Friday, the 12th of October was our last day at work. We wanted to have everything in order before the 3rd of November – the day our flight was scheduled and we were to begin our trip into the great unknown.
Here’s an interesting fact: Time really, REALLY flies fast, when you’re at home. Even though we had a feeling that we’re running around and preparing for the journey all the time, the list just kept getting longer and longer and to top it off, I couldn’t decide which camera would be more suited to replace my old one, I was struggling with the “policy details” for the bank and insurance documents and my car , which should already have found a new lucky owner, was still patiently waiting in my drive-in. I am an excellent procrastinator, which I have already explained in my first post on this blog. 😊 So of course, the health insurance was taken care of right before departing, the car was sold just a day before we left and I spent the last three days in Slovenia pondering, what to squeeze inside my already overstuffed backpack.
I did, however, take my time and scanned all the documents and even bills of the more expensive equipment in case it gets stolen (was super proud of myself for doing that 😉) . The night before we left, Bojan asked me if I had scanned my visa. I wasn’t quite certain why I should have done that. Still, I decided to play it safe and presented Bojan the visa, whilst I had been battling with my backpack.
We have checked off everything from our list and went to bed knowing that everything had been taken care off. All of a sudden, the alarm clock rang – yeeeey the adventure begins! Our first stop – Milano. We decided to go there with GoOpti company and soon enough I dozed off. After some time, while being half asleep I have remembered that few days I go I had this dream about standing in line at the check-in and only then figuring out, that I had forgotten all of my travel documents at home. One thought led to another and all of a sudden I leaped out of the chair and shouted: ”Where is my Visa?!” Bojan’s face turned into a plethora of emotions – at first came a surprise, as I had started yelling all of a sudden; then came confusion and finally, after pondering over it for a couple of seconds, a simple ”Oh shit...”
Yep, “oh, sh**” is the correct word for it. Somehow, he had forgotten to scan the visa and to make things worse, the visa was left in the actual scanner. We couldn’t just turn around and run back to Ljubljana, as we had been already halfway to Milano by now. A few minutes of silence followed, both of us pondering quietly what do now now. My brain started calculating our options and I quickly figured out that there was no chance of getting the visa on time. Panic-stricken, I googled probably the dumbest question that I had ever asked uncle Google: ”How to get to Cuba without a visa?” Just to clear it up – there is no way of getting there without one. After scratching our heads, we had figured that there were three possibilities:
- The best possible option: Convince the flight attendants to let me board the plane with a simple (and hopefully not too blurry) photo of my visa since it is supposedly possible to buy visa at Havana airport. Yeah, this might be pushing my luck too far…
- Option number two: I could buy a visa at the airport from the airline we are flying with – fellow couple in the van have told us that this is a valid option – sometimes. Google doubts this, but I would still be willing to buy a new visa.
- The last option is unpleasant, to put it mildly: We don’t get to board the plane! This does leave us with the option of going back home for the visa and board another plane the day after. In this way onward ticket from Cuba to Mexico wouldn’t be lost but still we’d have to buy new ticket for Cuba. Or…we buy the cheapest plane ticket somewhere in the direction of Latin America. One way or another, we’d lose app. 1000€ which would be a little shock for our travel budget. Unfortunately insurance doesn’t give your money back if you are silly enough to lose your visa 😊
However, one thing was for sure – we are going somewhere, either Cuba, Argentina or perhaps..Bali? 😀 So I slipped in the “what the heck” mood, turned the volume of my mp3 on and tucked myself back to sleep.
And guess what: AirItaly does sell visas at the airport and I was lucky enough to get the last one. Cuba here we come! 🙂
