CUBA TRIP

03-10 February 2002

Sunday 03 February

We flew from Ottawa to Varadero, Cuba, on Skyservice. The non-stop flight (where can you stop in the USA on your way to Cuba?) was 100% full. However, we almost did not get on the aircraft. Skyservice was unwilling to issue Pam with a boarding pass as she was travelling under her US passport. Only intervention with management forced the staff to finally issue a boarding pass. This is unreasonable, as travel by US citizens is not banned by either the Canadian or Cuban governments.

Upon arrival in Varadero we waited at border control behind the slowest businessman on the planet. He had trouble unlocking his briefcase to get his documents. Oh what a surprise it was that the border guard wanted to see his passport. He had trouble locking up his briefcase again. One side would lock but the other would not. It was very amusing.

Pam was next in line. They stamped her tourist card (entry visa), but not her passport. The Cubans do not ban US citizens from entering the country, it is the US that has a problem with it, and the Cubans do not want the tourists to have problems later on so they do not stamp passports.

We got a taxi from the Juan Gualberto Gomez, Varadero, International Airport to our hotel in Varadero. He was the fastest taxi in the World, averaging 140 km/h. We fumbled around under the seats until we found our seatbelts, we felt that it was important. The Hotel Pullman, an old ornate building in downtown Varadero, was quite, with only a few staff members gathered in the open lobby. The night manager reminded me of Andras from Budpest, only bald. Varadero is on a spit of land reaching out into the Gulf stream. At night it reminded us of Galveston, Texas. The humidity and the housing structures were the same. After settling into our small and shabby room we went for a walk on the main street. From here we could see the ocean on both sides, as it is a very narrow piece of land.

Monday 04 February

In the early morning we went for a walk on the beach. No tourists were up yet and there were only two joggers. The north-west side of Varadero has a beach about 21 km long. The water was a beautiful bright blue that stretched out into an indigo horizon. Breakfast at the hotel turned out to be typical fair of fresh fruit, breads, juice, eggs and bacon.

We took a taxi twenty blocks to the rental car place and got a car. It was a mini, economy, Daewoo Matiz. But although small, it was four-door, and had plenty of headroom. We had pre-paid for the car, so off we went into the interior of the island without any trouble. The housing and towns are poor but clean, but the traffic was incredible. If you think you have a problem on the freeway with cars and trucks, wait until you try a narrow road with cars, trucks, bicycles, horse carts, motorcycles, cows, and oxen, as well as pedestrians trying to hitch a ride. However, anyone interested in antique cars should come here. We saw more antique cars in 2 hours than in all the museums and old movies combined, and all of these were running.

We picked up hitchhikers. In Cuba, if you drive a government vehicle (we didn't), you must pick up anyone who needs a ride until you cannot carry anymore people. Officials in yellow shirts stand by the side of the road to stop government vehicles that don't have enough people in them. We picked up Reynaud first. He didn't speak English and we can't speak Spanish very well but we used the map and we were headed in the same direction. Cubans can navigate for you, so pick them up while driving around. He is 25 years old with a son that is 3 years old. We saw his son when we dropped him off. Soon after that, we picked up a young woman and her pregnant mother. We didn't say much to them, and their english was non-existent, and we had not yet developed our spanish. They just wanted to go to the next town. Later on we picked up Joel and took him into town. His brother has lived in Winnipeg for the last 3 years. I cannot think of a greater change in climate than to move from the sugar cane fields of central Cuba to the coldest city on the planet.

We continued south through Jaguey Granda, past Australia, and through the Cienega Zapata (Zapata Swamp) to the small town of Playa Larga at the northern end of the Bahai de Cochinos (Bay of Pigs) . As we passed through Australia, we drove clsoe to the giant sugar factory, called a "centrale." As we came around a corner, looming in the edge fo the road was a massive, puffing, hissing, smoking steam engine. The crew motioned me over, and I got to go for a ride in the 1920 Baldwin locomotive. This was a real highlight of the trip. There are up to 200 steam locomotives in Cuba, with almost every one running only about four months a year hauling cane for the numerous centrales.

