Vinales start to reach Playa Larga, probably located about 250 km away. Bursting with confidence after our experience of previous popular route, we leave the road, leaving Manzana and advice to take the direct bus Vinales, Trinidad. But we ignore precautions and the extravagant sum it would cost and tendons proudly thumb, nay, note the head, torso and sweets Jevons index casually every passing car. Yeah, is that he understood he had to blend into the crowd to expect to be taken without anyone asking us to stop prices nerds ... Indeed, in Havana, we were right even "offered" to make us do 5 km in car for $ 20! Then appear objective Cuban undercurrent planquer les sacs et faire le coq pour Matthieu, la snob pour moi!
Comme prévu, une voiture, deux voitures, 10 voitures passent en l’espace des 30 premières minutes, sans jamais s’arrêter. Mais c’est pas grave, on a le temps et préférons en perdre mais gagner cette expérience de trajet populaire plutôt que de céder à la pression financière imposée au touriste… Et d’ailleurs il suffisait de le dire pour qu’un camion s’arrête un peu en amont sur la route et prenne tout le monde… sauf nous. Ah. Nous, on a juste le droit d’écoper d’un signe “non” du doigt, le regard sérieux à sévère. Sympa. But they do not know who you are! Ha! And even if the experiment is renewed 3 times in a row, multiplying Flamby experiments, we stand, to believe you really want to do the barnacles with bitumen ... It's really starting to have the balls and to inveigh against this People definitely not very helpful towards tourists if it does not involve a certain amount of money ...
That's when a Cuban challenges us in English, telling us that we must gently put a little further to have more luck finding a truck or a car to take us to Pinar del Rio, our first step in this journey. It's funny, you tell yourself, it's always in those moments when you plague on the people that someone has to show us another face ... It follows, therefore, the gentleman who brings us face to a school. There, a guy dressed as bronze, slicked hair, dyed blond and sunglasses Sarko kind I love the photographer in The Love Boat comes to us and offers to go to Pinar del Rio 2 CUC (2 $)! But José! We know this is a Cuban peso per person (25 times less!), Then asks: 2 CUC and why? "Because you're tourists" have the nerve to reply! You crack your panties! The Love Boat and voila returned to his nets. Here, the type supposedly nice free, which is therefore a fucking reel, tells us that he spoke with the guy and it's true that it is not cheap: go for us This will be 1 CUC for 2 ... Ah, because in fact, prices are negotiable for tourists? It is a good one ... In the meantime a taxi stops, but already The Love Boat intervenes and tells the driver what to charge. And there you have pointed out that The Love Boat is nothing but a pawn the school if we judge the same fabric for keeping the kids who go home! Enough is enough, we take our cliques and the slap that he would have bet and we go back to where we had to hitchhike.
We confess that at this moment, we are a little outraged and it is with a lower eye that looks at the truck stop, we do "not" hand and let go half of the population of the city in their dumpster ... then so be it, we will not spend the day there, we will pay 1 CUC per person with a passenger car rather than going to agree with The Love Boat to reach Pinar del Rio not too late either.
Once there, you eat a piece (that with all this is to say the 25km that separates Vinales Pinar del Rio ... it is already noon) ... We are covered by an anvil which gives us the feeling of annoyance yet because frankly, it's not that they are super many touts, is that they are super sticky, regularly cross our path and lying to us to give false information all the time and that's frankly annoying. Once the belly full, so we decided to try the local bus, seeing well that in any event, we will not get away with ... Oh stop it but the bus Viazul (the company for tourists which Cubans have no access) does not offer trips in the morning, and that Astro Bus (company for Cubans allowed to a limited number of tourists by bus 2!) we are forbidden. Why? Because you are tourists. Frankly, the measures against tourists backpackers here are worse than those taken against swine flu in South America, it's diabolical ... Too bad we have said, we will fall back on private cars. So we go back out and begin to question the price to go to Havana, because we understood that going directly to Playa Larga was heresy (and say that I rant against the French centralism which is the last 8 hours by train La Rochelle - Brest ... But at least Can I tell myself today!). How Jose? $ 60 per person?! Enough is enough, you start to make fun of them as they are. Failing to be effective, at least, that we let off steam. "No, not $ 60, 120!" Yeah we did head the bugger! No but it will not, or what?!
