Knowing that we’d emptied the kitchen before we left, we stopped for groceries on our way home. We were just back from Cuba, and the overflowing American supermarket was a stark reminder of just how scarce food was there. During our three-week visit, the Cuban markets we saw–government and private–largely featured open shelves, with only five or six varieties of vegetables, usually of poor quality; a bit of meat, typically pork; and a handful of canned and dried goods. For a variety of reasons–past overreliance on sugarcane as an export crop; mismanagement of cooperative farms; lack of fuel, transportation, and equipment; and low wages–Cuba must import more than 70 percent of what its people consume. Citizens receive basic rations, but not enough. Restaurants exist, but they’re not always plentiful, and there’s virtually no street food.

Back home, weaving our cart through the piles of food at the grocery store, my husband and I looked at each other and said, “mayonnaise sandwich.”

Though we had a reservation, the bus company required us to be at the Baracoa station one hour before our 8:15 a.m. departure to obtain actual paper tickets. That meant a 6:30 alarm and a quick splash of cold water before dragging our bags down to the street. Strewn with the cloudy remnants of the previous night’s storm, the morning sky reflected the angry mottling of the sea. We hurried along the crumbling malecon, dodging the waves smashing over the wall.

Baracoa is on the far eastern end of Cuba, facing into the Atlantic Ocean. Backed by a verdant tropical forest that climbs the slopes of an extended mountain range and hampered by hurricane-ravaged roads, the town remains somewhat isolated, sleepy, and friendly. Gaily painted wooden houses, their fronts covered with tall shutters and deep porches, line the streets. Most people walk, use horses and carts, or hire bicycle “taxis” to get around, though a few old Fords and jeeps, tied together and rattling ominously and painfully with every pothole, also brave the rough roads.

We got our tickets, checked our bags, and boarded the bus. Other tourists, along with a few Cubans, sleepily trickled aboard, and shortly before 8:15 the driver rumbled the motor awake. And then we waited. Finally he drove out the gate, lumbered several hundred feet down the road, and stopped.

People who had settled into sleep started moving restlessly. We could see the driver and the conductor speaking heatedly, but we were too far back to hear them. Shortly after 9:00, the driver stepped up the aisle, and, frowning, barked in Spanish, “I don’t speak English, but we can’t go. You can get off now or stay. Leave your luggage or take it. I don’t know when we’ll leave.” And he drove the bus back to the station.

At least I was pretty sure that’s what he had said. A poor Spanish speaker, I found the thickly carbonated Cuban accent hard to follow. We eventually understood that a mudslide, a consequence of the previous night’s storm, had blocked the main route south, and we would have to wait for it to be cleared. Hopefully we would leave by 11:00.

Because we had left our lodgings so early, we hadn’t eaten breakfast. We had expected to be at our destination in time for a late lunch, but now we looked around for a bite to eat. Parked at the edge of town, the bus station offered only a tiny cafeteria, a stuffy room with a portable burner to make coffee, a cooler with a few sodas, and a small pile of candies.

“?Tiene comida?” I asked the woman behind the counter. “Do you have any food?” “Pan,”she replied. Bread. “Can you make any sandwiches?” “Pan con mayonesa.” “Well,” I said to my husband, “it’s mayonnaise sandwiches with coffee or cola–or nothing.”

We looked at each other and then smiled at the woman. “No, gracias.” We’d seen mayonnaise sandwiches on other cafeteria signboards, but hadn’t considered what that really meant. Apparently, a mayonnaise sandwich is for when the only filling you can afford is the spread, or when the spread is the only filling you have to offer.

At 11:00 the bus driver and conductor, stripped down to their T-shirts, were talking agitatedly on their phones. People slumped in the shade and in the stuffy waiting room. Pressed, the driver said we would leave today–probably–but not before 3:00.

Most of the other tourists flocked to the collective taxis–those vintage Fords and jeeps–to brave the circuitous northern road to Santiago–a route at least twice as long and much of it barely navigable. Along with a few other foreigners and the Cubans, we decided to place our money on the bus, but now we had to eat.

We went back to the cafeteria. “Dos pan con mayonesa y dos cafes, por favor.” “Oh, no tenemos nada ahora–menos cola y dulces.” They had sold out of what little they had–except cola and candy. We couldn’t help but laugh. What had seemed like nothing to us before–how could bread with mayonnaise ever be considered a sandwich?–was now truly nothing.

Eventually, assured the bus wouldn’t depart soon, we marched back into town and found a private cafeteria where we ate two delicious “especial” pork sandwiches with glasses of fresh mango juice. We couldn’t have been more thankful. And the bus did leave at 3:00, the driver finally throwing down his phone in frustration before yanking on his shirt and cranking the engine with a roar. When we got to the mudslide, we drove either around or over it–from where we sat, it was hard to tell.

Two weeks later, at the supermarket, we gratefully–if rather abashedly–celebrated our return to abundance by filling our cart with vegetables, cheese, and chocolate cake.