“When I got to the service center I had 300 cars ahead of me”
14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 29 August 2024 — Havana seems to have returned to the worst days of the fuel crisis. Piled up and bored, since the beginning of the week the drivers wait daily for hours in line and often don’t manage to buy. On a tour by 14ymedio through several gas stations in the city, even those that charge in dollars, usually empty, had lines this Thursday.
“It’s not just today. Yesterday I went to all the service centers of El Vedado, Guanabacoa and Miramar and only found gasoline on the Puente de Hierro, near the bay tunnel,” Yoel, driver of a private Moskvitch, tells this newspaper. “Even at Infanta and San Rafael, where I always buy, there wasn’t a drop,” he says. Finding a place with fuel, as expected, is not enough: “When I got to the gas station I had 300 cars in front of me.” He left without buying.
Piled up and bored, since the beginning of the week the drivers wait for hours every day
This Thursday, Yoel took to the streets again in search of gasoline. This time the tour took him through the municipality of Plaza de la Revolución, where “not a single service center had anything.” Finally, at the Tángana, in El Vedado, the driver joined a line no less long than the previous day’s line to refuel.
“They told me that here and the 25 and G service center are the only places where they are selling gasoline, but I don’t want to risk going there and find the same number of people or more than here. It’s better to wait, and if I don’t make it today either then I’ll have to try again,” he sighs, resigned.
To top it off, he says, several drivers in the line have told him that the cards to buy fuel are failing, which delays the line and makes the drivers more nervous. “Those who don’t even have Fincimex cards have to look for where to recharge, because that’s the only one that’s working now. With the others the connection fails,” he explains.
The lack of fuel is also noticeable in state transport, says Yoel. “Today I haven’t seen a state bus pass by all day,” he says.
“That station is for the privileged who can pay in dollars,” Yoel complains. “The rest, we have to endure here under rain, sun and clouds.”
A few blocks from Tángana is the Vista al Mar gas station, which has been selling fuel exclusively in dollars since last June. The place was the last in the capital to be transformed into a service center collecting “hard currency,” and, although some cars are clumped together in line – mainly almendrones – the short line is far from those that have formed in front of the neighboring premises – one to refuel and another to fill jerricans – that already go around the block.
“This service is for the privileged who can pay in dollars,” complains Yoel. “The rest of us have to endure it here in rain, sun and calm.”
Translated by Regina Anavy
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