Travel Blogs

Cuba Ingenuity

I thought I'd share a few amusing sights I saw in Cuba proving Cuban ingenuity–necessity is the mother of invention after all!

BICYCLES

The bicycle is the main method of transport in Cuba not because people don't have cars but because they can't afford gasoline for them. The government imported 1 million Chinese single gear almost brakeless bicycles to deal with the transportation crisis. They may not be fun to ride but they are sturdy and cheap. So it is sometimes quite amazing what people manage to carry on a bicycle: Bicycle as family vehicle. Almost all bicycles have a passenger seat. Some have 2 extra seats. On occasion I saw up to 4 people on a bike–mom, dad and 2 mid-size kids! Bicycle as delivery vehicle. Well this doesn't sound to strange until I saw (several times) people cycling in downtown Havana on the uneven streets with a huge 2 foot by 3 foot cake balanced in one hand–the other on the handlebars maneuvering through traffic! No box or anything, just on a board. Bicycle as farm vehicle. How's this image: man cycling with live very large (200 pound) hog tied to the back on the bike squealing meanwhile 2 chickens tied by their feet hang from the frame.

ELECTRICITY

I had no idea electricity could be so versatile until the day some Cuban friends and I in Pinar del Rio decided to take a road trip to the beach–about 1 1/2 hours away. The first problem was that the car had no tunes! And so a portable tape player which took 9V of batteries was placed in the back seat. Batteries are prohibitively expensive for a Cuban and so a connection was made from the car battery and an electrical cord was run from the 12V battery under the hood outside the car and into the ghetto blaster in the back seat. This worked great until we got to the beach. Not wanting to drain the car battery, they spotted a wire running along the wall of a beach house–a knife was used to scrape off the protective rubber on this live 120V wire and the same electrical cord was then attached to the 120V input of the tape player. When we got home, a hot shower sounded great. And so to heat a bucket of water, they plugged in a homemade water heater which amounted to a small tin can inside a larger tin can with some rocks in between and one wire going to the outside can and one to the inside. It is suggested to be careful of shocks while dropping this item into a bucket of water and don't touch the water but it does work…

SHOPPING

Shopping was a real nightmare until you figured out the system. It is pretty depressing to shop when there really is only one chain of stores–if they don't have an item you like then don't bother going to another one because they probably have exactly the same things. And so one day, needing to replace a cap which was stolen, we went shopping. Seeing 2 equally vile hats in the store, we started wandering downtown looking for hats we liked–on people's heads. Soon a bargain was struck between someone who had relatives sending him expensive designer clothing and me, who wanted a nice hat. It was a month's salary for a Cuban and a bargain for me.

Subscribe to TravelBlogs Posted by Doug Dosdall on June 17th, 1997 in Articles.