The ‘almendrones’ that used to travel the 30 kilometres to the capital have almost disappeared since prices rose from 20 to 500 pesos.
14ymedio, Julio César Contreras, San José de las Lajas, Cuba, 27 November 2025 — Virginia is surprised by the silence. It is not complete silence—in Cuba it never is—but it is a strange silence, unfamiliar, uncharacteristic of the San José de las Lajas station. In front of the old train terminal, the building that seems to resist falling down while it is losing bits and pieces, there are hardly five or six people waiting. No one shouts “Havana, Havana!” or fights over seats as they did in the past. Even the parking attendants seem to have been struck dumb.
The woman asks who is last in line for the capital, with that tone that is half resignation, half urgency that you put on when you have a sick mother on the other side of the road. The wind carries the smell of stale fried food from the fast food kiosks, which are half empty today. On the street, oil stains form dark circles around the almendrones*, as if marking the territory of an endangered species. A silver one — perhaps a 1950s Dodge with customised wheels — gleams sadly under the cloudy sky.
“Before COVID, when the fare was 20 pesos, there was one car after another,” recalls Virginia. It is a simple, direct nostalgia that does not idealise the past but compares and concludes: this is worse, much worse. “First they put it up to 100, then to 200… and so on until it reached 500 pesos today.” She does not know all the reasons behind the increase, but she knows what hurts. “It is the people who pay for it,” she repeats.
Some 30 kilometres separate San José from Havana, but today they seem like a world apart. Inflation not only empties pockets: it also empties spaces. The taxi rank shows it. Passengers are scattered, in no hurry, knowing that rushing is pointless when there are hardly any private taxis. On a corner, a tall man in a cap and blue jumper leans against the door of a car.
“Many of the drivers are not owners,” says a man of medium height, arms crossed and weather-beaten face, who claims to be first in line. “My cousin has to pay the owner 15,000 a day. The boss doesn’t care how many trips have been made… he just wants his money.” The phrase hangs in the air like a dry echo, a reminder that even a struggle has to be rented.
A few metres away, a blue truck adapted for public transport roars into life. Inside, people travel crammed together, their bodies trained to balance without falling. For many, this is the only option. Manuel, a self-employed worker, sums it up bluntly: “Here you spend an hour or two waiting for a vehicle, if it shows up. And when it does, there aren’t enough people to fill it and finally get it going.” He knows that for those who travel several times a week, paying 500 pesos is almost an insult.
A young man wearing a star-patterned cap checks his watch, while another man puts his backpack in the back seat of an old private taxi, waiting for more passengers willing to pay the high price for a trip to the Cuban capital. According to Manuel, after midday things get worse: taxis to Güines, if they show up at all, go up to 600 or even 700 pesos. And if you want to hire a whole car, the figure can reach 10,000. “Who can understand that?” he asks aloud, but no one answers because everyone understands, and that’s the problem.
Desperation begins to set in when a Chevrolet pulls into the forecourt. It is light blue, old but elegant. “Come on! Go and find 500 pesos!” shouts a parking attendant coming out of a kiosk, as if the mere presence of the car justifies rushing to pick up their bags. “Come on, taxi to Havana,” he adds, knowing that before the car is full, he will have already collected his commission.
Virginia sighs. The initial silence is gone: now it is filled with murmurs, impatience, the sound of the lorry driving away, the car park attendant repeating his line, the rattling of the old car as it revs its engine, the faint hope that the journey will start before midday.
In San José de las Lajas, the bus stop has always been a crossroads: of routes and of lives, but today it is also a hub where rising prices and the urgency to travel collide.
*Translator’s note: Many classic American cars continue to provide taxi service in Cuba, and are known as “almendrones”, a reference to their ‘almond shape.”
Translated by GH
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