The Day I picked up a Cuban Hitchhiker.

[El Presidente]

 

Great story 

The Day I picked up a Cuban Hitchhiker

http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20180329-the-day-i-picked-up-a-cuban-hitchhiker

 

Something similar happened to us. I can't remember if ken or Macho was driving?

On the way to Playa Giron (2 1/2 hours outside of Havana), we were pulled over by a policeman who promptly hopped in the back seat and said "drive". 

I am an excellent conversationalist and asked him about where he was heading (Mantanzas), did he have a family, how long he had been a copper etc.  I wasn't getting too far with him. I knew I had asked one too many questions when he dug out a tape and leaned in from the back seat. He said to put the tape in the tape deck and shut the "***K" up.   To be culturally correct he said it in Spanish.  We complied. 

[thedame007]

That was a really enjoyable article, very well written! 

[Fugu]

Very nice read. And the message it holds, so true. Thanks for posting!

[beparrish]

Great article, but it also saddens me to think of folks like Tom and Ernesto who live under such suppression.

[Nino]

Nice reading, except for some factual errors listed below about the Robaina farm.

I always make a point of giving people a ride in Cuba, they sure need transportation - but have never taken a policeman, somehow I am allergic to them ...  :-).
 

At 26, Tom had a good job with Alejandro Robaina, Cuba’s last independent tobacco grower, looking after the export of his world-famous cigars.

Rafael explained that the very existence of Señor Robaina’s plantation was an oddity in communist Cuba. Robaina was the last independent tobacco grower,

As a result, Robaina cigars are among the best in the world, and the plantation is allowed to make Cohiba, the best-known Cuban cigars, which were once produced only for Fidel and his dignitaries.

Finally came the rolling. Half a dozen women worked nonstop, filling, packing and wrapping, with movements so deft and calculated that I had no doubt they’d be able to do their job with their eyes closed.

 

[alloy]

Great read. 

[Squarehead]

I enjoyed reading it true or false