4/11/2023 0 Comments Victoria iii redditPrivate transport is another solution born during the Special Period. The blockade makes real repairs too expensive," he concluded. "Most of our work is cosmetically restoring steam trains so they can be placed in museums. The mechanic says that the trade embargo, not government mismanagement, has made it impossible to adequately repair the vehicles. "Some repairs would do it good, but we don't have the parts to fix it." "This bus was used to transport workers to a cigar factory, before renovations started last month," he said, pointing at a large, dingy yellow bus. This results in many buses being sidelined, with repair parts coming late or not at all.Ī yellow bus sits next to steam trains awaiting restoration in Havana. Due to the 55-year US trade embargo of Cuba, which the socialist government estimates has cost their economy $116.8 billion, third-party businesses must purchase the motors in America, and then ship them to a third country to import them to Cuba. "I went back to hitchhiking a few years ago, because I prefer not to wait on the buses that are overcrowded and uncomfortable," Tamayo said.Ĭuban Ministry of Transport mandates that buses manufactured in China must be outfitted with American-made engines, a move many see as government mismanagement. 'I went back to hitchhiking a few years ago, because I prefer not to wait on the buses that are overcrowded and uncomfortable.' And this was on the buses that were still running. Initially introduced to mitigate shortages in intercity travel, by 2008, Yutong buses became the blood running through the veins of Cuba's cities, replacing the camellos, large trailer-buses that could transport up to 400 people at once, and greatly reducing wait times.īut by 2009, the films had disappeared, the music fell silent, and the bathroom doors were adorned with "out of service" signs, according to Cuban daily Juventud Rebelde. After Fidel ceded power to his brother Raúl, the new leader made it a priority to continue renovating the transport system. In 2005, when Cuban transport was on its last leg, Fidel Castro announced plans to revitalize the system with a dose of Yutong - Chinese buses with overhead monitors for movies, music, bathrooms, and other amenities. Related: Cuba Is Facing a Condom Shortage "Government trucks were the only things on the road, and we had places to be." One of these was nationalized hitchhiking. Throughout the 1990s and halfway through the 2000s, the Cuban government adopted some peculiar means of dealing with the deteriorating public transport. A few years later, the transport system that made it possible to move around in Cuba, a country where owning a private car without a license from the government only became legal in January 2014, was close to stationary. ![]() Within a few months, once-reliable buses began to arrive several hours late, and then not at all. Soviet oil, the lifeblood of Cuba's public transportation system, dried up after the Berlin Wall fell. Hitchhiking, or ir con la botella (going with the bottle) as Cubans call it due to the fact that the outstretched thumb used to hail a car resembles the hand motion for taking a drink, became essential after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Cuba's "Special Period" of economic hardship. "It all began with the Special Period," Yasmin Tamayo, a 32-year-old cleaning woman at a government building, told VICE News while waiting for a ride to a small village outside of Havana.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |