![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.turizmtatilseyahat.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/cuba-fast-food-monte-street.jpg\" "\\"cuba")
\u201cEl Rapido\u201d (or \u201cEl Rapidito,\u201d as it\u2019s also known), is a chain of state-run, outdoor, fast-food restaurants here in Cuba.<\/h1>\n\u201cEl Rapido\u201d (or \u201cEl Rapidito,\u201d as it\u2019s also known), is a chain of state-run, outdoor, fast-food restaurants here in Cuba.<\/h1>\nThey often have adjacent food service stands offering products both in national currency or hard currency CUCs, thus bridging the gap between the two.<\/p>\n
These establishments have mushroomed throughout the capital city, and though they might differ in their structural designs, they\u2019ve succeeded in firmly establishing themselves within our urban imagery.<\/p>\n
Near the building where I live there\u2019s one that has quite striking features. I\u2019ll try to summarize it for the perspective of a pure spectator and not from that of a regular visitor.<\/p>\n
Firstly, it\u2019s located on a busy corner in Old Havana, near the famous \u201cParque de la Fraternidad\u201d (Fraternity Park).<\/p>\n
This downtown location, combined with the impoverished atmosphere that pervades the facility, has resulted in it becoming a focus of attention for a particular crowd in the area: drunks, apparently corrupt police officers, prostitutes, pimps, bums, con artists and junk collectors. In short, a whole range of characters that give life to our \u201cEl Rapido\u201d nights.<\/p>\n
The saddest thing isn\u2019t merely the existence of this establishment where indigents, seamy characters and the destitute hang out, but that this isn\u2019t the only such place.<\/p>\n
Down-and-out bars abound throughout the city, clearly displaying the misery that shrouds the general population.<\/p>\n
In addition, there\u2019s the fact that one can see people begging or drunk all over town and at all hours of the day.<\/p>\n
The solution of course isn\u2019t to close these facilities; we know that the problem is much deeper and that its causes are going to be much more difficult to root out.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s more, if these places were to be eliminated, they\u2019d only be replaced by others with similar features but with different names \u2013 as we\u2019ve seen happen before.<\/p>\n
The El Rapido on Monte Street is only one piece of evidence that the Cuba that\u2019s peddled abroad is much more complex and painful than it appears.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
El Rapido is a chain of state-run, outdoor, fast-food restaurants here in Cuba.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"jnews_post_split":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[8064,7],"tags":[8024],"class_list":["post-4512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latin-america","category-tourism","tag-cuba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turizmtatilseyahat.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turizmtatilseyahat.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turizmtatilseyahat.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turizmtatilseyahat.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turizmtatilseyahat.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4512"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.turizmtatilseyahat.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4512\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9381,"href":"https:\/\/www.turizmtatilseyahat.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4512\/revisions\/9381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turizmtatilseyahat.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turizmtatilseyahat.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turizmtatilseyahat.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}