My first ticket!

On December 28th, 2007 I went to Havana with my parents and daughter to see my sick aunt there. My wife was also sick and stayed in Varadero.


I drove through 13th street and, before the intersection with the Línea street, there is a left-turn-prohibited sign. I had seen the sign but there was a congestion on the Línea street all the way down to Malecón and my father insisted that it would be ok to turn left. What a surprise when we saw the police 20 meters ahead!

No discussion, I broke the article 143 inc. 5 of the Cuban Trafic Law, said the officer. I got a ticket for 30 pesos. I could never imagine that the first time in my life I got fined would be in the Cuban capital!


But the most interesting of all was that the police officer could not spell correctly in his mother tongue. He spelled Sweden as Suesia (see ticket picture) and, on the receipt he kept, he misspelled the street name as Linia. The correct spellings are Suecia and Línea.

Well, what can we expect from a country where the authorities are unable to write properly in their language?