BenTha'er-Horizons

Cuban Road Trip

As much as I wish I was the one traveling and on a road trip, I am not. Reading Michael Totten’s World Affairs Journal does make me feel as if I was though. He is a very engaging writer and brings a person right into the heart of where he is. You can see the countryside and experience what he experiences. I have written a piece earlier about his series on Cuba and here is another part of that visit. In this Journal piece, he is writing about taking a road trip to visit the Bay of Pigs. It is a name that should resonate in U.S. history and during JFK’s presidency. One gets a feel for the life of the average Cuban. People live on the same amount of money given to each person monthly. Seafood and meat items can be luxury goods and get them into very serious trouble. Michael Totten’s work is definitely worth reading.

“Police officers pull over cars and search the trunk for meat, lobsters, and shrimp. They also search passenger bags on city busses in Havana. Dissident blogger Yoani Sanchez wrote about it sarcastically in her book, Havana Real. “Buses are stopped in the middle of the street and bags inspected to see if we are carrying some cheese, a lobster, or some dangerous shrimp hidden among our personal belongings.”

If they find a side of beef in the trunk, so I’m told, you’ll go to prison for five years if you tell the police where you got it and ten years if you don’t.

No one is allowed to have lobsters in Cuba. You can’t buy them in stores, and they sure as hell aren’t available on anyone’s ration card. They’re strictly reserved for tourist restaurants owned by the state. Kids will sometimes pull them out of the ocean and sell them on the black market, but I was warned in no uncertain terms not to buy one.”
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