Since it like that, we say that we will repeat as to go and we'll bet on the stop on the highway. 10 minute walk later we arrive thus at the edge of the highway, where many Cubans are waiting in the shade of a flamboyant flowers. It's beautiful. Nan j'déconne when you got the impression you make serious thread, there's nothing that looks really nice! Hey! Take that into your teeth Cuba! (It feels it has the balls here?)
And we wait. It reaches out proudly, head high, chest bulging tousala, and Blowin 't that it is enough for us to do it that Ms. Large loaves (GM for short) starts to do the same. Yeah, it's not the first time and this is reminiscent of that thing the tourist model, as long as you have elected a lonely place to sit, chose automatically the same, to believe that either he thinks that since you have chosen is that it's the best (so it makes it too), it is always reassuring to be close to a fellow, eh (so it there puts too)! Anyway ...
And we wait.
And we wait.
Well, now it is 1 1 / 2 hours we are there, the people waiting was repeated at least 3 times between people which are mounted in the cabs of trucks (often women for that matter), people who have been taken by vehicles prohibited for us and the people are gone, then what do we do?! We still gives 1 / 2 hour after it pulls ... What therefore 1 / 2 hour later, just after the intervention of Roberto, soaked in rum while he swallowed the whole time he expects: "wheeeere do you come from? Ah ... Francesa ... I do not parrrle fffffrancais "Both Roberto, it's been 2 times I say, in English, I speak English, but it does not matter, at least someone will come to us talk. For here is a bit to think that without the macho men who can go up to recite a poem or offer me, smiling at Matthew, if I do not want a "novio cubano" (duh! A Cuban fiance!), or touts who talk only to extract money from us at one time or another, no one deigns to want to have the embryo of the idea we speak. Would we look like little pigs sick?
Go, bags on his back, return to the bus station to see if there is anyway way to board a bus or find a car to take us Havana ...
there, same story: the bus Astro 17h we are forbidden and the prices of taxis is prohibitive. We meet on this occasion three passengers, two Peruvians and Cubans who are in the same situation as us, refusing to pay 50 times the price of transport and preferring to wait until prices are more reasonable ... It looks a bit sitting in the su of all drivers of private car or taxi, the kind of technical unlikely fisherman, but he must face the obvious: too bad, so we will wait for the passage of the Astro bus on the edge of the road because if body tourist we refuse access, greed potential driver can not be ... U-turn again to return to the road, just outside the station to await the passage of buses. Along the way, a Cuban challenges us, offering us her room-not expensive-conditioned-y '-a-bus-is-tomorrow-you-in-l'frigo-I-a-friend-who-can- help ... Yes .. It knows you and Mr José Muscled ... Draw the road, we had already done too many times today and there is no longer in the mood. But at 17h, the bus does not stop big blind, and for good reason ... There are almost as many people standing dans l’allée que de personnes assises… C’est vraiment malheureux.
17h30. On rejoint donc, bredouilles, les 3 voyageurs qui ont un bilan aussi misérable que nous. Il est 18h, de toute façon, c’est officiel, on n’arrivera pas aujourd’hui à Playa Larga (ce sens de la déduction… De vrais Sherlock Holmes…). Alors nous voila partis chez José les Musclés, “el Moro” de son petit nom, qui s’avère avec sa femme, un couple adorable proposant une chambre impeccable à bon prix. Leur sourire [et la vision du lit…] nous séduit : banco pour cette nuit. Au final d’ailleurs, on a même mangé chez eux une très good food and have enjoyed their good company, although they still remain Cubans, they have vaguely tried to lull us the fruits of the end of the meal but what do you, apparently it's cultural ...
