The door opened slightly, shouts went out from people in the crowd. The impatient shoppers surged forward in anticipation. I was almost at the front. Two people, one person, then I was in! Through the door, bag open, money on the counter, then 20 freshly baked bread rolls in my possession. I felt like I had just won 100 dollars! But you may think that that is strange because I was only buying bread rolls. Well, no this is Cuba. I had waited almost two hours.
Shopping in Cuba has many similarities to other Central America countries that we have visited. Food is cheap. For example a small pizza is $1.48 NZD, a mojito for $1.20 NZD and the twenty bread rolls that I bought were only about $1.00 NZD. They have similar souvenirs like keychains, magnets, painting and other knic knacs. However buying groceries is a very different experience.
Cuba does not have large supermarkets that we found in other countries. There are many small shops that only seem to sell a small range of items. For example, the small shop down the road from our casa in Trinidad only had pasta, rice, candles, cigars, matches and eggs. You will often see the locals walking around at all times of the day, bag in hand doing their daily shopping. It might take them a couple of visits to the local shops to get all they need-milk in the morning, bread at lunch time then maybe some meat or veges in the afternoon.
This appears to be a really inefficient system that seems to be part of Cuba’s communist way of doing things. In the bread shop it was quite chaotic with people pushing in line, shouting, waiting, before finally getting their allowance (I couldn’t buy more than 20 rolls). You also have to go to many different places to get all you need. However, there are some positives-the locals seem to enjoy chatting with each other while they wait in line and there is no excess packaging. Everyone brings their own bag (or bottle for milk) so this reduces waste.
Grocery shopping is all part of the travel experience, especially if you are on the road for over 3 months. Cuba certainly provided us with some challenges in this regard – we couldn’t even buy cornflakes here! But great to experience this unique country.
