TDI: 2-3 What's this?
The madness of vehicles
Cuba is famous for the American 50’s cars. Not only the touristy taxis in Havana’s city center but everywhere in the country ordinary people drive them. I had the privilege to ride in one of them when hitchhiking. It looked even older from the inside!
The roads are great though. At least for the most part. I remember once taking a bus ride from Havana to the countryside… The bus was new, surprisingly, just like in Western countries. The passengers were dressed normally, just like in the western countries and the highway was new. Then I saw a 70-year-old car passing by next to us. I felt like its driver had a time machine and got teleported here from the past.
The cars were just one of many unusual things I have noticed about this country. That’s just a small part of the story. Other than the ’50s, people also drive cars from the ’40s and even ’30s! Also, there are Russian cars from the ’70s and ’80s, and surprisingly there are normal cars, from this century, as well. Havana as an alternative to ordinary taxis, has tricycles, like rickshaws in Asia or tuk tuks in Africa… Except the Cuban version looks very unusual: yellow and fully rounded like some sort of a space capsule. So they have it all: the cars from the past, present, and future! What else… the 30’s trucks, 50’s motorcycles with sidecars, and all sorts of carts and wagons pulled by bicycles, tricycles, or horses!
The list of unusual things about Cuba
The country has plenty of architectural variety. A contrast of rustic, charming colonial buildings, and plain, cold buildings from the communist period. Luckily, many residential areas that were built during that period are creatively painted. The government turned some boring-looking neighborhoods into fun ones!
I have never been to a country where smoking is as prevalent as in Cuba. Everybody smokes everywhere… Cigarettes for the most part. Cigars also, but to a much lesser extent. They’re more popular with old people. I saw people smoking at the indoor bus terminal and in the restaurants (the local ones, not the touristy ones, of course). There’s no such thing as a “Designated Smoking Area” anywhere.
While walking on the streets, I had to be careful not to pass by too close to the windows, or the entrances to the apartments. The people in there are smoking all the time. They would throw their cigarette buds out on the street. I know a backpacker that got hit with a lit bud that way.
I’ve even seen travelers lighting cigarettes, that normally don’t smoke. I could tell by the way they were puffing. They just got carried away with the vibe. That’s what traveling does sometimes to people. Motivates them to do things they normally wouldn’t do. Sometimes cool things, and sometimes stupid.
Interested in the natural beauty of the Caribbean islands? I would recommend checking out my photos from Dominica.
The next thing that’s on my “Unusual List” is the local currency. Cuba has two of them: the Cuban peso, also known as the CUP, and the convertible peso, the CUC. $1 = 1 CUC = 25,000 CUP. So what’s the point of CUC if they can just use $ instead? I was wondering. When I asked some of the locals, the answer was: “It’s always been like that.” I hate that answer. Nobody wonders why. Nobody has an opinion… Since the country is isolated, most of the people are not even aware that their currency system is unusual.
The country is very cheap. Every day cheap expenses like food, bus ride, and cigarettes are normally priced in CUP, while larger transactions are in CUC. Also, since the government is aware of how tourists come from much more expensive countries, they have adjusted the prices, therefore, charging all of the tourist activities in CUC. Although you can easily buy mangoes on the street, or cigarettes with CUC, but when you get the change from the vendor in CUP, they will rip you off a bit. That’s why the best way is to supply yourself with both currencies. So when you need to pay anything, you pay in the currency asked by the vendor. Simple. Except you need to exchange it, which is not that simple. That leads to the next unusual thing…
In the capitalist world, there’s pretty easy access to any product or service you need. There is a selection of many different companies that offer that product or service, so they need to make themselves accessible, in order to beat the competition and stay in business. In the communist system, only one company provides a product or service – the government. That company is not really desperate in making its products and services accessible. That’s why you need to patiently wait in line, cause you can’t go anywhere else for that product or service.
There are long lines outside of the bakeries, pharmacies, banks… Sometimes you need to wait for what you need, and sometimes it’s a hustle to find what you need. For instance, people can’t buy bread in grocery stores. Only in the bakeries… at specific hours. Once I found a bakery, I waited in line for 15 minutes, just to learn I wasn’t able to purchase the bread there. It’s like a food stamp program, and I did not have those stamps, of course. Luckily, as soon as I walked out, the gentleman that was in line next to me gave me some of the bread he got. That brings me to the next unusual thing…
Free food! In the USA, the food stamp program is for very low-income people, but in Cuba, this program is very common, and widely spread, for most of the nation. The country doesn’t let you get rich, but on the other hand, it doesn’t let you starve! One afternoon, while walking in the streets of the amazing city of Havana, I’ve been looking for some street food. While passing by a cute plaza, I saw a stand, where a guy was handing people plates with some stew and rice. I approached curiously. It looked awesome! Too bad, I couldn’t buy any. The people that were getting it, did not look poor or homeless though. Damn, I wish I can get some of those food stamps, I thought.
