Model Cuba | Alone on the highway in Cuba

Anyone who can afford a car and gasoline in Cuba has the Carretera Nacional, the highway, to themselves. Photo: AFP/PABLO PORCIUNCULA A visit from a friend from Germany is a welcome opportunity to get out of Havana for a few days. I do it far too rarely. Another friend with a car, who is always up for an adventure, is easily persuaded, so we even travel relatively comfortably. These days, gasoline is available again without any major problems - for $2.20 to $2.50 per liter at the gas station, but still. On the street, a liter of gasoline is traded between 2,000 and 2,300 CUP, which is more or less the same price.

The Carretera Nacional, the highway, is hardly used. Except for the occasional taxi or truck, we had the road to ourselves. For kilometers it goes straight through a landscape overgrown with Marabú. There is hardly any agricultural land to be seen. A private rest stop halfway along the route. We feel like we are the first guests today - and we are greeted with joy. The owner says that there used to be an average of three or four coaches parked here at the same time around lunchtime and business with Cuban food and mojitos was booming. In the past, this refers to the good old Obama years, when many wanted to come to Cuba again before the first McDonald's branches opened on the island. They are still waiting for the first McDonald’s here; But tourists no longer come.

Boycotted by the USA for decades, socialist Cuba is fighting for survival. Andreas Knobloch reports from Havana how that feels. All texts are available here.

The menu is extensive. There is fish, lobster, chicken, pork, rice with beans and afterwards homemade flan and coffee. Little by little the tables around us fill up. One car, wider than the other, rolls into the parking lot in front of the restaurant: SUVs, wide tires, docked. Cuba's new middle class wears sunglasses, glitter shirts and has the latest iPhone in their hands.

The closer we get to Santa Clara, the more accurately the hedges on the median are trimmed. It's amazing what things actually work. In the Casa in Santa Clara where we stay, a similar story. The owners live in Italy; the manager says that there were three guests there in October; This month we are the first. The electricity has just been turned off, and a car battery in a plastic box in the kitchen provides lighting and hot water.

It's amazing what things actually work.

It is less than 300 meters to the central square with the Hotel “Santa Clara Libre”. Life is buzzing here late on a Friday afternoon. Bars and cafés are well filled, reggaeton blares from a loudspeaker, and in the middle of the square children drive in circles on electric toy cars and mopeds as their parents watch. A resourceful businessman has built an entire fleet of vehicles there. One imagines the “almost complete collapse of the state,” which the US magazine “The Atlantic” wrote about at the end of October, differently.

What's noticeable: Almost all electric tricycles have a solar panel screwed to the roof that directly feeds the motor. Of course it makes sense when you only have two to three hours of electricity per day. In Havana, the tricycles usually still run without panels. But the power cuts there are also becoming longer and longer.

A few street corners further is “El Mejunje”, Santa Clara’s famous cultural center. There's a lot of activity here too. A few people are loudly playing dominoes, young people come and go. Since there is no electricity, the coffee is prepared on a small fireplace in the cafeteria. A theater performance has been announced for the evening. In Cuba, life itself is a complete theater, says one of my companions. The government performs something every day and so do the people themselves. We decide to watch the play in the evening. The title is promising: “Mejor Vida” – better life.

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