Changing Cuba: Monster buses vanish from Havana streets
The Associated Press
Saturday, April 19, 2008
HAVANA: First comes the stink of diesel, then a metallic roar, and
finally a tower of black smoke that tells you the "camello" the
camel has reached your stop.
These hulking 18-wheeled beasts, iron mutants made of two Soviet-era
buses welded together on a flatbed and pulled by a separate cab, have
long been Havana's public trans****t nightmare bumpy, hot and jammed
with up to 400 passengers at a time.
But their gradual disappearance is a telling sign of change in the
twilight of the Fidel Castro age. The last "camello" is expected to go
out of service in Havana on Sunday night.
The camello, so named for its humped front and rear sections, is being
eclipsed by thousands of new city buses from China as the government
under Castro's brother, Raul, resuscitates a public trans****tation
system on the brink of collapse.
Route M-6, running from the capital's southern outskirts uptown to the
University of Havana, is the city's last remaining camello route, and
municipal authorities say they have been told to pull all camellos off
it this weekend.
"I think we should build a monument to the camello," said retiree
Salvador Carrera, a camello passenger. "It has been an extraordinary
thing."
The capital aside, camellos are far from extinct. The government has an
island-wide fleet of more than 1,000, and those from Havana could be
used to augment bus service elsewhere, trans****tation employees say.
Like those ubiquitous Detroit cars that predate the U.S. embargo, the
camello is a definer of Cuba on wheels, but without the fun of a San
Francisco cable car ride or the clean efficiency of the Wa****ngton, D.C.
Metro.
What it lacks in glamor, it makes up for in sheer mass that dwarfs its
Chinese successors.
"We can carry up to 400 people. The bus cannot," lamented conductor
Estela Doira. "I'm happy, also sad, because the camello handles a lot
more than the bus."
At the start of a camello run one morning last week, it took just over
five minutes for 75 passengers to swarm up the steep steps and through
the narrow doors at the rear. Doira hung out of a window to make sure no
one got stuck. The doors, thin metal with sharp edges, shut with a
metallic crack that sounded sharp enough to sever limbs.
The fortunate got one of the 58 plastic seats, while the rest had to
stand. Each alighting passenger paid Doira 20 centavos, less than an
American penny.
Camellos have no shock absorbers, and every pothole sends a violent jolt
through one's feet. At each stop more passengers crowd in people
carrying infants, backpacks, gardening tools and beer bottles stuffed
with black market honey. Baby-faced soldiers squeeze in beside college
students in hot-pink sungl***** and elderly men looking thin enough to
be crushed in the crowd.
It's hard to work one's way on or off, and the driver in his cab can't
hear people screaming, "The door! Open the door!"
"Move it, companeros! Move to the front!" they yell.
With no air conditioning, the tropical heat quickly becomes unbearable,
and the stench sets in fresh sweat and body odor, mixed with exhaust
and rotting food. Those seated stick their heads out of the windows.
"Only in Cuba. In other countries people wouldn't put up with so much,"
whispered retiree Mari Gonzalez, who was fortunate enough to snag a seat.
Cubans joke that camellos are racier than a Saturday night at the
movies full of *** and crime, pickpockets and gropers. Overheard
conversations between passengers feed the onboard rumor mill: Fidel
Castro is dead. No, wait, he's healthy again; he spent last weekend at
the beach. The peso will strengthen against the dollar. Or maybe will be
replaced with a new currency.
The camello was born in response to fuel shortages in the early 1990s,
when the Soviet Union collapsed and Cuba lost its annual US$6 billion
(3.8 billion) in subsidies. The economy has since recovered thanks to
heavy borrowing from China and nearly 100,000 barrels of oil a day from
Venezuela.
Cuba is spending US$2 billion (1.3 billion) to upgrade public
trans****tation and has im****ted 3,000 modern buses just for the capital.
The Yutongs are less sturdy than the camellos and crews are repaving
streets to spare them wear and tear.
Fares are double the camello's but offer far more seats and a
dramatically smoother ride. Riders can climb on and off easily, ensuring
faster trips.
Carmen Lopez, waiting for a Chinese bus to whisk her to her janitor's
job, said she's glad to be rid of the camellos but doesn't believe she's
seen the last of them.
"When the new buses break down," she said, "they will bring the camellos
back again."
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/04/19/news/CB-FEA-GEN-Cuba-Vani****ng-Beasts.php
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