I live in Taguayabón, near Camajuaní, in Villa Clara, and for months I have been waiting for July to come and spend a few days with my mother in Havana, visiting relatives and seeing the city.
On Monday I got up early, at 8:30, after a month waiting for the sale of tickets to finally be activated in the Viajando app. Many people, it seems, had the same idea, since the problems to connect and the system failures began right away.
When I already had the tickets selected and I was ready to make the payment, the application did not take the step to Transfermóvil, the platform that allows paying the amount of the tickets. “The operation could not be performed. There was a connection problem with the server. Please try again later,” said a message on the screen.
I made multiple attempts to complete the action within the allotted ten minutes, but as they all failed, the session eventually timed out and I had to start over. For an hour and a half I repeated the process many times without any success, so it occurred to me to go personally to Santa Clara, where the agency is.
It is 18 kilometers and, with the terrible transportation situation, I had to wait between one and three hours at the stop to take a Transmetro bus, a truck or a Girón bus.
It’s 18 kilometers and, with the terrible transportation situation, I had to wait between one and three hours at the stop to take a Transmetro bus, a truck or a Girón bus. If you get any of them, the price is 20 pesos to the Arnaldo Milián Castro hospital, where you have to take a horse and carriage to get to the terminal and pay between 30 and 50 pesos.
Dissatisfied with the time lost and because the alternative didn’t convince me either, I thought of talking to David, a friend who lives in Santa Clara, so he could do me the favor of going to buy the ticket. So I did and he agreed.
My friend took his electric motorcycle in the direction of the reservation agency, located in the Interprovincial Bus Terminal. Upon arrival, he asked for the last of a queue that, until then, had 23 people, plus those who were arriving. Several people were in the same situation as me, unable to buy their tickets and full of dissatisfaction.
Some complained about errors in the application, others about the few available buses that are traveling, since currently only two buses leave for Havana, one at 1:00 pm and the other at 11:50 pm: insufficient. for the number of people who travel daily from Villa Clara. After the reopening of the borders and the return of trips between provinces, the authorities assured that they would add more routes to the route, but the fuel deficit has made it impossible to fulfill this promise.
After waiting almost an hour in the heat, my friend was able to buy the tickets for July 26, for 80 pesos each. Minutes later, availability ran out and many people had to leave without having achieved their goal.
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