BenTha'er-Horizons

Cuban Road Trip, Part Two

The second part of Michael Totten’s Journal covering his road trip around Cuba. In this piece, he traveled to Trinidad which is a World Heritage Site. From his description, it is a beautiful city in many ways, unfazed by the Communist changes to architecture and buildings. Much of what has been there has been in place for centuries, even longer than parts of Paris as he mentioned. It is illuminating when he describes again how little people live on in Cuba, twenty dollars a month. Though even if one has cash money there is little or nothing there that one can use the money to buy. It is much like a post-apocalyptic world where money has no value or meaning to everyday life.

“So it turns out even Trinidad’s bubble of private enterprise can barely hobble along when it’s encircled by communism and cut off from the rest of the world. In hindsight, that’s obvious. I showed up in Cuba on a middle class salary, and I even brought emergency money, but I still couldn’t buy anything. Nothing’s for sale. Everything is in short supply everywhere. It doesn’t matter how much money you have in your pocket or your account. Cash isn’t as worthless as it would be after the end of the world, but it’s close.”

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