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They say that they can actually get into quite a bit of trouble. People literally jump back when you ask about it. Would you mind explaining how life has changed over the past few years in Cuba? would be doing cleaning and babysitting on the side of their job as well, stuff like that. Tip jar for the men that work here. And then they've got for the muhare for the women. So you can choose where you want the money to go. There's long cues to get petrol. They don't know if they are gasoline if they have gasoline here. Right. So we're not even sure if we can get petrol.
Yeah. The fuel gauge is actually quite low. How much do we have? We're on red. Oh my god. Yeah, it's man. If I could compare it to one place that I've been, it would be North Korea. Cuba, a country plagued by economic crisis. Not enough food, medicine, or fuel. No freedom of press or freedom of speech. The largest protest since Fidel Castro's revolution swept Cuba. Hundreds have been arrested. Healthcare shortages. We're short on creams, ointments, antibiotics, petrol and gas crisis. Petrol shortages in Cuba became so severe, cues at the
petrol pumps stretched for several city blocks. Collapsing infrastructure building in Havana's historic district collapsed at midnight Tuesday, leaving at least two people dead. The disintegrating buildings of Cuba's once magnificent capital, a country stuck in time for decades. Sanctions choking the economy. We will not lift sanctions on the Cuban regime. Biden has authorized sanctions against communist Cuban officials since the Cuban Revolution in the 1950s.
Fueled by hope for a better future headed by Fidel Castro. Castro was the world's longest serving dictator. Now in 2025, things aren't looking as people hoped for. Follow me on this journey as we time travel to Cuba. Welcome to Havana. Today we're leaving the capital city of Cuba and we are going to drive down to a town called Matansas and then we're going to go further on to a city called Santa Clara. I think it's going to be a completely different life out there in the countryside in the rural areas. A lot of the parts of the city here are crumbling and falling down even right close to the center to the capital building and
everything. We're going to jump in a car, got a driver, try and meet some people and see the rural life of Cuba. It's kind of like time travel here. So, for example, in the hotel reception, I just saw somebody smoking a cigarette working in the office inside. So, it should give you a good idea of uh kind of the situation here. People are very nice, very friendly. It's got a great vibe, but obviously mixed in with a lot of struggle and hardship. So, going to jump in the car. Let's head off on a road trip around Cuba. Okay, so we just arrived in this town called Matansas and this is on the coast about 1 to 2 hours from Avana. And already we're seeing quite some differences. Obviously a lot less built
up. We've met a couple of people and they really don't want to be near the camera. Beautiful driving through the countryside there. Some big old Soviet buildings and then also some abandoned buildings along the side. There's actually checkpoints along the whole road. Every 10 or 20 kilometers or something there's checkpoints and they've got like security cameras and there's guards watching and things you have to slow down. So, there's obviously controlling of movement in the country. We just spoke to this guy in this hot dog stand here. He didn't want to be on camera, but he was telling us that it's crazy because to buy a hot dog and a drink costs like days of salary. So,
it's uh absolutely mind-blowing. Okay, so we're here with Lud and would you mind explaining how life has changed over the past few years in Cuba? You want to talk about the business? Okay. How is business here then? She has seven years and she say the business is okay here. Okay. Not many tourists. Not too many tourists. Gracias. So, we climbed onto this bus here as this is how the majority of people get around and we wanted to find out how much it costs. So, we asked one of the locals on the bus how much it cost for 1
hour's travel on this bus. Keeping in mind that we've met quite a few people that only make 3 to 4,000 pesos per month in their jobs, which is around $10 using the black market exchange rate, which is what they use. For how long? For 1,000 pesos for an hour. But how do people afford it if it's $8 a month? That's a good question. Doctors are earning $22. You have to have any other incoming entrance. I mean, if you only have a low salary, you have to do other stuff. Other people cook. Other people take care of children, babysitting, cleaning, just anything you can do. Anything. We met somebody who knows a doctor that's earning $22 per month as a doctor, qualified doctor. So, a doctor
would be doing cleaning and babysitting on the side of their job as well, stuff like that. Yeah. So, you're buying some avocados, Lenny? Yeah. I'm going to buy one. Do you grow these at your house? Yeah. He has a tree in his house and he sells in the street. How much does it cost for one? 100 pesos. Wow. And how many do you sell a day? 40 or 50. He sells everything every day. Oh, wow. That's a pretty good business. That's a good business. Yeah.
