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Recently, a friend flew out from the Interior of B.C. and stayed with us in Victoria. She was on a last-ditch mission to secure her teenage son a passport so that he might still go on a school trip to Thailand. The son's passport application was apparently languishing on a desk somewhere in Ottawa. My friend was successful, but our thoughts harked back to our backpacking days when security seemed a minor travel issue.

Two decades ago, my husband and I, newly minted university grads, set out on a three-month island-hopping adventure in the Caribbean. All was well and our tans were coming along nicely when we hit Cuba, our third island. We were staying at a modest little hotel in Varadero, a two-hour bus ride from Havana.

On our first full day, we ventured to the beach. Our plans had been to simply soak up the sun, but the lure of the blue water proved too much. We were wearing our money belts, but quickly slipped them into our daypack, thinking: It's a communist country – what could happen? Okay, we were young and naive.

The tide was a long way out and we had a glorious swim, far from our towel spread out on the sand. As we slowly walked back in from the sea, we could both clearly see that our pack was gone. Reality hit us hard. Gone was our bag with two Nikon cameras (mine a graduation gift from my parents), our money belts with all of our cash, travellers cheques, ID and plane tickets, the keys to our luggage, and all of our clothes.

After we filed a police report, a call to the Canadian embassy in Havana revealed that it was a holiday weekend in Canada and some staff were vacationing in Varadero. We were in luck. They would give us a ride into the city in the morning.

The ride in the government van was a relief. Al, one of the embassy staff, offered to let us stay with him. We were travelling with American Express travellers cheques, which are, of course, impossible to replace while in Cuba. Al lived in a huge white villa, a far cry from the youth hostels and budget accommodations we had so far experienced. The locks were cut off our luggage, and Al's English-speaking housekeeper, Norma, did all our laundry and made us some fine meals.

We had absolutely no identification with us whatsoever, but Al joked that if we could name 10 Canadian prime ministers we would be allowed to have new passports. We quickly shared our collective knowledge of 10 Canadian leaders. Our photos were taken with a Polaroid camera, and the following day, voilà, we had brand-new passports. We purchased a new camera with a credit card we had tucked in our luggage for emergency situations and secured new airline tickets. Before we left Cuba, Al gave us $100 (U.S.) to tide us over until we could replace our cheques in Kingston, Jamaica.

We continued our journey and carried on to nine more islands. We quickly discovered that when you cut a Polaroid picture to fit the size of a passport photo, the picture on the front separates from the backing. Each time a customs officer would open our passports, our photos would flutter to the floor. This never caused a moment's consternation. Invariably, the officer simply picked them up and put them back in the passports. Occasionally, someone would take a piece of tape and attempt a more permanent fix.

Ah, for the days of hassle-free travel.

Special to The Globe and Mail