In Havana, the return of horse-drawn buggies accompanied the rise in tourism as the primary source of income for the Cuban state: bouncing around on the back of a fancy one in Old Havana cost up to $25 for less than 20 minutes in the late 1990s, much as it did in St. Augustine, Florida, where similar services served the Cuban government as a model. In the “interior”, however, local Cubans came to rely on horse-drawn taxis as a regular form of transportation when cheap Soviet oil disappeared and, with it, most of Cuba’s vast bussing system. Although foreign riders were legally not allowed, most taxi drivers in Cienfuegos delightedly took them on, charging the Cuban currency equivalent of 50 cents USD per person on a set twenty- to thirty-minute route. Cienfuegos, January 1999.