Travelogue Cuba 2012
Soroa
The next morning we want to go to Soroa, 95 km west of Havana. As inexperienced Cuba travellers we want to go with a Viazul bus, which are exclusively for tourists long-distance buses with air conditioning and so on. Lucky for us, it’s not gonna happen. When we arrive at the bus station, there are no more seats. But as this is completely normal, there are business minded Cubans right next to the bus station who take the tourists in their oldtimers to whereever they want to go. And that’s much nicer.
In addition to the coffee we get ginger tea with lemon juice, sugar and a shot of rum … 100% Cuban and 100% delicious!
Little anecdote:
We wondered why the man in the family of our lodging was home, even though it was early afternoon of a normal weekday and we knew he worked in the woods. Well, the workers usually get a lunch from their employer (the state) and this lunch did not arrive that day. So the workers ended the day at lunch time and returned home.
It’s hard to get a picture. More precisely, in Cuba there is almost never “a picture”, because the doctor who in his “spare time” also is a taxi driver or works as a guide for tourists, because he cannot live on his salary as a doctor, is just as normal.
Our chauffeur also belonged to the second category of particularly hard-working Cubans. The same driver who had brought us from Havana to Soroa had offered to pick us up again and bring us to Viñales. According to his own statement, he was almost always on the road, especially to keep his much younger and probably demanding wife happy 😉 For us, that was in any case perfect service. Much better than Viazul or even having our own rental car.