The bus terminals in eastern Cuba present a misleading image: trucks and buses are available, but there are almost no passengers. It's not that transportation has improved—it's that Cubans cannot afford it.
This is how José Daniel Ferrer García, founder of the Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU) and an exile in Miami, describes it in a video posted this Monday on Facebook that features the testimony of an activist traveling from Bayamo to Campechuela. The woman sent him images from the Bayamo terminal where several trucks and a bus with very few passengers could be seen.
"Believe it or not, transportation has improved. The issue is that the population doesn't want to move, doesn't want to travel, doesn't want to go anywhere, because they don't have the money to afford transportation," reported Ferrer García, quoting the activist.
The numbers explain the paralysis. A truck from Bayamo to Manzanillo costs 2,000 pesos in the informal market, while the minimum monthly salary —raised to 3,210 pesos since July— barely covers that trip and a little more.
"A truck from Bayamo to Manzanillo, 2,000 pesos. In a nation where the minimum wage, recently increased, was raised in July to 3,210 pesos, just imagine," noted Ferrer García.
But the most devastating journey is from Santiago de Cuba to Havana. According to testimonies gathered in the video, that trip —less than 900 kilometers— costs between 5,000 and 6,000 pesos by truck, nearly double the minimum wage and comparable to the monthly salary of a newly graduated doctor, which is around 7,000 pesos.
"Let's go to Santiago de Cuba," another passenger tells me, "6,000 pesos, 5,000 if you're lucky. 6,000 pesos, nearly double the minimum wage, for a trip of less than 200 kilometers," said the activist, even though the actual distance between the two cities exceeds 800 kilometers.
The impact on the most vulnerable sectors is absolute. The salary of a newly graduated doctor barely exceeds the cost of a single interprovincial ticket, and retirees are directly excluded from any mobility.
"A retiree could never travel from Santiago to Havana. A retiree cannot travel from Bayamo to Santiago," stated Ferrer García.
This situation is exacerbated by the Cuban state’s drastic reduction in public transportation availability throughout 2026: national buses between Havana and the provincial capitals have decreased from daily departures to three times a week, routes such as Baracoa, Manzanillo, and Moa are left with only one weekly departure, and trains to the east operate every 16 days. The gap is filled by informal private transportation, but at prices that most cannot afford.
The official annual inflation in Cuba reached 25.19% in August 2026, with transportation being one of the most pressured sectors, accumulating an annual variation of almost 24% in June.
The salary increase in July —from 2,100 to 3,210 pesos, a nominal increase of 53%— has not changed the equation. The regime itself acknowledged that the new minimum wage does not cover basic needs.
"Given the circumstances, transportation has not improved, and it is so expensive that almost no one wants to travel," concluded Ferrer García.
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