M\u00e1quinas are like the Uber Pool of Cuba; they\u2019re shared taxis that travel between neighborhoods in Havana. M\u00e1quinas travel only along main streets, and among these main streets, only ones that run horizontally, not vertically. We\u2019ve only really been taking them to get from our neighborhood, Vedado, to Centro Habana, a bit west of us, and Habana Vieja, even further west.<\/p>\n
Hailing a m\u00e1quina is a comical experience. You stand on the street corner and watch as 50s cars in every color imaginable zoom past you puffing out smoke. Almost all of them are m\u00e1quinas and have a taxi sticker on them. To get the drivers\u2019 attention, you have to stick out your arm and point repeatedly at the ground. Apparently, the more aggressively you point, the further you wish to be taken. The drivers will pull up, and you give them your desired destination. Many will straight up say no and drive away. Because the m\u00e1quinas are shared, the taxi might already have people in it, heading in a different direction. But other times, the taxi is empty and the driver simply doesn\u2019t want to take you to where you want to go. This could be really frustrating, but we\u2019ve already come to learn that so many things in Cuba function this way, so it\u2019s best just to have good humor about it.<\/p>\n
The best part of m\u00e1quinas is that they\u2019re really cheap. Any average distance will cost you only a little under 50 cents, more, obviously, if you are traveling further. However, this doesn\u2019t stop drivers from trying to trick us foreigners into paying higher fees \u2013 5, 6, or 10 dollars. Since we know that the rides shouldn\u2019t cost that much, we\u2019re not fooled. Drivers will simply pull away if we don\u2019t accept unreasonable prices. We also were told to avoid the cars that are yellow and look like the classic American taxi, because they\u2019re typically government-owned and will cost much more.<\/p>\n
As a group, we\u2019re trying to converse with our drivers \u2013 or at least the drivers that we like \u2013 as much as possible, so we can call them to take us to further places such as the beach (25 minutes away). Most drivers have cards with their contact information. It\u2019s fun to get to know Cubans, as we don\u2019t get as many interactions as we\u2019d like being in class, having homework to do, and spending time with our host families, as well as spend time in these incredibly old-fashioned, beautiful cars. The goal is to return to the US with the cards of many new m\u00e1quina driver friends and pictures of these insane vehicles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
M\u00e1quinas are like the Uber Pool of Cuba; they\u2019re shared taxis that travel between neighborhoods in Havana. M\u00e1quinas travel only along main streets, and among these main streets, only ones that run horizontally, not vertically. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-522","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cuba"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/excrcl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/excrcl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/excrcl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/excrcl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/excrcl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=522"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/excrcl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":523,"href":"https:\/\/excrcl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522\/revisions\/523"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/excrcl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/excrcl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/excrcl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}