Yeah. And do you have a family? One is coming now. One is coming. So you got to save up money to put food on the table. It's not good for him. The economy. I mean the same money and everything is more expensive now. Gasoline was one of the problem here. Okay. So we've left Matansa and we are on the way to Santa Clara now. So couple more hours on the road and uh that's quite a big bustling city. So there'll be many people to meet and see what we can see on the way as well. been driving for a couple hours and the roads are like completely empty and there's potholes all through them and things and like there's hardly
any cars on the road. It's quite bizarre. It actually reminds me of North Korea. Bumpy roads, no cars on them for a long way. But we've come to a petrol station and there's heaps of cars here that there's long cues to get petrol. They don't know if they are gasoline, if they have gasoline here, right? So, we're not even sure if we can get petrol. Yeah. Let's see. Let's Let's wait to see what's going on. The fuel gauge is actually quite low. How much do we have? We're on red. Oh my god. Yeah, it's almost empty, man. There are two system here for getting gasoline in one is in dollar and the other is in Cuban pesos. In Cuban pesos, you only have 40 liters weekly. In
dollars, you can have anything you want. So, if you pay in Cuban pesos, then you've got a limit of 40 liters. But if you have if you pay in US dollars, you can buy as much as you want, as much as you want. So, we're just in the petrol station here, and this is something quite interesting. They've got the tip jar cuz they're serving coffee and things here as well. Uh, and they have a tip jar for the men that work here. There's a man in the kitchen and a man over there serving somewhere else. And then they've got for the muhair is for the women. So, you can choose where you want the money to go.
Most people are tipping for the men and the women's jar is almost empty. Cheers. $52. We didn't have to wait too long. Maybe half an hourish. We're going to hop back in the car now. We're going to head to Santa Clara. Okay, so we've arrived in Santa Clara. Ara actually is the birthplace of Fidel Castro. So quite a sacred place in Cuba. We actually just tried to stay at this hotel. We just tried to turn off and get a room. They told us there's uh no hot
water and only cold water between the hours of 6:00 and 8:00 p.m. or something like that. Anyway, so we decided to find another hotel. It's a great hotel. Really interesting thing about the exchange rate. If I pay with card, I'll get charged 120 pesos per US dollar and they'll charge it in that rate. So that would mean that the room would cost 62 roughly US. But if you pay in pesos in cash, you pay the equivalent of $20. So for the price of one room, if you pay by card, I was able to pay with pesos. That means that I got three rooms for the price of one just by using a different currency. So the official rate is 120 the
government rate but if you exchange dollars here on the street then you can get the black market rate which can vary between three sometimes even 400 per dollar. So you can get really good rates. [chant] really interesting thing. You might be seeing I'm wearing a bracelet here. When we checked in, the uh hotel put different colored bracelets on us. One bracelet was blue for the driver and then me and my friend Lenny, we got white ones cuz we're foreigners. This place is absolutely fascinating in the sense that it's if I could compare it to one place that I've been, it would be North Korea. Big empty roads, not many cars on the streets. these pascal Soviet
colors that you'll see around. It's the closest country to North Korea that I've been. I'd never thought that I would find it in the Caribbean. Uh you can also see no advertising. There's no like capitalism branding or anything around. Uh there's no billboards, anything like that. So, it makes for quite an interesting place. It's like stepping back in time. So, I'll show you what $20 gets you with the black market exchange rate in Cuba. Look at that. I mean, for $20, you can't really complain too much, can you? little bathroom. And the view here is absolutely stunning. Check this out. Look at that view.
Absolutely beautiful. That meal costs about 4,300 Cuban pesos. That was for three people. All that food. So that's a fifth of the cost as in Habana in the capital. Absolutely amazing. The value since we've left the capital city, the prices have fallen off a cliff. I just want to take a quick second and thank the sponsor of this segment of the episode, Odo. Running a business can be a real juggling act. Keeping track of expenses is just one of those extra headaches. But here's the good news. Auto Expenses is here to make it easier. Basically, with Odo Expenses, you can just send in all your expenses from wherever you are, desktop, phone, even just emailing the receipts. Every expense gets neatly grouped into
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description and give it a try. And a huge thank you to Odu for supporting the channel. Let's get back to Cuba. Okay, so it's the next day and we've come down to this local market in Santa Clara. This is the taxi rank, so you can see all the horses lined up here. How has life changed here, sir, in the past 5 years? Things have been harder here in the last 5 years. They have been struggling, you know, trying to survive. But anyway, he they just have to keep moving and keep working every day. How do you see your future?
