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In Rural Cuba, a Slow Road to Progress
Horse-drawn buggies ferry people all day and into the night, when drivers light fires in small buckets that hang from a carriage's back and serve as reflectors.
(By Manuel Roig-franzia -- The Washington Post)
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Speedy seldom hauls the tourists. His owner, a part-time pig farmer named Ernesto Vuelta Ortega, sighs when he sees tourists whiz past on funny, chauffeur-driven scooters covered by bright yellow, egg-shaped shells. The scooter ride from the beach into town costs almost $5 -- a pittance for vacationers but a fortune for the average Cuban.
"Yes, that's for the rich folks," Vuelta Ortega said.
He said he remembers gazing at the big cars in Trinidad when he was growing up in the early days of Castro's rule. He was sure he'd own one someday. But it never happened. The cars slowly disappeared, and Vuelta Ortega just laughed when he grew up and people tried to sell him barely functioning, or even inoperable, antique vehicles for $10,000 or more -- the average amount a Cuban would earn over 27 years.
A new car was out of the question. Cubans need government permission to buy new cars, which usually go to government agencies or to people involved in tourism and development, and almost no one outside those lines of work can afford one if they could get permission.
Vuelta Ortega long ago veered toward the horse and buggy. Today, years later, he knows everything that happens in Casilda. His passengers chat with him as he takes them to weddings and funerals, scoops them up sobbing and red-faced after lovers' quarrels or deposits them at work.
Far from complaining, many of his passengers seem to have embraced their 1800s-style transportation system. The leisurely ride fits the slow tempo of their lives, even though most say they would jump at the chance to own a car.
"This ride always clears my mind," a paunchy man named Sergio Ramirez said as he shuffled bags at his feet.
Behind Vuelta Ortega, the passengers sat on the wooden benches beneath his buggy's sun screen. A man with a lined face showed off a bag of flip-flops that he had picked up in town for 3 cents apiece. Another flipped a banana tree stalk that he'd found on the side of the road and was planning to feed to the pig that lives in his back yard.
A few minutes later, a woman at the side of the road waved one hand frantically at Vuelta Ortega as she clutched a young daughter's hand with the other. Maria Rodriguez Valdepena hopped aboard, rubbing her scraped right elbow.
A few weeks ago, she was going to splurge on a ride in a car taxi -- simply la maquina , or the machine, in local parlance. But the only one that runs to the nearby town of Sancti Spiritus -- the one that leaves just once a day -- was broken down as usual. She hitched a ride on a flatbed truck, but the railing broke halfway there and she tumbled to the roadside.
No more transportation involving engines for her, she said. From now on, she'll stick with Speedy.
