From a vintage Chevy to a buggy ride, adventure proves a corner - and a thumb - away.
In perhaps a moment of lapsed judgment, I recently decided to travel around Cuba the way most Cubans do - by thumb. And so, on a cloying Caribbean day, I found myself standing under palm trees on a road outside Trinidad with an off-duty policeman and his family. We were waiting for passing cars to stop. We were hitchhiking.
In Cuba it's a way of life. "Here, your car is your brother's car," Araceli, a grandmother in Trinidad, explained to me. "That's the essence of Cuba."
But, the spirit of socialism aside, picking up hitchhikers is also required in Cuba. The first thing you need to know about Cuban transportation is there isn't much of it. Thus, I was told, hitchiking was a top bet. Outside Trinidad, it became clear that life on the road involved a lot of waiting by the side of it.
As might be expected, hitchhiking in a land of rules is no free-wheeling affair. State officials, known as amarillos for their yellow uniforms, are stationed along the country's highways to oversee the process. Their job - for which they earn a respectable 400 pesos ($15/Dh55) a month - is to make lists of riders and flag down passing cars.
Not all cars are required to stop. Those with yellow, caramel, and white plates indicate state vehicles and must pull over. Brown plates (military) and blue (private) should stop but don't have to. Little is expected of green (tourists) or black (diplomats) plates."
No free ride
Finally, I decided to give up and take a collective taxi going to Sancti Spiritus. The price, announced the driver's assistant, was 5 pesos (18 cents/Dh0.65), to be collected by assistant No. 2. Half the people at the hitchhiking stop paid up and piled into the '56 Chevrolet. "Not to worry," the policeman assured me as I waved goodbye. His free ride would eventually come. "The system is slow, but it works," he said.
On Day 2, I didn't hitchhike either. I wanted to. But it was not to be. I was told the Sancti Spíritus-Caibarién road, where I was going, was a bus route, which meant no amarillos, few hitchers, and even fewer people moved by the spirit of socialism. There was only one other problem - the bus was only for Cubans. I could have taken the tourist bus - at nine times the price - but it had just left, according to station master Fidelito. But not to worry: Fidelito's friend, Juan, who runs a small unofficial transport business, was going to help.
I was getting discouraged with hitchhiking, when, on Day 3, it all came together. As I stood outside Remedios, an amarillo finally stopped a state vehicle, a minivan filled with workers returning from a "fun day" at the beach. I jumped in. We then pulled over for the driver to buy some avocados. No one talked to me, but it felt great. I was hitchhiking.
I got dropped off in Santa Clara, where I went to the Che Guevara museum. And then, still humming the catchy revolutionary tunes piped in over the speakers there, I got another ride. And another - all the way back to Havana. My fortunes had turned.
By the time I rolled into Havana the next evening, chatting baseball with my new friend Jamie from the Finance Ministry, I was a bona fide hitchhiker - living the Cuban experience.
I was also ready to hail a tourist cab.
