The Salvadoran content creator Óscar Sandoval, known on social media as Gordo Soyacity, recounted the fear he experienced during his recent trip to Cuba and revealed that he was detained and interrogated by the authorities as he was about to leave the island, a situation that caused his wife to break down in tears while waiting for him on the other side of immigration control.
"My wife cried when I was detained on my way back," the influencer recounted in an interview with Salvadoran communicator Romeo Lemus, published on Wednesday on YouTube, in which he shared new details about his time in Cuba.
Soyacity explained that the authorities took him to a room while his wife had already passed through the control area. He stayed there for about 20 minutes.
“She was on the other side, and I was on this side. They kept me there for about 20 minutes, and she was already feeling desperate,” she recalled.
According to his testimony, during the interrogation, they asked him again why he had traveled to Cuba, what places he had visited, and whether he had cameras with him. He even offered to hand over his phone, but he insisted that by that time, he no longer had the material he had recorded during the trip stored on it.
The content creator had taken precautions during his stay: he recorded his journey only with a cellphone and sent the files out of the island. Additionally, he decided not to publish the videos until he was outside of Cuba, or at least after arriving in Panama.
Suspicions began upon their arrival. Soyacity reported that he and his wife were initially separated at the airport and subjected to questioning about their activities and the equipment they were carrying.
According to his account, his wife was asked whether they were carrying a drone, antennas for connecting to the Internet, or other devices that would allow communication with the outside. In the end, the authorities allowed both of them to enter the country.
During their stay, Soyacity visited various places in Havana and documented scenes of everyday life that were later published in a video series on their YouTube channel.
In one of them, published on September 8, he summarized the journey made with his wife through the Cuban capital before traveling to Varadero.
The Salvadoran recounted that they walked through the streets of Havana, conversed with residents, and visited various places, including a movie theater, a funeral home, a cemetery, pharmacies, and a shopping mall, where they documented the difficulties they encountered. He also stated that they spoke with people who had still not been able to eat that day.
The trip to Varadero ultimately left them with a different impression. There, they found hotels, tourists, food, drinks, pools, and beaches—a scene that Soyacity described as a stark contrast to what they had observed during their previous tours of Havana.
"The more we looked at the images, the less we wanted to show them off," he explained in that video. He recalled that they could be sitting at a table full of food and at the same time think about the line they had seen to get a piece of bread, or admire a hotel filled with abundance while remembering the streets they had walked just days before.
The creator then clarified that he did not intend to present his experience as an absolute description of Cuba: "We were only there for a few days, we saw specific places, we spoke with certain people, and our experience is just that—our experience."
However, during the interview with Lemus, he acknowledged that documenting those realities filled him with fear while he was still on the island.
"I was more afraid of the government," he stated while recalling the feeling he experienced during the journey. He said he feared that the authorities might prevent him from leaving Cuba because of the content he had been recording.
"The risks are real," he stated. Soyacity expressed that he had never felt such joy leaving a country as he did when he managed to leave Cuba, as he had come to believe they might prevent him from returning home.
The tension ended when the couple was able to continue their journey.
Soyacity shared that he and his wife celebrated upon arriving in Panama and stepping onto Panamanian soil, after several days during which, as he described, they lived with the uncertainty that the recordings could cause them problems with the Cuban authorities.
Despite his experience, the Salvadoran spoke fondly of the people he met during his stay and expressed that he would like to return to chat again with the Cubans, although he acknowledged that, after what happened, he doubts he will be able to do so.
"I don't think I can go again," she concluded.
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