We checked into the Playa Larga hotel and then drove back north to the crocodile farm at Boca. There are two of them that are across the street from each other. We went to the more expensive, less touristy one. The crocodiles were in cement and chicken wire cages with ponds in the middle of them. Some cages also had grass growing in them. The biologist explained stuff to us and Pam interpreted for me since she knows all about reptiles, and the guide did not speak English. We have pictures of Pam holding a one year old and with the crocodile on her head. The farm has a breeding program there and they are released at six years old. We then walked to the restaurant across the road and ate crocodile. It tastes like chicken but has the texture of pork: we both liked it.

Later we drove the entire length of the Bahai de Cochinos to the town of Playa Giron. There we visited the Bay of Pigs Museum. The museum is a very accurate portrayal of the CIA mercenary invasion of Cuba in 1960. There are maps and photos and displays inside, as well as an aircraft and two tanks outside. Then we went back to the hotel and swam in the beautiful azure water at the end of the bay. The sunset over the water was spectacular. We had dinner at the hotel and discovered a new taste. The dessert is considered the national favorite. It is cheese with marmalade or syrup. The syrup is guava or papaya, both were very tasty. There was very little light in the area so we got a very clear view of the stars that night.

Tuesday 05 February

This morning we set off in the direction of Havana along the National Autopista, or "eight way". We stopped at the Centrale Australia sugar cane factory. The only reason we stopped is that I loves steam engines. They still use them there for transporting the cane stalks from the fields to the factory. I needed more pictures, even though I had gotten a few yesterday. Fortunately we did stop, as the first pictures did not work out at all.

We picked up Annabella on our way to San Antonio de los Banos south-west of Havana. She helped us with directions on the main highway called the Autopista. This was a good pick-up, as she was going to within 10 km of our destination. We checked into the Las Yagrumas hotel for $40 a night including breakfast.

In the afternoon we drove to the relatively nearby "Museo del Aire" (Cuban FAR Air Force Museum) in Havana. This used to be a closed museum, but years ago was opened to the public. The Cubans noted the tourist value of aircraft, and on this (my second) visit, I noticed that a children's play area had been added. Ave. 212, e/ 29 y 31, La Coronela, La Lisa. Tel. 21 7753.

This is a great outdoor collection featuring several aircraft and aviation items: two wonderful pre-revolutionary aircraft, being the Harvard and the Mustang, Che Guevara's twin-engined Cessna; Fidel's personal Mil helicopter (this was the first bit of Soviet-supplied military equipment); several Mil troop and combat helicopters; a Hind attack helicopter; a CIA B-26 bomber captured during Bay of Pigs; the remains of a CIA bomber shot down at the Bay of Pigs; a T-33 used by the FAR at the Bay of Pigs to shoot down numerous CIA bombers (the CIA said that the Cubans had no jet aircraft with which to defend the island) ; MiGs 17, 19, 21, etc; a couple of jet trainers; two turboprop airliners, (Antonov and Tupolev); one jet Yak airliner; an Antonov-2 biplane, (Some 35 000 of these Soviet workhorses were made up into the 1980s) (There are still many flying all over Cuba and are easy to spot); lots of air defence guns and radars; two SAMs, one SA-2 and four SA-3 on associated launchers; and finally bits of the wing and tail of the USAF U-2 hit during the Cuban missile crisis.

The indoor parts of the museum were not open during this visit. However, they could be re-opened at any time, and include many interesting civil airline and military items, as well as cosmonautics. The city of Havana has now put up lots of signs leading to the museum. It also now appears on maps and in guide books. It costs $2 to enter plus $1 for a camera. Staff cut the grass and clean the exhibits, and repainting of aircraft was even taking place. Sadly, the November 2001 hurricane ripped the wings off of several helicopters, and damaged an air defence radar, but everything else is fine. If you make it down there, do check out this wonderful and well-kept museum in w.s.w. Havana, not too far from the Convention Centre on Calle 212.

Since we were now hungry, and we could not find a place near the air museum, we drove onto the Havana Riviera Hotel for a great lunch. This naturally ended with some really nice ice cream.

Along the road back to the hotel we stopped at the large Soviet memorial to get the names of the soldiers that died in 1962. Caled the "Soviet Internationalist Soldier Mausoleum," this is a massive Memorial to Soviet Soldiers which is constantly cleaned and maintained. It is at the northern end of the runway built in the middle of the road between Havana and San Antonio de los Banos. The two lane road all of a sudden becomes concrete and eight lanes wide, and very straight. I met a chap who had seen jet fighters parked on it. This is about half way between Havana and SA.

