One of the icons of the Special Period was Cuban government engineers’ creation of an eighteen-wheeler bus that could transport hundreds of standing passengers. Because of its two “humps”, Cubans called it el camello. A response to the sudden disappearance of the Soviet-oil-for-Cuban-sugar foundation of Cuba’s pre-1991 Communist economy, the camellos operated on a drastically reduced number of routes but transported more than ten times the number of passengers on a traditional bus. (At one point, the state’s purchase of below-market-price pink paint for the painting of camellos inspired Cubans to call them panteras rosadas, or Pink Panthers.) This camello’s immense size is obvious, compared to the regular-sized state cab next to it. In the background stands the massive agricultural market, once a symbol of pre-Communist peasant and small growers’ production.
