Travel to Cuba and discover the odyssey of buying an egg: "It seems like a meme but it's a tragedy."

A Cuban resident in Spain visited the Island and there lived an entire odyssey to be able to buy an egg to make a tortilla for her partner.

"It seems like a meme, but it's a tragedy," said Claudia G. Catalán, who had not been to her homeland for more than two years.

The young woman traveled to her hometown Santiago de Cuba to reunite with her family and friends. During her stay, she wanted to make an omelet for her Spanish boyfriend when she realized that there were no eggs left in the house.

It was then that he began to suffer firsthand "what Cubans go through to do the most basic things every day," as he confessed in a video shared on his TikTok account.

First, he went to a small business to buy, but there were no eggs there. Then he had to wait in line at an ATM to withdraw cash, and from there he went to the small market, where fortunately he found them for 150 pesos each. But when he got home, the power went out.

The shortage of eggs in Cuba has raised their price to alarming levels, exceeding 5,000 pesos per dozen in the informal market.

Last week, the Facebook profile Edmundo Dantés Junior reported the exorbitant cost, stating that "almost a doctor's salary in my province" is needed to buy a carton of eggs (30 units).

In the midst of the severe food crisis that Cubans are experiencing, rampant inflation has caused basic products to become unaffordable for most families.

The lawyer Miguel Viera, who is well-known on Facebook for his reflections and critiques of Cuban reality, made an ironic comment about the situation and, after showing a table with eggshells, claimed that he had "invested almost a dollar in them."

"And here I am! Waiting for the ladies of creative recipes to figure out a way to use the eggshells. After paying more than 100 pesos for each one... something has to be done with them," she commented sarcastically.

In July, the cost of a carton of eggs in Havana had already surpassed the minimum wage in the country, reaching an average of 2,225 pesos. Just one month later, the price increased drastically.

The National Office of Statistics and Information (ONEI) indicated in its latest report that the year-on-year inflation in the formal market of Cuba reached 30.48% in July, with almost all items experiencing year-on-year increases above 10%, confirming the sustained loss of purchasing power on the Island.

The economist Pedro Monreal stated that the official data from July "confirms the shipwreck of the anti-inflationary component of the 2024 economic package –announced by the regime in a fragmented manner and with zigzagging implementation– with a sustained effect of loss of purchasing power" of the population.