Back at the hotel, we went for a swim in the pool and then took a walk into San Antonio de los Banos. The town was pleasant and safe. The people there are poor but no one goes hungry or without medical care. We gave some pencils to children in town. There was a small grass fire near the hotel that night. The firemen from SA came and put it out. They were equipped with the proper uniforms and the truck and it didn't take them long to quell the blaze. There is a large airbase nearby, and we heard on MiG-29 fighter roar by. A few years ago I recall seeing all these Russian men and their families staying at the hotel. The men would be gone all day, and the pasty women and children would sit by the pool. They were Russian aircraft and pilot specialists and technicians.

Wednesday 06 February

On our way to Pinar del Rio we went to an old sugar and coffee plantation. You can still see where the fence stood around the slave compound, as much of the stone wall and guard tower is still in place. On the way there we picked up two hitchhikers. One of them was Ydel, he could speak some English and he told us that he was late for work in a town about 5 kilometers further down the road we were taking. His companion only needed to go a little ways and we dropped her off. We took Ydel all the way to Artemis where he worked. He is a teacher of mechanical engineering. We gave him a whole box of pencils because we figured that he would have a good use for them. He was very pleased. He told us where the plantation was when we passed it on the road so we found it easily on our way back.

At the plantation a guide showed up on a bicycle. We couldn't understand him at all so we had him write down stuff. Sometimes it is easier to understand the words when you can see them written down. He told us that the plantation had belonged to Cornelio Sauchay. At one time there were 450 slaves on the plantation and 43 horsemen to grow the coffee and sugar. In a water storage area, we saw two large bats flying around. This, of course, made me very happy. The land around the plantation is still very fertile and people were working there when we left.

On our way to the next town we picked up an older woman named Teresa who couldn't speak one word of English. She was going to Vinales and so were we so she hopped in the car and helped us to find our way. She invited us to her house for coffee, but we declined and dropped her off. Shortly after that, we picked up a woman and two children and an infant. We dropped them off at their house just a little way down the road. We had told them that we were staying at one of the hotels in town and she invited us to come back to her house for some fruit when we returned. We drove on to see the Mural of Prehistory.

This mural is on a large cliff face and depicts dinosaurs and early man in some pretty bright (read hideous) colors. We ate at the restaurant at the foot of the cliff. The roast pork was excellent and I would suggest that anyone in the neighborhood take a detour to go try it. It was served with fruit, rice and beans, and a purplish potato. The potato is just a local variety and tastes almost exactly the same as ours.

Yes, we did stop on our way back into town. We were curious to see the inside of one of the houses we had seen along the road. The house was spotlessly clean inside, as well as being cool. We met the woman's husband and found out which of the kids were theirs and which ones belonged to the husband's brother. Everyone else that we had picked up had told us that they only had one child. Birth control is easy to come by in Cuba so all the children are wanted. The interior walls of the house did not reach the floor or ceiling. I suspect this is the reason that the house can stay cool in hot weather. It also means that you can mop the floors more thoroughly than you can when you keep running into walls. The furniture was sparse but nice and sturdy.

We could only communicate with single words and drawings. Pam drew a picture to explain a ferret and Abel, the husband, wrote the Spanish word for it underneath. Then she wrote the English word for it. Then the children were interested in the drawing. We showed them a picture of the frozen canal here in Ottawa. I amused them by calling it a rio frio, cold river. I drew a cartoon cat and then we had the children draw pictures and put their names on them. They brought us some fresh, cool peeled oranges that were cut in half. They were delicious. When we left, we gave each child a pencil and a sheet of drawing paper.

We checked in at the La Ermita Hotel and arranged to go horseback riding that afternoon. We went for two hours. We got some good pictures of tobacco farms, and oxen, and mogotes. Mogotes are strange flat-topped mountains that stand strait up on the valley floor. We took an afternoon swim in the hotel pool and I bought Pam a pina colada. It was more than half rum. It costs two dollars. Bottled water costs one fifty. The pineapple juice and coconut milk probably costs more than the rum there. We made arrangements with a translator at the hotel to eat at a paladar (private home) that night. We drove the translator into town and ordered dinner and told the owner what time to expect us. The owner of the restaurant did not speak any English. In Cuba, it is illegal to serve lobster unless the restaurant is owned by the state, so of course they serve it illegally. I ate illegal lobster and Pam had three steaks: wow, what a bunch of food. This was the largest lobster tail I had ever seen in a restaurant. The lobsters have not been overfished here like they have been in many other parts of the world.

