Viazul

Viazul bus in Havana

Viazul is a predominantly oriented foreign tourists subsidiary of state Cuban Busgesellschaft ASTRO ( A sociación de S ervicios de Tr ansportación por O mnibus Nacionales ) and engaged in a route network of long-distance bus. The company was founded in 1996 and is headquartered in Havana. All major tourist regions are served, as well as almost all provincial capitals along the Carretera Central . The tickets are paid in peso convertibles .

The long-distance bus company for Cubans, for which tickets are paid for in Moneda Nacional , is operated under the ASTRO brand and operates a denser and more frequented route network. Both companies use modern coaches from the brands Yutong (China) and Busscar (Brazil). According to the company, Viazul carried 223 drivers on 127 buses in 43,000 journeys in 2009, 711,000 passengers, with 11.6 million kilometers of road being covered.

Line network

Connections from Havana to:

• Holguín (via Santa Clara , Sancti Spíritus , Ciego de Ávila , Camagüey and Las Tunas )
• Santiago de Cuba (to Las Tunas as above, then via Bayamo )
• Trinidad (via Cienfuegos )
• Varadero (via Matanzas and Varadero Airport )
• Viñales (via Pinar del Río )

as well as connections:

• Varadero - Trinidad (via Santa Clara and Sancti Spíritus)
• Varadero - Santiago de Cuba (via Santa Clara, Sancti Spíritus, Ciego de Ávila, Camagüey, Las Tunas, Holguín and Bayamo)
• Trinidad - Santiago de Cuba (via Holguín and Bayamo)
• Santiago de Cuba - Baracoa (via Guantánamo )

Disaster on January 10, 2019

The bus from Baracoa got off the wet road " La Farola " and crashed into one of the gorges of the "Sierra de Purial". As a result of the restrictive information policy, very little is known and safe; of the seven fatally injured passengers, four are non-Cubans, which is likely to be very uncomfortable for the tourism industry.

Viazul can also be used by Cubans, but is primarily designed for foreigners: this explains the relatively high number of foreigners on the bus, which is given as 21 or 22. A total of 33 people were injured, some of them so severe that further deaths were expected. The dead are two Cubans, one Cuban and two Argentinians, a German citizen and a French.

Web links

Commons : Viazul  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Viazul website
• Timetable information on cuba-individual.com

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Viazul: Confort y Puntualidad para viajar por Cuba. In: Revista Excelencias No. 92 from May 2010, accessed on November 16, 2013 (Spanish)
2. ↑ kko / dpa / AFP: Cuba: German dies in bus accident. In: Spiegel Online . January 12, 2019, accessed April 26, 2020 . 
3. ↑ dpa / kbl: Seven dead: German tourist dies in a bus accident in Cuba. In: welt.de . January 12, 2019, accessed April 26, 2020 .