There are more unusual things…
So it’s a developing country, with no hungry people! Also, I didn’t see any homeless people, junkies, crazy people, prostitutes… I am not saying they don’t exist, but obviously, to a much lesser extent than in other countries. The local girls weren’t smiling at me on the streets and asking me if I was single, which is a very common thing in developing countries all over the world. That’s telling me the local girls are not desperate to escape from Cuba with the westerner. I did run across some drunks, but not many. Now if I was blessed enough to spend 3 months in this very intriguing country, I would probably spot a homeless, a junkie, or a prostitute… But it seems like crime, drugs, and poverty are not very common here. When you look at the prices, which is the next “Unusual thing”, everything makes more sense…
The basic things everybody needs are either very cheap or free: housing, healthcare, education, and food. Things we don’t necessarily need, but we’d like, are usually expensive: a new car, a flight to Europe, alcohol, drugs… The government’s pricing formula is: less important = less affordable. The exception is tobacco. Maybe because it’s essential to them. Maybe locals could get cigarettes with food stamps.
Another interesting pricing example is the Internet. It’s available pretty much only in the hot spots, which are usually the plazas and the parks. One hour of credit is 1 CUC. So if locals wanna go online to do something important, the price is a bit high for them, but reasonable. But if they wanna waste their time Instagramming and Facebooking all day, as the rest of the world does, then it is not affordable. That was exactly the reason why I met so many fun travelers. In the hostels, since we weren’t able to connect online, we were connecting to each other!
The payphones in Havana are not street decorations, like in other countries. Here, people actually use them!
What else was unusual… Ah, the people… They’re smart! At least that was my impression. When chatting with them, after asking me what country I’m from, the next question would usually be: “How come you speak Spanish?” Since it’s very uncommon for a Croatian to speak Spanish, the question is very appropriate. But, how come nobody ever asked me that question while traveling Mexico, Nicaragua, Dominican Republic, Bolivia, or Paraguay? Maybe in those countries, people think the whole world speaks Spanish. Or maybe they just don’t think.
Well, based on this little social experiment, I have concluded Cubans do think when it comes to geography and languages. Speaking of which, the proprietor of the hostel I stayed at, was fluent in Spanish, English, and Russian. On another occasion, when I was eating outside, I met a local I was able to speak in my native language! He had spent a few months in Serbia, and their language is very similar to Croatian. I was impressed. Our language is very hard to learn.
Other than the language, the evidence of Cubans being smart can be found in the statistics. The country has one of the highest literacy rates in the world: 99.75% Also, the profession that’s traditionally popular is a doctor. No joke! Cuba’s got a very developed healthcare system and an abundance of highly skilled professionals. Many of them work in other countries since it’s too many of them here. The next ‘Unusual thing’ is the salaries…
Some travelers in the hostel mentioned how doctors don’t get paid much more than the cashiers at the grocery stores. From an American or European perspective, that is ridiculous. I have a different opinion: People’s choice of profession should be driven by their passion and talent, not by money. That way, they would do their job at their best. Otherwise, they’d just do whatever it takes, in order to make more money for themselves, which is not necessarily related to doing a good job and contributing the society.
It is definitely not cool to be paid miserably, like the doctors in Cuba, but they have free housing, almost free food, free education, free healthcare and they have jobs they love. So I don’t necessarily feel sorry for them. I feel more sorry for the Western doctors, that make fortunes, but they are still running behind on their bills just because they’re victims of material lifestyle.
So does this system work?
What about the restrictions Cuba is famous for? Well, obviously there are plenty… The government is restricting its people from becoming a junkie or homeless. Does that sound terrible? I wouldn’t call it a restriction. Rather the protection. The government is also protecting them from developing ‘Attention Deficit Disorder’, by being attached all day long to the social media on their smartphones. They’re protecting them from traveling the world and becoming nomadic junkies, like myself, that can’t be happy anymore by being in one place.
Humans tend to make many bad decisions in their lives and do many things wrong. Government restrictions can protect people from their own stupidity. So, does that mean communism is good and capitalism is bad? Well, it depends on who’s asking.
For this purpose, I have divided the entire population of this planet into two categories… 1st is the ordinary people, that like to live and work without pressure. Those people spend a lot of time watching TV. Their values are similar to their parents. 2nd category is the people that are willing to hustle and sacrifice in order to achieve something. Those people have different values than their parents and their surroundings. The people that live to explore their limits, explore life, or find their purpose… Anyway, the people from the 1st category can probably get pretty much everything they want from life, in a country like Cuba. On the other hand, the people from the second category would mostly fit better in the countries of Western Europe, the USA, or Australia.
Corruption has nothing to do with any of this. There’s an abundance of it in both, communist and capitalist countries. But saying things like ”capitalism is good and communism is bad” is like saying: ”Mazda car is good and Ford is bad”. It’s about personal preference. Those were the thoughts stuck in my head while leaving Cuba. Thoughts of wisdom or stupidity? There’s only one way to find out. Gotta keep traveling.
Want some more stories from Caribbean countries? I would recommend checking out my Haiti post.
Cuba doesn’t issue Tourist Visa for American citizens. They can get in through different types of visas. It is complicated, but not impossible. More info is available on the Cuban Embassy website.