Waiting and waiting and waiting

The most frustrating thing that we’ve experienced in Cuba is its infernal and inefficient bus system, or, more precisely, the system used to buy bus tickets. Cuba has two national bus lines – Astro and Viazul. The latter is used mainly by tourists and works just like any other bus line in the world: you go to their ticket office at the bus station and buy tickets for whatever day you want. Viazul prices vary but are usually about 4 to 5 CUC per hour, so tickets to Cienfuegos or Trinidad cost around 20 CUC. Astro, the line used by Cuban nationals, charges only around 50 moneda nacional (2 CUC) for the very same ticket – so instead of paying 40 CUC, we end up paying only 4 CUC. Given our absolute aversion to buying anything in CUC, it stands to reason that we would want to buy the cheapest tickets possible. This means, however, that we have to brave the Astro ticket system, perhaps the most mind-blowingly inefficient system ever devised by human beings, which takes any poor soul who dares face it to the very far limits of human mental endurance.

The buses themselves aren't bad. The system is another story.

Ok, so it’s bad, but not that bad. After having a more or less delirious experience waiting for four hours at the ticket reservation agency last week to get cheap tickets to Santa Clara, Maeve, Ani and I decided to once again attempt to buy tickets with Astro, this time to Cienfuegos. Because of our experience last time, I decided it’d be interesting to keep a log of what actually happened in our adventure to the Astro station.

12:30 PM

We got to the ticket agency and called for “ultimo” – last person. The line doesn’t seem too bad – only around twenty people ahead of us. The system works like this: you get in line outside of the ticket agency. The line that we stand in is to get into the “cage” – a small waiting area surrounded by a green chain-linked fence capable of seating about twenty people. Once you get into the cage, you sit down and watch all the people in front of you go in to actual ticket office, where you tell the person sitting at the desk where you’re going. Once you do that, you go outside into the cage and wait until everyone who is sitting in the cage gets called into the office, where you wait until you can buy your ticket. The problem is not so much the process itself as it is the system. Because Cuba’s lacks any sort of internet grid, everything needs to be done by phone. This means that every time every person buys any ticket going anywhere at any point in time, the ticket-sellers must call every other ticket office in Havana to make sure that those seats haven’t been reserved, and then they have to call every one of those ticket offices again to actually reserve the seats. The end result is that what would ordinarily take only five minutes anywhere else in the world takes a soul-crushing five hours. We spend more time waiting in line for the ticket than it takes to actually get to wherever you’re going.

The line outside the cage at 12:30

We’re a little more optimistic about the line today, since it’s not so long. I’m guessing that we’re only going to have to be here for three hours – hopefully.

1:30 PM

The line still hasn’t moved and it’s been an hour. Maeve went to go get some ice cream to cheer us up. I talked to several of the men standing in front of us and asked them what they thought of the line and he replied that it is probably the most inefficient system he’s seen in Cuba – and that’s saying a lot. “You can be a Revolutionary when you come in here,” he said, point at the cage, “but you won’t be one when you leave.”

A little comfort food: ice cream

2:30 PM

A lady came out of the ticket office and told everyone who was standing in line outside of the cage to get in order. Because the lines take so long, people usually just call “ultimo en fila” – last person in line – and memorize that person. When the next person comes up and asks for “ultimo”, you raise your hand and memorize that person as well. Once you’ve done that, you can walk around the area, find a place to sit or even go buy ice cream, because you’re almost assured that the line won’t budge. Cutting in line in Cuba is akin to stealing, a major social taboo especially for long lines like these.

Waiting in line and pretending to be mad

The lady who told us to get organized is letting people into the cage in groups of around twenty at a time. We were around 35th in line and so didn’t make into the cage just yet, but hopefully we will after they work through the group that just went in. There’s a very real possibility that the office will close before we are able to get into the cage, but I don’t want to think about that. I don’t think that the American University students who showed up an hour after us are going to make it.

3:30 PM

We’re in the cage! The man standing in line after Maeve was literally the last person in before they shut the doors to the cage. We got lucky – I don’t think the workers here are giving the people still standing outside the cage a chance.

Inside the cage

4:30 PM

To paraphrase the ubiquitous Revolutionary motivational phrase, “Tiquetes o muerte, venceremos!” – Tickets or death, we will win! We finally made it into the ticket office itself where we were told that we should have come earlier to buy tickets to Santa Clara. Now we’re just sitting in yet another waiting room hoping that the three ladies sitting at windows in front of us call us next. We probably have a while to go.

5:00 PM

For shame! The AU students who arrived an hour and a half after we did and only just came into the third waiting room just got their tickets! They must have paid off the ticket lady to get them the tickets quickly, because they very clearly just skipped about thirty people waiting with us. The whole process is getting to be ridiculous. I talked to the man next to me and he told me that he had been there since 8 AM – and I thought I was upset.

In the inside waiting room, at last!

I remember what a lady who may have been losing her mind told us the last time we bought tickets: “It’s a psychological war that they’re fighting against all the bus passengers. The Americans were right – they said that they didn’t have to fire a single shot here because Cubans were going to kill each other anyway, and that’s what’s going to happen at this ticket office. If I have to wait one more day for a bus ticket, I am going to lose my mind!”

5:30 PM

Free at last! After five hours of waiting in three different waiting areas, we finally got through to the ticket-seller and got our tickets to Cienfuegos. The tickets only cost 54 moneda nacional, or about $2. The question is, is it worth it?

Finally buying the tickets

Celebrating outside the cage

(pictures by Ani Goerdt)