Santiago de Cuba is getting another nickname besides the ones earned by history, or the mountains, or heat, or carnivals. Now some call it “The city of the motorbikes.”
While in Havana a true museum of American cars from the fifties travels its streets as taxis; in the eastern city you can think that, at any time, they will drop the checkered flag in a race track.
There are bikes from anywhere in the archipelago, of any brand and above all they are everywhere.
I cannot remember when such a flock arrived on two wheels. Perhaps the late nineties, after the slow recovery from the economic collapse of the fall of the socialist block, but such influx have never stopped.
This is one of the most densely populated municipalities in the country, spread beyond its foundational streets on developments, hamlets, towns and peripheral sites. The public transport-buses or vans-is just not enough for the transfer of Santiago’s population. Let alone cabs.
Rental bikes are recognized because there’s always an extra helmet hanging from the helm. And once you take it, you can get inside the same in a gleaming model, another full of patches, or one using plastic bags as filling. These are the epitome of polyfunctionality of bags.
Moving on a bike in Santiago de Cuba is not anything. No matter if you go to your job, to a rendezvous at a hospital; if you carry a backpack or bag. This is a personalized travel: go to the destination you choose, move at any time, without fear of crowds, bumps or detours.
It is a relationship of supply and demand, ten pesos in national currency is the regular balance whenever they move into the center; but if you mention further afield, the drama is triggered: they can be crestfallen stirred in their seats … until the amount is indicated.
The odd thing is that everything seemed to be “on the side”. Only recently appeared the legal character with the granting of “transport operating licenses to all those who move people on motorcycles … exceptionally, mandatory and experimental (renewable each year)”
Bikers or characters??
Motorists are many times characters. Old boys in shorts and sandals, long pants and Adidas shoes with sleeves shirts or without them, with muscles that seem to burst the fabric; but you also find veterans of abundant meat and calmer.
They may be owners of motorcycles who handle them, or are leased to a family member or friend, but that hardly matters. It does not matter if you’re a hot chic, a student or a gentleman on the way to retirement. Just ride and tell them you where to go.
Some know all the addresses: the bay and the mountains, and the distributions of any alley, the miles of freeways and known arteries. To others you will have to identify these, but in any case find a solution to get you right where you want.
Do not hesitate in calling attention to retake a reasonable speed, if anyone speeds too much. If it rains, they will find you shelter. And you will see them again owning the streets, as it clears.
So you can live an adventure, a road movie, who knows if an entire film, whose home is in your hands; on a bike that comes to your feet, in Santiago de Cuba.
