown away roofs, destroyed houses and churches, knocked down trees and cars... it was quite shocking to see!

the flag of the Bahamas

once the pub and  bar of Andros town

a cottage by the sea destroyed by the hurricane

a nice house by the ocean, also ripped apart by the storm

 There wasn't much choice of where and when to eat here, so luckily we found this place that offered some refreshing beers and fried fresh yellow tail snapper and french fries!

luckily we still had a bottle of Zinfandel to enjoy later on at our motel to tell a few more tales.

Finally ON THE BEECH - in Fort Lauderdale!!

Claxton airport to Fort Lauderdale Executive and a fantastic evening with friends

After a rather mediocre breakfast at our motel in Statesboro, GA, we drove back to the airport and got finally airborne at 11.30am heading South towards Fort Lauderdale. John and Phil in the cockpit. Me and Anne in the back. We cruised most of the 2.30 hours at 9500ft making it rather chilly. 

 Then John faced a challenging approach into Fort Lauderdale Executive airport with lots of traffic going in and out and active airspace restrictions due to Mr Trump being in residence close by.

 I have never seen so many private jets in one place and our 'Betty' looked rather out of place and time here... but she got the admiration that she is already accustomed to! 

John busy with refuelling and topping up the oil

 In very friendly American fashion we were offered these buggies for our free usage and Phil and I immediately tried them out to shuffle all of our luggage to the terminal.

 Having just getting used to driving the buggy I had to hire a car and to my utter surprise the guys offered me to drive it straight to our aeroplane. Well, why not then????

 Accommodation was a real problem here in the South as it was spring break and the whole of America seemed to have escaped to this part of the world. hotels were fully booked and outrageously expensive. So very very kindly, friends of Anne and John took compassion with us lost strays and offered their own bedrooms to us! Thanks ever so much to Kirstin, Sebastian and Soren for your ever so generous hospitality!!!

 A cold beer in what is suddenly a wonderfully warm place was very much appreciated!

 The house was right on one of the river canals with plenty of fancy yachts along

 I needed to stretch my legs and walked to the beach which was heaving with people partying and relaxing in the warm sunshine. What a difference from our previous days and temperatures!

Finally we are: on the Beach with the Beech!