Yesterday I arranged for a shared "taxi collectivo" to take me to Trinidad. Because the collectivos didn't know, when I booked, who I would be sharing a ride with, and because I don't have phone service, my driver told me to just wait outside my apartment from 8-9am and somebody would pick me up eventually. This manual Uber Pool has no GPS tracking and no messaging system. "Different world," I didn't say aloud to myself, but might have had I known then that I'd be writing about it now.
I jumped into the '50s 6-seater -- it was old but so very sweet, much like an over-ripened banana. The engine fired. Its diesel fumes reminded me of my dad's old pickup. As did the seats, which were black and overly squishy, like an over-ripened banana. I was sandwiched in the back seat between two Italians who were nice if not prickly. To my right, Matteo had shaved his arms, though not recently. His tricep stubble was irritating my naturally hairless shoulders. Up front sat a German couple who, after meeting on Tinder just a few months ago, was now traveling the world. (Mila, if you're reading this, that could have been us!)
Along the ride, the Germans gave me lots of tips for what to see in Havana. I never worked up the courage to ask them if Wonder Bread gives them diarrhea. They told me the $50 I paid for the four hour, door-to-door taxi was far too much even though it seemed like a good deal to me. (... I guess I'm just not used to haggling for everything. Should I be haggling more in the United States? At what point in a country's development does haggling fall out of vogue?...)
As I was dozing off the car came to a sudden stop, a maneuver I thought impossible for these old American yank tanks. An elderly woman was selling bananas on the side of the highway and our driver apparently loves bananas. He shared the delicious bunch with the whole car and we were quickly back on our way. Once in Trinidad I moseyed about for a bit and then caught a ride to the picturesque Ancon Beach. A lot of Speedos, I noticed, astutely, and stripped down to my skivvies so as to blend in with the locals.
The ocean was surprisingly warm. I took a sip. "Soy Cuba!" I didn't exclaim, as the Cuban waters coursed through my veins. I spent the rest of the day reading The Old Man and the Sea, delighting in the fact that the waters Hemingway wrote about were somewhere inside of me, like a perfectly-ripened, roadside banana. My mojito dried up as the sun set between two cans of trash.
My rumbling stomach reminded me that I had eaten just once since arriving in Cuba. Maybe that was for the best -- I don't know the Spanish to ask if it's okay to flush toilet paper down the drain. (There are garbage cans next to many of the toilets, but I'm too scared to peek inside to see if it's supposed to be for toilet tissue.)
The taxi I caught back to town picked up, without explanation, many many hitchhikers before dropping me off in town. There, I found an outdoor restaurant playing good music and serving bad pork, and settled in for the evening.
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