The slow coach journey from Havana to Cienfuegos offers a great opportunity to experience both the expanse of the Caribbean’s largest island and the expanse of economic reforms it so badly needs.
If you don’t have a hire car and you want to cross the spine of Cuba, the Viazul long-distance bus terminal – closer to a Ghostbusters monster than it is to the centre of Havana – is the place you’ll probably need to be.
It’s a slightly grotty, dingy, tired sort of place; though it seems a little churlish to highlight that since bus terminals the world over are grotty, dingy and tired sorts of places. Unlike most other bus terminals of the world though, since Cuba rather likes to isolate its citizens from the nefarious influence of decadent foreigners, queuing and seating at this foreigner only affair is never a problem.
At least in my experience there is another difference too. Viazul rather like you to check in your baggage. In fact they rather insist. Intercepted by a charmless and bored baggage clerk, I gave my destination in my best pidgin Spanish and he echoed back a couple of near-similar syllables by way of a crumb of comfort (Cen-feu I think it was- either a local contraction or perhaps bus-worker’s jargon). He scrawled some unintelligible symbols on my ticket and my bag disappeared. I was planning on joining a yacht for a little sailing on my arrival in Cienfuegos; a tough forwarding destination for delayed baggage. I was not left with a warm, fuzzy feeling.
But the clock ticks on. Just enough time for an overpriced, undersized snack in the café and a quickly curtailed chat with a rather mercenary Norwegian school-marm who wanted to practice her Spanish and quickly lost interest when she discovered the extent of mine. Then it was time to board (and of course check that my bag was in fact in the hold … or whatever you call it on a coach).
Feliz viaje!
Modern by Cuban standards the coach is a roomy, air-conditioned affair though it dates itself with its total lack of ergonomics. The seats are little more than large, padded slabs which recline far too egregiously for the poor sod behind. I suspect they could cause notable spinal deformation in frequent travellers and are the sort of thing ambulance-chasing lawyers have done away with elsewhere in the world. The catering extended to free bottled water, essential for the non Cuban in Cuba.
And the journey itself starts in typical Cuban fashion, subtly idiosyncratic and a little head-scratching. First there is the ostensibly unscheduled stop at the Astro terminal, a vast, utilitarian, concrete affair where the locals join the true charabancs to far-flung destinations. Here we pick up a few extra passengers – Cubans for a refreshing change – either overflow from the Astro services or perhaps the connected few who know how to get an off-the-books upgrade.
As the coach winds its way out of Havana past many-a hitcher it stops occasionally to pick one up and then deposit them a few miles down the road. Perhaps another off-the-books way for the driver to make a few extra pesos from the occasional trusted friend or local-in-the-know.
People-watching was not a profitable sport on this journey. The Norwegian school-marm had found a soon to be long suffering victim to practice her Spanish on. A couple of Australians (not, I think, an Australian couple) are a diversion for a short while – a young, over-cheery bloke tries desperately to entertain (by which I of course mean to get into the knickers of) a bored and whining girl. I’m sure his efforts were rewarded in the end with the dead-eyed and disinterested sex he was working so hard to earn.
So I bury my ear-buds firmly into place, crank up the iPod and watch Cuba passing by outside my window.
No hecho en Cuba
The unofficial local taxi service was largely closed for the day by the time we emerged from Havana’s decaying pre-revolutionary grandeur, through the decaying post-revolutionary socialist monuments and brutalist architecture of her urban sprawl and out into the rolling countryside of mainland, central Cuba.
As the hours passed by I started to really appreciate both the size of the Caribbean’s monster island and the scale of its waste. Mile after verdant, fresh, arable and lamentably fallow mile passed me by, peppered lightly with patches of artisan agriculture, the pitifully tiny and ramshackle small-holdings of the occasional farming family employed in making just enough for themselves and perhaps a little extra to trade. The ass more the order of the day than the tractor, and the half-assed more the order of the day than industry.
It isn’t this way in the far west of Cuba, where well managed tobacco farms efficiently produce the raw materials for the bountiful and profitable cigar export market. Nor is it this way in her far east where rolling sugar plantations fuel the bountiful and profitable rum export industry. So why is it this way in the heart of Cuba? A nation that still imports almost all of its food leaves vast acres of healthy, fertile farmland fallow or to farming squarely from the dark ages.
The Cuban government is well aware of its dependency on imported food that it can ill afford. Local shoppers are also well aware of it too, as are sailboat trippers who dare to try and provision their vessel with anything other than tins and beer. So are the hardier tourists who try to find a restaurant open outside of the big-cities when the food delivery hasn’t come through.
The years roll by and so inexorably the reforms inch forward – The Economist recently highlighted another attempt at allowing more private enterprise and more private land ownership. Yet Raul Castro’s attempts at agricultural reform have born little fruit so far – quite literally.
But there is a plus side to all of this, or at least there is for those decedent, nefarious foreigners amongst us. The locally grown food is about as organic as organic can be, and when you can find it, the taste is sublime.
Viva la Revolucion
There’s a charming, unworldly innocence and directness to the Cuban people. From the slightly nervy “psssts” of passers by on the city streets through to the inept pan-handling of the more opportunistic locals. There was the guy pretending to work at the same hotel I was staying in, who’s subterfuge crashed and burned when I asked him what hotel. Then there was the (apparently) one-legged man telling me his sob-story of losing his job as a mechanic as a result of his injury. After telling me how hard it was to feed his family I asked why he couldn’t service cars with one leg. Befuddled he smiled beamingly at me, revealing more than a handful of gold teeth. And then there was the pavement artist who asked if I’d like to buy him some sweets. Apparently, he went on to tell me, many single, male, foreign travellers enjoyed “buying him sweets”. Anywhere else in the world I’d be certain that was a euphemism. In Cuba, I’m not quite so sure.
There’s a keenness and industry to the Cuban people too, or at least there is when they are motivated by their own profit and gain (as humanity naturally is however much socialism might like to rule otherwise). On my arrival in Cienfuegos I was quickly and effortlessly spirited away to a “taxi” by a small boy, who eventually led me to a clapped out Yugo with a broken windscreen and barely bolted down passenger seat which still gunned along, ferrying tourists (however illegally) around this charming coastal town for a few pesos a shot.
Throughout this land banners still extol the virtues of a revolution over fifty years old. Dumb and predictable totalitarian propaganda you may think – imagine Britain today adorned with banners celebrating our victory in World War II and vilifying the Germans – but Cuba’s revolution, unlike World War II is far from over.
My slow coach ride from Havana to Cienfuegos feels like a metaphor for Cuba’s slow ride through the real revolutionary reform it so badly needs. While my journey is long over, Cuba’s barely seems to have begun.