This is a story about an Asian-Canadian traveler's adventures in Cuba. Going by the name of EC, here is his narrative, in my words...

At 6AM, in the light of the early morning, EC got into the cab. The airport was about half an hour's drive away without traffic. The ride along the mountainside was pretty much uneventful, with the occasional set of cones set up in the middle of the lane. This forced drivers to slow down in order to drive around it, and presumably, enough time for the police to peer inside the cars as they made the turns. It was certainly more effective than traffic lights.

EC got out of the cab, paid the driver, and headed for the airport entrance. There, armed guards with batons and guns stood, checking every entrant's passport. 

(Going offline again, will be back in a few days)

With 4 hours of sleep under my belt, my phone blared out the now all too familiar Marimba at 2:30AM. I quickly turned it off to avoid waking up my 12 neighbors. 

By 2:50, I was ready and waiting for my 3:00 airport shuttle. It was 3:15 when I decided it was time to wake up one of the live-in hostel staff. Eyes bloodshot and staring at me with a "What the hell?" expression on her face, the staff quickly understood the reason for her rude awakening. Hustling downstairs with a determination to quickly head back up to bed, she called the shuttle - within 5 minutes, it arrived. 

The shuttle headed in the same direction as the walk David and I took the previous day. Except instead of the bustling markets, we saw men sitting idly on the backs of trucks reading the paper, and others busily unloading the day's fruits and vegetables to be sold. 

We arrived at the airport about 30 minutes later. First step was to pay the departure tax of $29. Curiously, I didn't get a matching exit stamp on my passport. Instead, it was a stamp on my departure tax receipt.