| Believe it or not, this is one of the major highways!!! In the 3 days we drove around Cuba, we rarely saw another vehicle. When we did, it was either some other intrepid gringos in their shiny new hire cars or a clapped out rust bucket with Cubanos clinging on to every possible handhold. In Cuba, there is no public transport to speak of (sure there are some metal cannisters towed by a truck engine in Havana called 'camelos' that are supposed to be buses), so the vast majority of people who need to move around do so by walking to the nearest road and thumbing a lift. The highway is also popular with cheese vendors, who stand in the middle of the road bearing great big sweaty yellow slabs of the stuff and try to flag you down to buy their wares. Oh, and the other kind of vehicle you'll see are ox-drawn carts which are heavily used by the farmers. They tend to very thoughtfully stay in the outer lane. The other thing that there aren't any of in Cuba is road signs (makes sense - nobody on the roads so why would you need road signs?!) The only obtainable map was so shocking that the only way to get around is to stop and ask somebody. Our speciality was to pull over at a bunch of hitchhikers, tell them where we were hoping to go to and pick up someone going the same way who could direct us. Invariably, they would hop into the back of the car and exclaim 'Aeee, moy rico!!!' - shiny new hire cars being far far far from the experience of your average Cuban. |
