Those who did not manage to board during the day are condemned to sleep in the facility.
14ymedio, Julio César Contreras, Cienfuegos, 17 August 2024 – It’s after 8pm in the only bus terminal in Cienfuegos and despite the fact that dozens of people are gathered at the departure gates or are sleeping on the benches in the waiting room, the route board is not displaying a single destination. Anyone who didn’t manage to travel during the day is condemned to sleep in the building, along with those who, on a waiting list, are trying to travel to other provinces of the country. Outside, the private taxis hawk their services but the waiting passengers don’t listen to – or don’t want to hear – the price they’d have to pay for an almendrón shared taxi ride.
On the second floor of the terminal, in the gloom, there are only two lights working, beneath which sits one of the few employees – with a pile of crumpled papers – who are still in the station at this time to keep a note of the names of passengers. The darkness attracts people who, being exhausted, resign themselves to sleep in the corners or on the benches. “I’ve been sleeping here for three nights, trying to get to Holguín”, Nereida tells 14ymedio – a health worker whose salary won’t stretch to a more expensive means of transport.
According to her, having options available but no money to pay for them is what keeps her tied to the terminal: “If you speak to the duty manager he’ll get you on the first bus that arrives but that conversation will cost you between 1,500 and 3,000 pesos, on top of what you’ll have to pay later to the driver”, she says.
Spending time in the way that she has until now in this terminal has not exactly been comfortable either. She and Ana, who lives with her four-year-old daughter in San Fernando de Camarones, Palmira, have decided to join forces to look after each other and each others’ luggage. The young mother has only spent one night in the terminal but the abandonment that she’s made to feel, especially having to carry her child around on piggyback, is very real.
“I have to visit my sick mother in Gibara and I do
