Paranoid Car Ride

Ok, very short one now as I have to get ready for work in an hour - and I'm hungry too.

Back to Cuba.

The people who ran our Casa Particular in Havana very kindly sorted out our transport to Trinidad (the Cuban town, not the island), as well as our accommodation for our stay.  Our driver, Angel, was very friendly and the trip was supposed to take about three or four hours.  

Just as we were pulling away from in front of our hostel in Havana an English couple saw Angel, came over to the car and thanked him profusely for helping them out.  Which was odd, but never mind.  

As we were leaving Havana we pulled into a petrol station, and Angel got out and waited around for a while - it seemed there was too much of a cue for the pumps, so he got back in and we drove on to another, rather more rural petrol station.  It didn't seem they had any petrol there.  So on we went.

About an hour or so into the journey we pulled into another petrol station with an El Rapido restaurant (the only fast food chain in Cuba, as far as I know).  A very well kept Chevy, with three young men pulled up beside us.  Anne-Sophie noticed it because it had an Apple logo on one of the windows, which we though was fairly unusual at the time (turns out to be quite a popular decoration).  The driver of the car got out and he and Angel greeted each other warmly and stood around chatting for a while waiting for the restrooms.

We asked if we could grab something quick to eat before taking off again, and were told it wouldn't be a problem, although it turned out it was as all they had was sandwiches, which I couldn't eat on account of the wheat, so I ended up having two very nutritious Cuban variations of Mars Bars.  Which probably had gluten in them anyway, but hey.  We bought lunch for Angel as well, and tried to make conversation.  When we made to get up to leave, he told us to relax and wait a minute, left for a minute, and then came back with sweets for us.

Once we were back on the road again, I was happily gawping out the window at the landscape, when Anne-Sophie directed my attention towards the car in front of us, and passed me her notebook on which she had written, "That's the car from before".  It did seem to be the same car, and for some reason Angel wasn't passing him out, although there was room and he had been overtaking other cars on the road.

The book and pen were hastily passed back and forth, developing into a conversation in which several theories were discussed including Angel's intention to drive us into a rural area where we would be mugged and left for dead in the Cuban countryside.  The conclusion we reached eventually was that while we were at lunch, Angel had unlocked the car allowing the men in the car to get at our backpacks in the boot.  Although our valuables were in smaller bags that we kept with us all the time, my fear was that these guys might have planted something inside our bags.  When he had stopped us from leaving the table he had gone over to the counter by the window where he had a good view of the van while he was buying the sweets, and could make sure that the coast was clear before bringing us out to the car.  We surmised that further down the road we might be subjected to a 'random' police search during which they'd find we had a big bag of heroine or something, and we'd have to bribe them to let us off.  For the duration of this discussion, the Apple car was either in front of us, or trailing behind us.

I asked Angel if he could stop the car because I was feeling sick (much miming of upset stomach), and said that I had tablets in my bag that I forgot to take (again, mostly through the art of charades) that would help.  He pulled in and opened the boot so that I could have a rummage around both the bags (including all the pockets) talking with Anne-Sophie the entire time asking her if she'd packed it etc, until, satisfied that nothing was there that shouldn't be, I pulled out my bottle of tumeric tablets the nutritionist gave me and downed one, thanking Angel for stopping and getting back into the car.  

One theory put to bed, now there only remained the possibility of being murdered in the woods, which was reassuring to a point.

Eventually, Angel pointed towards the Apple car and said, simply, "My friend", which was reassuring.  We all eventually pulled off the main road down a dirt track beside a farmhouse.  Angel got out and met the lads and one of them ran off, returning with a big drum of fuel, which they proceeded to use to fill up the tank of the van.  He explained that it was very hard to get it in petrol stations sometimes, so it was good to know someone who stocked up.

We made it the rest of the way to Trinidad without incident and without any further conspiracy theories.  We slept well that night.  Paranoia is exhausting!