Empty Lanes

Today Felipe from our casa drove us cross country to our next destination, the city of Santa Clara.
Most of the iconic classic cars that fill Havana's streets are these days filled with engines and parts from Korean or Japanese cars, so this wasn't as arduous a task as it may seem. As I sat in the back of the 50's Chevrolet, I pondered that its interior was bigger than my first apartment in Korea, and how, despite the new parts, it was about as loud inside as if someone had opened a window on a jet plane.

There's a fairly good motorway from Havana to Santa Clara, but despite being similar in size to those in Britain (three lanes each way) it was eerily devoid of traffic. There were other vehicles, just not very many, and it was strange as we headed out to see the occasional ambitious cyclist or a uniform-clad teen waiting to be picked up for school.

Things got even stranger when the car in front of us suddenly beeped and swerved, quickly revealing another car hurtling towards us the wrong way down the motorway. We slowed down sharply, as my sphincter let me know it fully grasped the gravity of the situation. Thankfully the blur of coloured metal raced safely past us, and we were left unharmed and puzzled in an incident that would have been fatal almost anywhere else in the world.

Above is Felipe in the yellow and his giant of a son to the left, who also came along for the ride.