Getting around

For tourists, transportation can be a breeze. For Cubans however, choices are quite limited, often a challenge and certainly reason for a good deal of alternative thinking.

In the towns, the only half empty vehicles you’ll see are probably those carrying tourists. The local busses and the local Cuban taxis always seem to be crammed with people. You can see old bicycles with children’s seats and luggage carriers made out of timber or bicycles with 3, 4 or even 5 wheels.

On your way out of town you can observe the trucks transporting passengers in the blazing sun on the open platform. Those are the lucky ones. Large crowds of Cubans are standing by the roadside, waiting patiently for a lift with a bus or another truck.

Compared to that, the tourists have no problems. We can choose from a variety of taxis or use the air conditioned ViaZul-busses for long distance travel.

Busses

The best choice of transportation between cities is to use the comfortable, reliable and affordable ViaZul. You can check out their homepage here.

To get hold of the ticket, just ask the tourist-guide at any hotel one or two days in advance. In this way you'll already have a ticket when you arrive at the bus station.

Taxis

There is a number of different taxi-companies, and the cheapest by far, for average distance in the city is the PanTaxi. In most cases, you’ll know them by their yellow colour, and of course the "PanTaxi" on the side. They are not allowed to stop outside hotels; so you have to walk 5-10 meters before catching one. It’s a good idea to wait for a relatively new Citröen-model, as some of the older cars can reek quite awfully from gasoline.

If you plan to travel between cities by taxi, you can often strike a good deal with the taxi driver. He will initially quote you the price from the “official list” ex 25 CUC, but if you ask him, if that means that you can’t get there by taxi for ex. 15 CUC, there’ll soon be a negotiation on the way.