Packed like sardines
23 March 2018
Today was the day that we went in to Kingston for our visa to get into Cuba 🇨🇺. Over the last few days we have been having problems getting the outboard motor for the dinghy to run so I got up about 06:00 and decided to drain the fuel ⛽️ and check the spark plug, apart from the gap on the plug being too big I couldn't find anything wrong so I suspected that the carburettor jet may be blocked (beyond my skill and the tool kit). It turns out that it was the kill cord that was not working. We paddled ashore and made our way to the local bus stop, the journey to Kingston was just over 2 hours away through the mountains. When we arrived in Kingston we walked through the market that was tightly spread all over and about 1km along the road, we eventually got to another bus stop where we caught another bus and went to the Cuban Consulate. I decided to go out on my own from here and went to the Bob Marley museum and take the tour, the cost was $US 25, it was a guided tour that lasted about 2 hours where we were shown around Bob's home and recording studio, all his album covers along with his gold and platinum records and many of his certificates, clothes and photographs were on display. We were also told about and shown where there was the assassination attempt on his life, including two of the bullitt holes in the wall. At the end of the tour we were invited to then watch a 30 minute video of his interviews. I eventually met back up with Judy and Jane. We caught the 18:30 bus back to Ocho Rios. The bus 🚌 has seating for 35 but everyone has got to get home 🏠, so all health and safety goes out of the window there are 4 seats 💺 across the bus when the small dicky seats are lowered into the isle way, but this is not enough for the drivers so they squeeze 5 adults (some of them are rather large) across, even 6 on one row and at least 9 people standing in the doorway. I think there were over 50 people onboard, it was a most uncomfortable journey at breakneck speeds at times. But we all arrived back in one piece if not in some pain. It was a long day but a very enjoyable one. Temps were around 29c degrees