There are no Eggs in Viñales

The Story you’re about to immerse yourself into is the first part of Infinite Library’s ‘assholes travelling to distant places’ collection. To read more, whether you’d like it or not, follow the Infinite Library, or it will start following you.

Listen; if you must go, I have one thing to tell you. Everything is fine, until a Cuban person tells you that everything is fine.

In Cienfuegos, in the middle of a passived crowd waiting at a completely unmarked bus stop, a fat intermediary arranges the taxi for us one day before we set off to Viñales. My father asks him three times if 7:30 is fine and gives him the address. The man, another in the line of shifty Cubans who never make eye contact, nods and says everything is already sorted. This is another way of saying everything is fine.

By 8:00 the next day, we’ve abandoned hope of ever seeing the car. Our host Arelys, serious with her phone and dark brown lipliner, makes a couple of four-sentence calls to arrange another car. If her and my dad weren’t old friends, the sombre tone of her inquiries would lead me to believe they were selling my kidneys.

“It’s Arelys. I have two. Tourists, yes. Ok, call me.”

At 8:20, the original taxi shows up acting as if this was the agreement. My father tries to argue with them, probably to get some dignity back in the form of an apology, but this isn’t how it works.

“There are no eggs in Viñales, so I bought some” he says, as we enter the taxi. The trip should take five solid hours, but won’t. The statement is meant to explain why I suddenly have three boxes of 144 eggs in my lap.

After painful trial and error across my four visits, I’ve come to advise collective taxis as the only realistic way to go about without going bust. The Viasul buses might be shiny and appealing to those who’ve ever been stuck in a 1952 Dodge with a door that wouldn’t close (me), but the luxury of address-to-address service really does it for us, and the 432 eggs in my lap.

The way transprovincial transport is organised stipulates that all passengers travelling to Viñales stop seven kilometres outside of Havana to change to a different vehicle. Why this happens is unclear.

A number of sources have already ensured us that this is a two-minute change and that there’s never a problem. It’s routine business. This is also another way of saying that everything is fine.

Three hours later, we stop under a highway bridge to take part in the smooth exchange. With a relief, we notice that there’s already a few cars waiting.

“Your driver is ten minutes away,” we’re informed, “But he’s coming soon.”

We wait. Every ten minutes, the driver ensures us he’s tried calling the other, as if it means something. More cars come and go, as well as an old twelve-seater van that unceremoniously pulls up and waits for a mysterious arrival of his own. After an hour, we enquire about why we can’t take any of the cars around, and the driver is stupefied.

“Because these aren’t your cars! I called him. He’s close.”

Our incessant anger seems to entertain him, especially since everything is fine. After another half an hour, our new driver finally appears.

“But this is a fourteen-seater!” my father shouts, in the middle of a possible heart attack.

“Yes, the rest are coming now, don’t worry.”

I worry.

Five confused Belgians arrive, and get assigned to the first twelve-seater. We smoke making nervous conversation about what cities they’ve already visited.

Finally, people start dripping for our vehicle too. Three for their bus, two for ours. A Dutch couple, an Italian trio, a timid Polish duo with two extra seats worth of luggage. Soon, we’re down to two mere empties. The new driver tells me “soon” again.

“Yeah I know but we’ve been here since eleven!”

They all laugh because that’s impossible.

“Ten minutes. They’re coming.”

In that moment, a rusty Volvo pulls over.

The new tourists have all been waiting for a little while now and they’re getting restless. Amateurs.

We stare at the vehicle in expectation, but the passengers won’t leave the car.

Since it somehow looks like my shouting caused it to arrive in the first place, the bus people choose me as their emissary.

I approach the back door, where a sweaty driver with a grand total of twenty English words in his vocabulary tries to reason with three terrified Chinese students, who believe they’re being mugged.

“Maybe I can help?”

Thus I learn the story of the three Chinese, who understood nothing about a car change, haggled mightily to get two of them to Viñales and one to Havana for 45CUC, and see no reason that couldn’t happen.

Their driver is angsty too. He doesn’t understand why someone wouldn’t want to change cars here. Everyone changes cars here.

“This car won’t go to Viñales. That one will,” I point at the bus, after I gather both sides’ arguments. The three reconvene in hushed Cantonese.

“Yes,” the girl says, “but because it’s a bigger car and we have to change, we want to pay 40 now.”

The driver says no way, and as I look at the full van, the time, and the students, I realise it’s up to me to get us moving.

“Listen,” I tell them, trying to condense this absurdity into a plea, “I’m sorry you weren’t told you’d have to change cars, but see that bus over there? There’s ten people there, who are waiting for you. Without you, we can’t go. Without us, you can’t go either. You can stay here, or we can all go to Viñales together.”

They reconvene. This could be it.

“OK.” the girl accepts, and we go to the bus with a round of applause. I sit in the front, me and my 432 eggs, and the bus starts moving.

“Just so you know, the last mile before Viñales is called ‘back breaker’. Full of holes. Hang on tight.” the driver warns.

“Bring it.”

I, the new self-appointed Cuban tourist ombudsman, can confirm that things are fine.