At dinner we met some people from Nondes in France. I was amazed. I can understand a little bit of their French. They told us that they cannot understand the French that is spoken by the Canadians. We were able to communicate better with them than anyone else on the whole island. Both of us could understand most of their French and they also spoke a little English. It seems that the French Canadians speak with an accent and mangle the language, whereas the French speak the language more like it is written. We walked back to the hotel and enjoyed the stars.

Thursday 07 February

First thing in the morning Pam went riding. She saw oxen pulling a cart with potable water for the farm workers and families eating breakfast. They were all having things like eggs and fresh oranges. They eat better than most people in North America. The views were spectacular from the hotel during breakfast and also from horseback. She and the guide rode around a mogote, and saw drying barns for tobacco and it smelled great. The Cubans do not smoke at meals. It seems to be more of a bad North American habit, possibly caused by the addictive additives in most US cigarettes. When Pam arrived back I had a half litre of strawberry ice cream waiting for her.

We left the hotel and went to the nearby Indian Caves. Part of the tour is walking and the rest is in a boat. Then we went into Vinales for gas and on to Pinar del Rio. We found the Guayabita rum factory and went on a short tour. Production was stopped because their Italian bottling machine was breaking bottles that morning. Outside we met Juan Miguel, who spoke some English and he offered to guide us to the Francisco Donatien cigar factory. We loaded him into the car after he stowed his bicycle in the rum factory. He helped to interpret for us at the cigar factory. We exchanged dollars for quarters for one of the workers. Their banks won't take US coins, so people get tourists to change the coins for them.

Then Juan took us to a famous tobacco farm, the farm of Alejandro Robaino. There was a reporter from "Cigar Afficianado" at the tobacco farm having lunch with the family. We received a very informative tour from Carlos. He told us that it takes two years from the seed to the finished cigar. It turns out that old man Robaino is retiring and the farm will be run by his grandson. When it was time for Juan to join the army, his father got a medical doctor friend to write a note saying that Juan was mentally ill. His father didn't want him to end up in Angola. Afterwards we dropped Juan in Pinar del Rio and went to the Jazmine Hotel in Vinales.

I had switched hotels while Pam was out horseback riding in the morning. The view from our hotel room was magnificent.

We bought some sweets at the hotel shop and went back out to Abel Gonzalez's farm. We wanted pictures of the children. We had forgotten that one of the children was turning two that day. We took pictures and communicated, exchanged mailing addresses and we bought beer for the party. Abel invited us to the party numerous times: they now consider us family. We will send them the pictures soon. A picture of the two year old in her new pink birthday dress was the most important. That roll of film did not turn out. They asked us to come stay with them when we come back to Cuba. They kept trying to get us to stay for dinner. We said we had to go to another place: Casa de Don Tomas. So Abel told me everything that was going into their paella that night- rice, corn, tomatoes, chicken, duck, garlic, onions. I had gotten separated from Pam. When she found me I had just narrowly avoided getting caught up in a game of dominoes with the old men, and was then explaining to Abel's brother that I did not want them to kill any ducks for us. "NO MUERTE PATO!" It was so funny, but we did want to try the famous restaurant in town. We finally said our goodbyes and we promised to send them pictures. We will write to them using the computer translator to tell them thank you. I have very rarely felt so welcome anywhere else in the world. The people in Cuba are very friendly and hospitable.

We had dinner at Casa de Don Tomas. They make a paella with fish, sausage, chicken, ham, lobster, and yellow rice. It was very good, probably not as good as Abel's but we didn't find out. We ate the national dessert again, I think this time with a mango syrup. We drove back to the Jazmine after strolling through town. We could see the town lights as well as bats flitting around from our balcony. We saw Castro on TV announcing the beginning of a huge literary festival in Havana. We didn't actually know that that was what he was doing until the next day when we were in Havana.

Friday 8 February

Today is my birthday. We had breakfast at the hotel. I fed a kitten that was hanging around. It got bacon and sausage for breakfast. On my way back to the room I picked up the kitten and placed it behind a small wall, and left a pile of ham and bacon. When Pam came along a few minutes later the kitten was already out on the sidewalk. It had the roundest fullest belly ever seen.

