A big secret was revealed during the long ride. In the suburbian parts of a town the bus suddenly left the A1, zig-zagged through community housing streets and stopped in front of one. Everybody rushed out, we didn’t understand why, but we followed the crowd. They went into the house and out on the other side. There was a restaurant, but it must have had far too many seats to be a paladar*).
We order, like most of our fellow passengers, chicken and rice. And when we ask to pay the waiter says: -Three fifty, please. We pick up four tourist pesos, but the waiter vigorously shakes his head. It turns out the meal cost 3,50 Cuban pesos, ca 0,3 US$ for us both. It’s like between 0,03 and 0,01 % of what we have usually paid for the meals here. That’s the reason why it’s very hard for tourists to get Cuban pesos.
*) A paladar may not exceed a maximum capacity of 24 seats.