Showcase April - That time I became a Cuban smuggler | Part 2 of 2
The reality is that the common folk struggles to get basic products such as toilet paper, hand soap and deodorant. They have it in Cuba, not everywhere but in some stores but it is too expensive for the average Joe. Those are common needs products, so now imagine how hard it is for a woman to get a new bra, a pair of jeans or some cosmetics.
Yeah, it's very hard. Not because they have no income - which is also a problem there - but because they don't have access to certain products or if they do, it's too expensive
I learned this from a Cuban friend living in Playa del Carmen a few days before I left Mexico and then heard similar stories when I spoke to a lot of people while I was in La Habana.
Another thing is, the people who have passport and a permit to leave Cuba for a few days, have permission to bring products like these when they come back but there is a limit: if I recall correctly they can't bring suitcases full of products more than once every six months and each product has a number limit. Let's say, no one can bring in more than 10 soap bars or more than 4 bras every six months.
So now you can imagine why this shady dude wants other people to deliver this kind of goods to their people in La Habana.
It's kind of obvious once you learn about the situation there. People who have money inside Cuba don't have access to certain goods they can afford. So Cubans, as witty Latinos they are, found a way to game the system and all they have to do is get people to bring the stuff to them. They know the regulations and product limits there are and the guy on the outside carefully assembles every suitcase so it follows every customs and immigration rule.
After learning all of this it all made sense to me and it was obvious this guy wasn't going to ruin his reputation - he was quite popular among Mexicans, Argentinians, and Chilean people living in Cancun and Playa del Carmen who wanted to visit Cuba every once in a while - or let his business collapse by making this Mexican smuggle some drugs, weapons or illegal products into the Che Guevara’s territory.
So bearing this in mind I was very calm the moment I met the dude in the airport...
...he gave me my ticket, handed me the bags - heavy as hell -, introduced me to an Argentinian girl who happened to be traveling with me with another pair of suitcases and I left off for Cuba...
I was still a bit nervous. After all I had only been like 10 times to the USA but that's it, that's the only country outside Mexico I had visited at the time so, the anxiety of the unknown was present at that moment of my life.
Nothing happened. I just let it flow and when I arrived to Cuba I went through customs without declaring anything, got a green light, the hound waiting for me to sniff my bags didn't even pay attention to me, the cute immigration officer signed my passport after 30 seconds of interview and I got inside Cuba.
Pretty boring huh?
Yeah, the first part of the story was the best one, I was actually thinking of not finishing it but some of you were really interested in the end.
After all, even though I've had spectacular adventures after this little Odyssey in Cuba, it definitely all the nomading started that day, when I thought of myself as a Cuban smuggler...
This post was originally posted in August 2018 and it's part of my initiative called showcase April, where I'll post the best content I've done over the past three years
¡¡¡Felicidades!!!