From what I'd read before we arrived it should have been a simple process to renew our thirty day visas while we were staying at Hemingway Marina. We'd arrived in the country on 9 December and were given 30 day visas by Immigration at our port of entry. The rule is you can renew for up to two additional thirty day periods for a cost of CUC 25 each time. We were 16 days in to our visa with 14 days left and our next opportunity after Havana would be Cayo Largo approximately 350nm away on the south coast.
I thought we might be able to do the paperwork with Immigration at the Customs office at Marina Hemingway but the port captain phoned them for us and we were directed to the Immigration office five miles away on the road into Havana. Before applying we needed to have CUC25 each in stamps for the fee. These can only be bought at a bank. We needed letters of support for our application from the port captain at the stating the reason for renewal, proof of medical insurance and our passports. We also needed a car and driver.
Port Captain Gabriel phoned his friend Jorge to drive us in his '49 Chevy. Jorge has driven cruisers before, knows the process, and most importantly, knows where to find the Immigration office in its back street location. First we went to the biggest bank with the most number of tellers and joined the line outside the doors. Jorge was there to ask who was last in the queue and stayed with us while we waited an hour on the steps. Plenty of time to chat and find out he had been a ship's captain before he retired and had commanded a ship of 25 crew and had sailed to South America and across the Atlantic to Russia. He told us he spoke Russian better than English and his English is good. He has one son who is working in Moscow and another who is also a captain in the Cuban navy.
A digression from the main story...the Russian embassy in Havana is a massive six storey, brown concrete tower perhaps built in the '80s, which is set behind a high spiked fence. Lined up inside the compound and in front of the building is a fleet of big silver motors. It's the biggest of all the embassies we saw and the most fortified.
Back to the bank. An hour after we arrive we are at the front door which opens and a lady allows six people to enter the air conditioned hall. We are given customer numbers and then wait another 45 minutes for it to be called but now we have leatherette sofas with broken springs to sit on. Jorge comes with us to explain to the teller what we want, CUC50 worth of stamps. It takes less than 3 minutes and we can now proceed to the Immigration office around the corner.
Jorge is brilliant. We would never have found the building as it is in a back road. It doesn't have a sign on the fence to tell you what it is and we wouldn't have known we had to go to the upstairs office. In luck today we only had to wait half an hour before it was our turn. Jorge was our interpreter once more and explained what we wanted. I handed over our passports and she examined the visas, tapped her computer keybo and said 'Non'. The computer system cannot renew a visa more than three days before the expiry date although we do have three days grace after expiry to renew. Through Jorge we explained we were travelling on a sail boat and travelled with the weather. Staying in the Marina Hemingway for another 11 days wasn't possible because we needed to move on westwards along the coast and the weather was good to move now. This cut no ice with the Ice Maiden it was still Non, rules are rules and they are there to be followed. All we can do is hope to make the next port of entry by 11 January and hope the officials accept we tried. We have the Port Captain's letter dated today, the stamps from the bank and our receipt for them dated today.
It wasn't an entirely wasted day. Jorge found a hairdresser for me for a much needed cut at a modern salon for only $5. Then it was to the produce stalls for fruit, vegetables and smoked pork and a bakery for french baguettes on the way home.
The trip took three and a half hours. Jorge usually charges CUC/$10 and hour but he either enjoyed David's tales, or took pity on us, and reduced the fare to $30.
The saga of renewing a visa to be continued....
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