Copa...Copa Airlines

A fitting farewell for Cuba was a brief chaotic scene at the Havana International airport.

Our snorting, snuffling taxi driver droppped us at Terminal 2. We made our way inside to the Copa Airlines check in desk 3 hours before the flight. Now this most definitely can be considered our fault, but we had attempted to research as much as we could on minimal Cuban wifi, about entering Chile. We read about the expensive reciprocal fee we had to pay and potentially in US dollars. However we did not find any information about requiring an outgoing departure flight.

So when we checked in, they asked for this information, to which we offered 5 other flights between other countries in South America, just not one exiting Chile, as we hadnt organised that yet.
We had done some research and had a general idea of our itinerary, just nothing locked in.
Alas, without an outgoing flight, they would not let us board. So, we had one hour to attempt to find some wifi in Cuba and book a flight, then return to the check-in.

We asked where we could access wifi, the attendant told us downstairs, off we walked to the arrivals lounge. We found the Etecsa wifi spot, but we didnt have a wifi card with credit left on it. So we then needed to exit the building and make our way across the road to some small shops and purchase a wifi card. We got two, just in case. One hour of wifi per card.

Back to the terminal, we discussed on the way which flight we would prefer, from Puerto Montt at the bottom of Chile, via Santiago, to Mendoza in Argentina.
Skyscanner gave us a good option for only $80AUD. so we confirmed, enterd our personal and passpoort information, a lot was in spanish, so we guessed most of the required fields, entered in our visa card details... and declined.
Oh, thats right, you cant pay for things online in Cuba, as we had discovered after trying to book accommodation previously.
hmmm...
The stress was palpable but we remained calm.

Okay, second option, direct with the airline, still online, not from Puerto Montt but just direct flight from Santiago to Mendoza on the 22nd of December. Only $30, perfect, lets see if it works.
Sure enough, we got through and received an itinerary, flying with JetSmart.
Back to the check-in desk, we show this information to the attendant. He needs our assistance to find the information he is after, flight number and date. He has never heard of the airline, we show him the JetSmart logo. He asks us to wait and goes over to his Super Attendant. They look out the itinerary on our phone some more, a lot of discussion. We look to each other and talk through showing them the other five flights we have booked as well.
After some time he returns, its okay, we can board. We had completed the mission, later likening to an escape room challenge.

This was mostly our fault, we should have researched more. We alo had the recommendation from our friend at flight centre that we can organise mock itineraries through him. We will do that next time. We are okay for the next 2 months, up until entering Peru towards the end of January. Then we are back roaming around trying to make things harder for ourselves.
All fun and lots of learning.

Adios Cuba, these two non-spanish speaking, clueless Australians are someone elses problem now.