A Cuban residing in the United States posted a video on Facebook that has gone viral, in which she shares her impressions just hours after arriving in Cuba. She describes seeing empty streets, gasoline priced at 10 dollars per liter, and a feeling of sorrow that leads her to declare that she already wants to leave.
"I've been in Cuba for four hours and this country is turned upside down; I can't believe everything that is happening," says the woman in the 52-second clip, shared by the Facebook user Rickee Estrada.
The first wake-up call was the fuel. "My gasoline at 10 dollars a liter, getting it is a tremendous struggle," he complains.
This price aligns with the situation in the informal market, where the liter was quoted between six and ten dollars at the unofficial exchange rate. This Friday, the Cuban government implemented a new rate increase in dollarized channels, raising the price of special B100 gasoline to 2.60 dollars per liter, double the previous price.
The fuel scarcity has visible consequences on the streets. "The streets are empty because there are obviously no cars since the cars have no gasoline; drivers find it worthwhile to buy gasoline and resell it for 10 dollars," he describes.
The woman reflects on the gap between her life in the United States and the reality of the average Cuban. "I wonder if I, living in the U.S., find things expensive, what must it be like for ordinary Cubans, those who can't afford to buy, those who can't afford to live," she contrasts.
Her first day in Havana was spent mostly indoors. "I haven't really left the house because I can't spend the gas I have in the rental car since I have to go to Trinidad tomorrow," she explains.
The outlook awaiting him in Trinidad is not much more encouraging. The streets of this colonial city appear empty, according to videos published last Wednesday. The parish priest José Conrado Rodríguez summed it up for the newspaper The Miami Herald.
"It was a complete economy based on tourism… Now they have no way to make a living. Their hotels are empty," he noted.
The Cuban woman in the video traveled for family reasons, but she acknowledges that she cannot bring her family out of the island. Her conclusion is clear. "It's really better, I say, to reunite with family in another country than to come to Cuba," she urges.
The testimony adds to a wave of similar reports in recent days. A few days ago, the photographer Alina Sardiñas described walking through Cuba "feeling a mix of terror and astonishment."
Previously, an Italian tourist described Cuba as the dirtiest country she has ever visited in her life.
The energy crisis described by the protagonist of the video has structural roots. The leader himself, Miguel Díaz-Canel, admitted in February that "not a single barrel of foreign crude" had arrived in Cuba, and the Minister of Energy Vicente de la O Levy confirmed on Thursday that the country has run out of diesel and fuel oil for electricity generation.
International tourism, one of the main sources of foreign currency for the regime, plummeted 48% in the first quarter of 2026, with only 298,057 visitors, according to data from the National Office of Statistics and Information.
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