Buses, trains, religion and curiosity!!

The noisiest, dirtiest, oldest and earliest running bendy buses in the entire world are Chinese and operate in Havana! This is a real fact, although in essence I have no proof about the earliest running part because although 4.25am seems pretty early - outside your hotel - and I was on the fifth floor, it will always seem ultra early. Clouds of polluting smoke and drivers that feel they have to over rev their bus for ten minutes before they leave.  Half full though what's that all about!!? However equally that makes them the emptiest of the day as well!! I guess being outside a tourist hotel is a good incentive though!! Once all the workers are home however you won't see many buses on the street at all and the one that terminates and consequently starts from the Hotel Presidente is noticeably missing from about 7.30pm, Monday to Friday! The funny thing is though that the only guaranteed service in the day is the earliest one, after that they become desperately irregular in a wonderfully, almost traditional, Cuban way!
Just a footnote to that "Cuban Way" I went down to the railway station to get a train to a town called Trinidad and I was down there well before 9am. Now since I was very young I have been able to read timetables, it's just one of those things. Whichever way I read it there was a train at 10.17. Cuba was the first country of the Americas outside of USA to have a railway system and was the only Caribbean island to have a railway system and it was a system, allegedly, second to none for reliability. I took some pictures, how unusual(!) of the 'living' museum of the old steam trains that adorn the street 

It distinctly says PISSTBURGH!!

in close proximity to the station and despite there being a few engines in the station there was no carriages. The day before there had been the longest train, made of carriages overspilling the platform ends I'd ever seen, but there didn't seem to be any movement of any rolling stock just hundreds of people. Despite my terrible Spanish I did make an enquiry as to the train, not a complaint of course, that would just have got "It's Cuba" - the traditional response! However I think she said something that included the word Manana, which this time I assume meant tomorrow!! I popped back later in the day and viewed from the tour bus the station that looked like there had been absolutely no movement at all!!
Back to the buses!! Oh yes Saturdays are slightly different. The first one on that service and not so full is about 7.30. Although I did see earlier services on other routes about 6am with completely full buses! Sundays however are family days and church plays a big part to an awful lot of people/families and the most grid locked roads, Monday through Saturday for buses and overall traffic are empty with no buses until at least 9.30 am and so much fewer buses running at all.


Religion is a strange thing to try and describe properly in a total communist regime. Active members of the communist party must not actively worship in a church. However the churches are all a) Catholic and b) Packed to the rafters, even for the limited services during the week as well of course as on Sundays when to be fair there is only one service. Families worship together and all children are welcomed and given free candy as they go in!! Most of the churches are open all day every day with no obvious presence of any church elders, kept in a perfect (ish) condition and are are all beautiful old Spanish type buildings. 

I am not going to make any conclusions about you and your chuches or even me and mine but only really mentioned as something to may be learned from.

The ancient cathedral in the centre of  the city.

Normally when you travel the way I do you have a bit of a poke about and will find a minority church or worship place but in all my poking (not the Facebook type!!) I found nothing but Catholic churches and of course a cathedral in the centre of the old city which is catholic. This 'may' be because that any other church for any other religion is considered by the state as a business and therefore is not allowed to be operated by foreigners, take for example Lutheran.... I am deliberately not including the Russian Orthodox religion, because it is considered to be more catholic than catholic by most people and that would explain the beautiful Russian Orthodox cathedral hidden away down by the docks. 

However again I didn't find any other Russian orthodox churches.

Finally no religion is spoken about at all by any of the tour guides of the state run tours, interesting hey?




IF YOU MISSED PART ONE IT IS HERE!


AND PART THREE IS HERE!!!