The two little girls are maybe eight years old. Maybe. The late afternoon, and their red skirts and white shirts identify them as students heading home from school. They congregate with other, older people at a busy intersection near Guama, Cuba, and without a second’s hesitation, they jump into the car.
In the United States, a loving mother would scold her daughter within a half-inch of her life for a stunt like this. In Cuba, hitchhiking is standard transportation. Kids learn the ropes early, and many thumb rides all their lives because they will never earn enough to buy an old car, not even a bicycle.
Barbara and Fidelia are the first hitchhikers we pick up on our four-day blitz of Central Cuba. Because we’re two women at large, we figure support for other females is the order of the day. Through the Sisterhood, we can practice our Spanish, learn something of the Cuban culture and get knowledgeable local guides for the low, low cost of access to our empty backseat.
Although safety was initially an issue, we soon learn that “gringas” behind the wheel of a brand new Peugeot can pick up anyone they want with no concern for life or limbs. It’s almost like being On the Road with Jack Kerouac, mid-1900s in the US. Indeed, friends of mine hitched rides across the states well into the 1970’s; even I picked up roadside travelers until sometime in the late 60’s.
I’m not sure of the exact date—probably shortly after I read Truman Capote’s 1966 blockbuster “In Cold Blood” —but one day I decided strangers just might be dangerous.
Not so in Cuba’s countryside. Barbara teaches an adult education history class, and she hitchhikes as much as 50 miles-a-day to reach her diverse classroom locations. This afternoon, our lunch stop is at a roadside restaurant where the manager is one of her students.
Then there’s Fidelia, who lives in Santa Clara. Yes, Fidelia is her real name and she teaches fencing—yes, fencing—to students of all ages. She’s hitching the 120 miles home from Havana after spending the weekend with her sister. Anywhere but in Cuba, where fencing is a government-sponsored sport, Fidelia would be a starving artist.
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| Cathedral in Trinidad, Cuba |
We offer rides to couples with babies; to rugged, young men when we’re really lost, and generally, to anyone with whom we think we can communicate. But by the third day’s late afternoon, we’re truly brain-dead from all the work it takes to meet and learn about people in a foreign culture. In fact, one old girl gets a bit testy in the later-day heat and she unwittingly sets off a philosophical shift in our loosely formed travel agenda: “Psst, psssst, senorita,” she repeatedly calls to Jan, who is riding shotgun and has to do most of the talking while I drive.
Jan doesn’t mind the incessant chatter, but the finger jabs to her shoulder, with each of Mamacita’s new thoughts, begin to hurt. After we drop her off in a remote village, Jan announces: “No more Spanish lessons in the afternoon; no more pickups past 1 p.m. Whenever we come to people on the road, we’ll look the other way, avoid eye-contact and we won’t feel so darn guilty when we drive by.”
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| Remote village in Central Cuba |
Oh yes, we’re spoiled gringas (sunglasses in a land where nobody wears them immediately gives us away), but we simply can’t bypass the two muchachas wilting in the dead heat of the after-school sun near Guama.
When the little girls jump in, they don’t say much. They just giggle and huddle together on the backseat. And when they motion us to drive past the wide double-lane highway that looks awfully familiar, we ask: “Isn’t this the National Autopista we want to take to Havana?”
“No, no” they assure us. The road we want is down the way, nearer to their homes.
And then we wise up: The tiny tots are in this for a chauffeured ride, right up to their front doorsteps.
In travel—as in life—it’s the shy, baby faces you gotta watch.
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