Cuba travelogue: rush hour, Cuban style

From what I’m told, this is about as bad as traffic gets on Cuba’s Autopista Nacional (National Highway):

Rush hour, Cuban style

But this makes sense, when you consider that only about 2% of Cubans own a car. The Autopista was planned to span the length of Cuba, from Pinar del Rio on the west to Guantanamo on the East. Construction started in the 1970’s, but halted in 1990 when the Soviet bloc collapsed, and Cuba could not continue highway construction using only its own resources. As a result, the western end of the highway is largely complete, while its eastern end has two completed segments, and the central part consists of only plans.

In this view, we’re travelling west, toward Havana.