We drove to Havana next. The drive to Havana took us four hours but was worth every minute of it. We were driving through cane fields and saw all kinds of plants being grown. Some of them I recognized as oranges, bananas, pineapple, sugar, tobacco, coffee, tomatoes, rice, corn, lettuce, turnips, and beans. The views were breathtaking. We had mountains on one side of us and the sea on the other. In some places there were pine trees growing next to palms, and palms growing on the sides of mountains. Eventually, we arrived in Havana and checked into the executive floor at the Nacional. We drove up the stately palm tree-lined drive, and a valet parked the car. Another took our bags directly to our floor. On our floor the check-in desk had our reservation, wished me a happy birthday, and gave us an electronic key.

We decided to go to the fortresses that guard the Havana harbor. There are two of them, Castillo de los Tres Reyes del Morro which is the smaller of the two and Castillo San Carlos de la Cabana the larger one. The larger one had a literary fair happening at it. We got to see more Cubans in one place than we have ever before seen in our lives. Cubans like to read, but only certain books are approved for reading, others will not be sold or even published there. Many foreign offices at the book fair were going to visit the new libraries which had opened up despite the censorship. We went to the Che Guevara museum in the castle and Pam stood beside a cannon that is still fired off every night to get a picture. Every time she tried to pose someone would look in the end of the cannon, so it looks like she is shooting the heads off of Cubans in the photos. We went to a criollo restaurant for lunch in the fortress. The name of the festival was " Leer Crecer XI Libreria Feria Internacional del Libro de La Habana.

We met Adolfo and Alicia at the outdoor exhibit of the Cuban Missile Crisis Museum. The inside exhibit was closed because of the literary fair. Adolfo had helped to build one of the missile launchers that was there. He told us that it was a fake, they built the exhibit from memory and photos so the museum would have one. Adolfo had worked with one of the originals in 1962. Another thing we saw at the fair was a professional singing group of little girls and boys. They were wearing the cutest bee costumes, I got a photo of them from behind so we could see their little stingers.

Back in the city, we saw a stretched Lada. We ate ice cream sundaes at Copellia. They are famous for their ice cream and it is delicious. They charge about 10cents for a scoop if you are paying in pesos. Tourists are not allowed to pay in pesos so we had to pay $1.50 per scoop. We met some people at the hotel who couldn't get their hotel room even though they had reservations. Eventually they relocated down the street to the Habana Libre. We met up with them a few times before we left: they were from California. On Saturday a music festival will kick off at the Nacional.

We ate dinner at an outdoor bar and grill attached to the hotel. La Barraca is the name of it and the food was great. This time we had a shaved coconut syrup with our cheese for dessert. I think that we liked it the best. After dinner we changed clothes and went to a Las Vegas type show. We sat with a Brit named Darren. The show was spectacular. All the costumes were brightly colored and very skimpy. Some dances were very sensual but all were truly something to see. The Nacional has its own show, there are others elsewhere.

Saturday 09 February

We had breakfast at the hotel and wondered around looking at the hotel for a while. I went down the street to get a picture of Jose Martin with a young Elian Gonzalez in his arms. The statue of Marti is pointing an accusing finger at the US embassy, now the US Interests Section. On my walk back I spotted Pam hanging out our sixth floor window, and I encouraged her to expose herself. She did. I was happy. We then packed up and moved our stuff to the Hotel Sevilla on Trocadero in Old Havana, right next to the Museum of the Revolution (the old presidential palace) . We walked to the open market and saw many beautiful oil paintings and prints. We ate lunch at the famous Bodeguita del Medio (little warehouse in the middle of the street). The walls are covered with graffiti, except for the bathrooms if you can believe that. Everyone carves their name in the wall or table or whatever while they are there. Many famous signatures can be found if you know where to look. They invented the Mojita here, and Hemingway used to come here regularly.

In the square we heard a tanker truck backing up. It didn't beep, it played Bach. I could get used to that. We saw street performers dancing and playing music on stilts in colorful costumes. Later, we caught a ride in a horse drawn taxi with a guide of significant English abilities. It was a wonderful one-hour tour of the city. He told us some history of the city and pointed out historical buildings and parks. He said that he had been at the festival at the fortress yesterday and spent around 200 pesos on books for his children. At one point, we stopped at the old Capitolio building so the guide could smoke a cigarette. We had our picture taken with a camera that was made 102 years ago. First he takes a picture that is a negative, then he takes a picture of the negative to make a positive. He added Che Guevara to the photo when he took the picture of the negative. The guy uses photo paper instead of negative film, and he carries his processing chemicals with him in a couple of plastic bottles.

