So I’m at José Martí airport, terminal 2, waiting for my flight to Nassau, which will connect with my flight to Florida. It’s about a million degrees in the shade and I’m melting because I’ve just spent the last 40 minutes in a custom made metal box with no air, or as the Cubans call it, a ‘taxi’.

I walk through the massive sweaty chattering crowd outside the terminal and peer inside.

It’s empty. I mean there’s no-one but check in staff and an old guy at the entrance with a walkie talkie who just asked if I’m flying today. I guess the huge suitcase and heavy hand luggage I was struggling with wasn’t enough of a clue.

Anyway, he waves me through and I enter the air conditioned bliss.

I look at the screen above every check in desk and they read ‘Miami’. I didn’t think you could fly direct from Cuba to the United States, and yet here is proof that I was wrong. It’s at this point I’m filled with joy and appreciation for my indirect flights (wipes away tears of sarcasm).

So I start looking for screens that say Nassau but none of them do. I then realise I’m 20 minutes early. Better than being late I guess, but hey, at least I’m nice and cool. I’ll just find somewhere to sit in the massive empty terminal building, away from the sweat and noise of the mob outside. Why are they all standing out there anyway? It’s better in here, where it’s cool and fresh and, hey…there’s nowhere to sit! What the hell?

I decide to stand, even though it’s really my only choice other than laying down and airports don’t like it when you do that.

After a few minutes the old guy, lets call him Jobésworth Cuntos, comes over and asks me again which flight I’m on.

I tell him….again.

He then says I have to wait outside, or something to that effect as it mostly consisted of stern jibberjabber and waving his walkie talkie towards the door.

Well, that explains the angry mob outside.

Hang on, this building is empty and can easily accommodate the wilting passengers outside, three times over. So me being me I challenge him.

“But it’s really hot out there!”, I say, pointing outside and then tugging on my t-shirt collar with my index finger to indicate that it’s hot out there.

Stern jibberjabber, walkie talkie waving.

“And it’s nice and cool in here”, I continue, pointing first at the floor to indicate I mean ‘in here’, and then fanning myself with my hand and giving him the thumbs up.

Jibberjabber; waving.

What an arsehole. No wonder people out here are getting increasingly pissed off. All that air-conditioning is going to waste, not helped by Jobésworth here standing in the open sliding doorway causing it to remain open. Or maybe that’s just his way of showing us how empty and cold it is inside; a lot like him actually.

It seems that in Cuba, those who earn power get respect, those who are given power, work at the airport.

I’m not looking forward to meeting the rest of the Cuntos family who no doubt work at customs and immigration in Florida.