On their advice , we get up at 6am so that second morning trip to try the chopper "wa-wa", understand the bus-truck thing where people are piled. Accompanied by Moro, we sit down among workers bound for Havana and ... wait. Once is not custom, just one begins to stretch the thumb to GM74 (the number of big loaves air km2 is indeed ... impressive here) starts to do the same ... But anyway, this morning, nobody has hit with cars, large loaves or not, then, preferring not to wait as much as yesterday, we decide on mimicry many people already left and the echoes collected ("no wa-wa today" said one to another), to alter course towards the bus station. Here, we look for a taxi ... and fall back on a passenger yesterday! Our tip is found and it is for a reasonable price now that we are heading to Havana. Phew!
On the road, we are impressed by the number of people waiting, enjoying the shade of a bridge (about 50 people per bridge ...) or completely along the road, with or without an umbrella to fight against the sun, reaching out, sometimes with a Tickets Cuban pesos. It's just sad. Maybe today there is no wa-wa. Maybe (probably same) as transport for Cubans never provide schedules of way, forcing people to wait at stops for a period sometimes interminable passage of such transportation. But what is certain, given the crowding of people into the dump trucks (frankly, it cattle truck really ...) or in buses, and given the number of people to wait forever on the edge of the road,
that Cuba is a big transportation problem, characterized by at least severe shortage of buses and wa-wa. We pity those people who, if they have the incredible luck of having all access to health totally free (to paying the luxury of going after their ideas form since Cuba every year thousands of doctors from poor countries and sends 30 000 each year in underdeveloped countries in the name of international solidarity ... hat), education and literacy (it's still here it is the illiteracy rate lowest in the world ...), the fact remains that they have a public transport service making the slightest movement laborious
... For our part, we are heading in our jalopy flashy ... I must say here that the cars in Cuba is an institution ... Old American cars 50-60 years from the time of the wealth of pre-revolution Cuba , old Russian Lada at the time of the agreements of the Soviet bloc, these wrecks have survived the ages because of the blockade, making real Cubans mechanical geniuses. Fidel has even declared national heritage prohibiting their export! Result?
The shiny cars to the body with love and cared backbenches, an atmosphere of old American movie, the class to be inside, and a mechanical ... almost perfect ... Anyway, mid- way on the highway, we all had a little urge to stop us, is not it?
We finally arrive in Havana at 11am, just happy to have the whole day before us to find a match. Finally it was thought! Buses? Than to tourists, of course, and it is only in the morning ... The cars? How Jose? $ 100? And your sister? Unless we think about all the great opportunities, we must get to the obvious: it was ... far left ... like fish in water ... the pot, a few jolts of tests at the station before we leave deport the edge of the road to join a guest near the station. Yes, is that guests are nearby to almost 3 times the usual price so we have to take a taxi to find a more reasonable price. And that says a taxi said ... wait on the roadside there is one who deign to stop. And presto! Rebelote ... Frankly, it's not like we were out yesterday morning to 145 terminals and we did not choose our own free will to sleep in Havana. (...) Oh yes! A little tip, I admit, I returned to see drivers of cars which I had announced the $ 100 just now and listening carefully to pronounce the words annoying "5 CUC. But shit. I go back to Matthew, broucouille always on the curb, and then I turn around. It will be 4 CUC buddy. Ok ok. "Why not 5?!" he tries, "my friend", a look you never know, on a misunderstanding. What he has not taken ... Between "Of all the countries we visited, the Cubans are the best people we have met capitalist because capitalism is always looking to have more money and that's what all Cubans with tourists "and" For 10 days we're here, we only met two Cubans really kind and selfless, "they really got expensive the point of remembering our departure from Syria exceeded
... Go is not serious, after a day and a night lost in Havana, we leave the 3rd day of transport with a bus Viazul paid 13 CUC per person, air conditioning block and surrounded by tourists, Playa Larga direction. What do you want, it's unfortunate but Cuba is not a country of backpackers, and if we find that mass tourism with a lot of all-inclusive package is a mess, the tourist duck around the buoy neck does not lose much here as public transport, besides being inaccessible, give access to any interesting communication with the local population. As for the tenants of casas particulares, hotels and restaurants, their kindness is often dictated by their desire for gain, what we call, in other words, relationships involved. Only a few exceptions confirm the rule. So why bother?
Playa Larga, Saturday, noon, at the end of the journey ...
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