Of course, we’re all familiar with the stereotypical classic 50s car culture that Cuba has become known for, but cars are certainly not the be-all and end-all for getting, and moving stuff, around in Cuba.
Cuba has local bus service for short distance travel, and electric-powered trains for longer journeys. In addition, hitchhiking is extremely important to Cubans. Although I have not verified this, I’ve been told that if you are driving a car that’s not full of passengers, you are obligated to pick up hitchhikers, so basically the opposite of how we deal with hitchhikers in Canada!
For internal neighbourhood travel and transport, Cubans depend a great deal on both two and three-wheeled varieties of bikes and carts. In spending just a few hours walking around Matanzas, I could see that bikes are tremendously integral to Cuban day-to-day life.
While on the subject of bikes, you will notice in the photos below that Cubans have a very unique way of adding passengers to two-wheeled bikes. This method is very common… although it looks very uncomfortable to me!
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