Cuba is reasonably safe country, especially if compared with other Latin countries. There is absolutely no restrictions to travel around and the self-organisation of a trip and accommodation is relatively easy. For sure the basics of Spanish helps but is not critical. Normally, the self-travelers follow frequent and popular itineraries. That means the choice and organisation of transportation is rather easy. The most fascinating way is to take so called taxi colectivo. The driver will take you directly from your place and bring you to your next destination. The taxi will be shared with other people (usually tourists) and normally a car accommodates from 4 to 7 passengers depending on vehicle. The luggage goes on the roof tidily fixed with the ropes.

The added value from taxi colectivo comes from the fact that almost always this will be the old (from 1950s) beautiful American car. Beautiful does not necessarily mean reliable and safe (frankly speaking the officials from the EU would get a heart attack seeing the safety standards) and it is quite frequent to see a car stopped at the road side with a guy lying beneath the car trying to fix it. Apart from that the trip with colectivo is a real pleasure and a must have experience. The usual price is between 15-35 CUC depending on the distance. 

 How to organize the trip? The easiest way is to ask your host and accept some up charge (up to 10CUC). If you travel on the most popular routes normally it is enough to arrange a car one day ahead. Colectivos work as a network and really offer amazing and flexible transportation. This could be appreciated when traveling on longer distance. For instance going from Vinales on the very West of the island towards Trinidad it is necessary to change a car in the area of Havana. Such a changing hub is lovely called piquera and looks like an informal parking place.

The organization is quite smooth. Usually the pick up starts at 8:30 and the drive to the closest piquera should not be longer than 3 hours. So around 11am the cars are gathering at piqueras where people are changing the cars which go to the final destination. The change does not take more than half an hour usually.

What about payment? It is recommended and seems to seen as a standard to pay at your destination. However, sometimes you may be asked for money at the beginning but insist not to do that. Especially when you have to change the car. By the way we have never had any issue with the final amount to be paid. It has always been the money we have agreed upfront.

The comfort of traveling is somehow challenging. The trip however is always fascinating and never boring. You drive a car which is 70 years old. At least from outside looks pretty and colorful. Inside…well, a bit different story. Simply lower your expectations and it will be ok.

Sometimes colectivos may be difficult to be arranged. This happens usually when you need to leave later than morning. Once we had a challenge in Playa Larga. In the morning we had a visit to the park of Cenaga de Zapata thus wanted to leave around noon. As we were heading to Trinidad and wanted to see some places on the way we had to opt for a private car. That was quite a tricky and complicated arrangement. We thought we had agreed a direct car. One car. Reality was a bit different. After 20km it happened that a car has broken. Surprisingly that happened on the gas station and surprisingly (2nd) there was a friend of our driver who was surprisingly (3rd) heading towards Trinidad. He agreed to take us. We wanted to stop and visit Cienfuegos. No problem, however it happened that from Cienfuegos we will be driving with another amigo and his amiga. This time we reached Trinidad without problems. All in all everything was ok and went smoothly. We were traveling in private cars and visiting places on the way. However on that time we were feeling some anxiety and had to pretend we buy all the bullshit they were telling us about those coincidences. But I had to say they did it with a smile.