Later in the day we walked along a shopping street used almost exclusively by Cubans, and had milkshakes. We rode in an orange (a small mostly open cab with three wheels and a motorcycle control for the driver) from the Capitolio area to the Nacional to go to the concert. I went to smoke cigars with the band in the basement cigar cave. They served free mojitas and cigars rolled by a woman who worked for Partagas for 30 years, but now works for the Nacional Hotel. Pam could not handle that much smoke so she stayed upstairs and watched the crowd gather for the concert. The concert had two separate artists, Compay Segundo and Polo Montanez. Segundo is famous in North America and Europe for his appearance in the movie Buena Vista Social Club. The concert cost $40 to get a metal outdoor seat. It was on the hotel lawn. We sat at the hotel terrace in the smoking area on cushioned outdoor sofas. We couldn't see the stage very clearly but we were definitely more comfortable where we were than the people who spent the money. The sound was perfect for us, not too loud to talk. We also got to see a group of dancers who were enjoying the free music behind the rope line. We left after about 1.5 hours because we were getting sleepy and didn't want to wait a long time for a cab after the concert.

Our hotel room was nice, big, clean, huge bed, but it smelled like diesel fuel. There is an open courtyard in front of the door so maybe the smell came from there. All of Havana smells of petroleum, so the mosquitoes won't even live there. Pam liked the countryside better.

Sunday 10 February

Today is our last day in Cuba. We had breakfast at the Ingleterra Hotel where Winston Churchill used to stay. The lobby restaurant is covered in beautiful tile. The floor is marble (more common than you might think in Cuba) and the wall tile is mostly green ceramic. The restaurant is next to the national theatre and the old Capitolio. Since we were so close we went back to get another photo from one of the antique cameras. The second one was crisper, since the chemicals were fresh from that morning. The photos deteriorate quickly so we will have to retake them when we get a chance back in Ottawa.

We checked out of our hotel and left for Varadero. We stopped at the Yumuri Valley along the way. The valley falls about 120 meters down. It is very picturesque. We went to a pharmacy museum in Matanzas. The pharmacy had been in operation for over a hundred years. It was run by a single family until they closed in 1964 and turned it into a museum with all their stock still intact. They had vials and ceramic pots lining all the shelves. There were pharmaceutical books dating back 100 years. There were scales for measuring and a laboratory for distilling medicines. There were presses for making tablets and pills. They had every size of glass ampule imaginable, and all kinds of bottles. It was the most complete pharmacy I have ever seen, every bit of equipment is still there. The guide didn't speak any English at all but we were able to understand many of the root words that she used.

We hung out in Varadero to have lunch and then we went exploring. This outdoor criollo restaurant also had a cat, but it was more interested in a cockroach than in chicken. Good cat! We went out along the beach road to a nature preserve near the end of the land. There is a lovely beach with no hotels in sight. We saw the oldest cactus on the island, possibly 500 years old. We walked on the beach and near a lagoon. We found sponges , sea urchins, and very large sand dollars that had washed ashore. We also saw lizards, crabs, pelicans, buzzards (who apparently like dead fish just as much as dead mammal), and sandpipers. When we stopped at a grocery store to get stuff to eat for dinner, we saw a bunch of curly tailed lizards on a brick and plaster wall. We tried to get pictures of them but they are very shy. Before we left, we tried the local variant of coke, it is called Tropicola and tastes just like Coca Cola. We also tried a local brand of candy bar and it was fine also, although their usual kind is dark chocolate and not particularly sweet.

On our way to the airport I notice that they grow yucca here for food. At first sight it looks like a very spiky overgrown weed field. When you get on the correct side you can see that the rows of yucca plants are perfectly straight. We were never served any yucca there. Perhaps it isn't in season right now. We drove to the airport and returned the car without problems.

The only problem Pam had leaving was her nail clippers which she forgot to pack in her suitcase. They got confiscated at the airport. Then they put her name in the computer and looked in her backpack before she got on the plane. They did this to everyone that had something confiscated in X-ray.

Anyway, the trip was a success and I even have a little bit of a tan.