It never ceases to amaze me the profound effect yoga has. Before yoga, I could be easily angered over the smallest little thing, and could go off on a tyrant that would make a sailor blush.
This past April, my family and I (mom, dad, uncle and hubby) headed off to Cuba (Varadero) for a 2-week vacation and we had a great time. However, the journey home proved to be quite the adventure...
The whole adventure started when a plane got stuck on the runway with a flat tire. This one single event affected everything, since NO planes could take off from or now land in Varadero.
Varadero, in case you don't know, is one of the busiest airports on Cuba, with thousands of tourists arriving and departing at all hours of the day; and this meant that our flight, along with many others were re-routed to the Havana airport.
Ok, so, when we first found out that our plane could not land and was re-routed to Havana, was step one. Then we were told by Sunwing, that we had to collect our luggage, get a customs slip and go back to the bus for the 2-hour journey. Well, this wasn't ideal, but at least it seemed like a reasonable solution.
My family and I after much mayhem (remember, we were not the only ones in this). managed to find our luggage pretty quickly and board the bus. We then had to sit on the bus and wait for these three girls who were originally part of our original tour group, and it took over an hour to find them, mainly because they had boarded the wrong bus. Well, the bus to Havana finally left at about 10 pm. No problem, it was a little stressful, but there was nothing anyone could really do and no point in pointing a finger to make blame. While on the way there, one of the tour buses broke down (not ours) and we waved to the people on the bus. This seemed to be getting kind of silly, as on the bus, we watched burned copies of videos of all the hits from the late 70s and 80s.
Our bus driver really motored it, and we managed to make it to Havana in really good time. The Sunwing tour guide assured us that all we needed to do was to redrop our luggage off to counters 1 and 2 then go through customs; which should not take long as our bags were already tagged from Varadero and we had already gone though customs.
Well, the scene at Varadero was harried to say the least. You have to imagine, that all the planes that were re-routed to Havana, now had thousands pf travellers waiting to get on the arriving buses (which all of us were on) to take them to the hotels in Varadero. The mood was tense. After about 40 minutes on the bus, we were finally able to get off, get our luggage and go into Havana airport. Seemed simple enough.....
But, now there was even a greater number of people at the Havana airport, with their luggage, and what do you know, but the luggage carrier behind the counters wasn't working at the time, and there were hundreds of bags waiting behind the wicket counter.
By this point, it's late, we're tired, hungry, and in a smelly airport filled with frantic travellers. Also, my parents haven't travelled much in a long while, and like everyone else, were disgruntled and unhappy. Normally, had this been the pre-yoga me, I would have been cursing a blue streak, but was able to find mantras to latch on to.
OK, so we put our luggage in with the rest of the pile and then god bless, they got the machine to work - the whole airport cheered. One hurdle, now we should be able to get through customs. Not quite so easy as they did not have all the windows open and for some reason the officials there still had to look all the paperwork, passports over with a fine tooth comb, and even had one woman there for about 15 minutes, and imagine, that this line keeps growing.
Well, after some time, we made it through and heard a call for our plane. We walked out on the tarmac, and boarded the plane. This story doesn't end there though. While on the plane, it seemed very passenger light with many empty seats. The flight attendant then had to come out and say that due to the Toronto Port Authority imposing a time curfew for planes to land (right now we're at 1:30 am) and the fact that not all passengers were boarded due to delays with the buses, customs and luggage, we had to disembark and get off. Not a good situation.
So, now we're back in the Havana airport, with essentially no services waiting for the call. The call was supposed to come at 2:00 am, but for some odd reason we didn't get the call from the Cuban officials till 2:20 am. And by now, there were more planes on the tarmac, and we had to wait for 2 crowded shuttle buses to take us over to the plane.
All right, we're finally on the plane now, things are looking good....until.....a Cuban official comes on board to tell us that we can't take off because they are missing a long boarding ticket. So everyone had to search the plane, hold up the small portion of the boarding ticket and wait. Finally after another 30 minutes, our flight attendant, decided that enough was enough, we're leaving. Yay, never have been so happy to have a plane take off.
It is just amazing how things snowball, how one small flat tire on a small plane can wreak so much havoc. Yet, there was no really no point in pointing the finger or getting really angry. hari om tat sat. Sunwing handled the situations as best they could, and for taking off, they were going to be fined. Which is ridiculous. because the missing ticket would have been taken by one of the Cuban officials anyway who probably took it the first time we boarded the plane.
All during this ordeal, I kept chanting or singing mantras, and kept my cool. I really never lost my mind and managed to stay calm despite the circumstance, and I have the yoga to thank for that. Mantras are words and phrases. often, but not always in Sanskrit, or gurmukhi, that help to control the though-waves of the mind. We actually use many mantras daily, and most of which are negative, so the goal is through yoga is to be aware of these waves (vrittis) of the mind, and to work through them.
Also, this expereince has not left me cold on Cuba, it is still a great country, and I still would go back....