He has faith that everything's going to get better always. How was life 30 years ago compared to now? Healthc care were enough for them and economy was a lot better. Louis, do you sell a lot of phones here? No, not many. And where do you get the phones from? Colia, United States and Colombia. We are He is importing from there. Is it difficult to import phones? It could be difficult sometimes because sometimes the products didn't arrive or get lost. Yeah. So, we have actually asked quite a few people, shopkeepers and things, if they'd be willing to answer a few
questions on camera about just life generally and things, but a lot of them just say no, like they can't be on camera. They're happy to answer questions off camera, but they say that they can actually get into quite a bit of trouble. um and they're not willing to take that risk which of course I absolutely understand but it does however show the situation and how people are very wary of what they do and don't say especially to a foreigner with a camera asking questions about the quality of life and things people just sometimes like you saw yesterday people like literally like jump back sometimes when you ask about it so I think that speaks volumes about the uh the situation and speaking freely about how life is. So left to three. So
left to three to the work that we must do. March on in the workers united front for you are a worker too. And just because he's human, he doesn't like a pistol to his head. He wants no serant under him and no boss overhead. So left to three, so left to three to the work that we must do. March on in the workers united front for you are a worker too. We've just arrived in this coastal town called Swin Fuego and the drive is very interesting. The roads are so empty and there's parts of the road that are just it seems like it goes on for so far with no cars. When you do see cars there,
these old vehicles like ladders from the Soviet times or the old American style cars like the Buicks and things like that. Obviously, it's not as controlled as North Korea, but the similarities in like the aesthetics. Uh sometimes the control is there, but it seems kind of like a North Korea light or a diet North Korea or something like that, you know, and the people not wanting to talk and things like that. So, there are those similarities. So, we're going to have a look around this town, see who we can meet. Hopefully, some people are happy to talk about the situation and how they feel and how things have changed. We just had a lovely meal in this little cafe and there was a birthday party in there.
We met a local fisherman here. I see you've got a bucket of fish in your bike there. Is that a good business? In a good day, he does here like 20 lb or 30 lb of a fisher. Wow. Good morning. Ah, good morning in this moment now. How is life here on the coast? Ah, he lived here since 85. 1985. 1985. Uh, he like he likes it. Yeah. What was life like here in 1985 compared to now? He likes more before. I mean, it was better. Way better. Why was it better?
Basically, everything had changed for worse. It was pretty. It was a pretty city before in those years. Something that we've picked up by every single person that we've asked this to without exception is that the situation was much better in the past than it is now. And it's getting rapidly worse and worse day by day. Not one person has said that they prefer it now than how it used to be. Do they hope to go to the Olympics one day? Yeah, they're practicing for this. Yeah, because Cuba has really good sports people. They have really good sports. I guess being a high level sports person in this country is one of the best things you can aspire to be. So you can
travel the world and see new places and have the funding to do so. Right. You were telling me an interesting story about how a Cuban sports team went to Spain and then refused to come back. I remember the last one I remember is um baseball or football I'm not sure team in Barcelona. They were like teenagers and they just left the congregation in Barcelona and they didn't come back to Kuba and then basically they do this especially when they go to United States for example baseball team one or two always leave really so they seek asylum where they play. They stay there. Yeah. For and look for asylum. Yeah.
Wow. I get rig. Bunn. So, as you can see, Cuba is facing unimaginable hardships. One of the saddest things that we witnessed was the elderly people. Some of the elderly people are so emaciated and skinny in some cases malnourished because everybody's fighting to make a little
bit of money or to get a bit of food for their family and often it's the most vulnerable that miss out on that. That was one of the most prominent hard-hitting things that we've witnessed. Join me in the next video as we continue this journey in Cuba and discover more of this heartbreaking situation, but filled with absolute characters, beautiful scenes, hard circumstances, and great hospitality of the local people. Thank you so much for watching, and in case I don't see you, good afternoon, good evening, and good night.
