Cuba: part 6

Oh, that's it for Cuba really. After Maria La Gorda, we travelled back to Havana and had one last weekend, imbibing a number of mojitos and daiquiris and enjoying the hospitality of Mr Chris. He introduced us to the British Ambassador did I mention? She lives in an extraordinary house, where waiters bring you lobster canapés and it's hard to maintain an empty glass. There were no Ferrero Rochier, of course.

The man who took us to the top of the Edificio Bacardi to show us the view pointed out to me some feature of the British invasion from the 18th century. "Ah, sorry about that," I said, laughing, "Disculpe." He laughed: "We have forgiven." Oh well, we were only there a year, it wasn't that long. And two weeks - well, that's even less.

The rest of the pictures are here.

Cuba: part 5

Post-Trinidad, we embarked on a mini road trip, taking in a visit to the Bay of Pigs and its stuffy old museum, a lunchtime pizza in Cienfuegos, and some inventive driving from Chris - we dodged numerous potholes, swerved round crabs straying into our path, almost slowed to a halt in the middle of the road when the rain got too heavy to drive through and gaped at the Cubans at the roadside trying to sell cheese at oncoming cars. The journey started with a look out over the Lost World lusciousness of the Valle de los Ingenios.

A night back in Havana, then off to relax, dive and relax again on the West coast, the beachy beauty of Maria La Gorda.

The water was so clear. Sigh.

Cuba: part 4

Did I mention the cars? I did not.

Cuba: part 3

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRGGGGGHHHHHHHHH.

Aside from the enormous moth landing on Chris's beer, Trinidad (no relation to Trinidad and Tobago, as it always has to explain when it meets people at parties) was really very lovely: cobbled streets, lazy atmosphere, colourful houses. Although when you go off the beaten track, the place is a bit less fairytale, the houses more run down and the tracks more beaten.

Trinidad's EVIL UNDERBELLY (or overbelly, as it's at the top of a hill):

Okay, it's not really evil. Although if you carry on in this direction (actually the camera is looking back towards the town, so if you're continuing down the path in your head, make sure you're walking backwards) and it's a weekend, you can go to a club inside a real cave. It's pretty exciting, although you have to put up with some awful music. Here we tried to come up with acronyms for each others' names. I dispatched Sarah with "She Attracts Really Annoying Habaneros" and Chris with "Cuba Has Redhead Idiot Staying". Sarah came back with "Will Is Lucifer's Lover".

Cuba: I love you, Rough Guide

"Within view of Casa de las Américas on the Malecón is the aristocratic Monumento General Calixto García. Set in a walled podium, it's an elaborate tribute to the War of Independence general who led the campaign in Oriente, and shows him dynamincally reining in his horse surrounded by friezes depicting his greatest escapades, and would warrant closer inspection were it not widely used as a public toilet."

Cuba: part 2

Chris, our man in Havana, works for the Foreign Office, and his employer has thoughtfully given him a four-bedroom mansion to inhabit during his three-year stay in the country. As any fule kno, an exiled man with a big house has needs. I think you know what I'm talking about, but this may clarify things.

His house had a nail sticking out of the outside wall. I documented this important development with my camera.

Chris seemed fairly sure his house was bugged - one of the downsides of the job, perhaps - and, when, sitting in the living room, we continued a conversation we'd been having in the car about the theoretical assassination of Fidel, he began elaborating to the walls, so the listeners didn't misconstrue our chatter.*

After nosing round Havana for a few days, Sarah and I left our host and headed for Santa Clara on the bus. Just one night there, but enough time to check out Che's monument (described by the Rough Guide as "in classic Cuban revolutionary style: simple, bold and made of concrete") and his mausoleum, where I got told off for having my hands in my pockets. I wouldn't be surprised if Che's body had been perfectly preserved, so icy was the air conditioning.

Chesney, as the man's friends used to call him, even gets a plug at the bus station. The Bicycle Diaries, more like.

* From the foreword of Stephen Smith's highly recommended Cuba: The Land of Miracles: "Like his wife, Ulises was working as a tour guide... He told me, 'I stopped being paranoid a long time ago.' He said that he answered the questions of holidaymakers as candidly as he could and Americans often wondered if he wasn't afraid that their tour bus was bugged. 'I say, "Yes, of course it is bugged, there are microphones all over the place. The thing is, the batteries don't work."' A typical Cuban sally (and not so far from the truth, one supposes)."

Cuba: part 1

So, there's a photo everyone who goes to Cuba takes, but it's still good, so here it is.

The mural's in Havana's Plaza de la Revolucion, which was baking hot, particularly on the huge mass of flat concrete which lies at its heart. You can walk into the middle of it and no one will follow you, and suddenly you're free from the jockeying of the jineteros. The guy on the mural is called Ernesto, who's a national hero because he smoked cigars, despite being asthamatic.

As a fellow sufferer, I tried to follow his lead. A few days earlier we got a guided tour of one of the city's biggest tobacco factories, in concurrent - actually, almost simultaneous - Spanish and English.

They make these rather unappetizing looking items -

- which, of course, look way better once you've stuck the label on and sparked one up.

Back to the Plaza, though. Facing the Che mural is an enormous statue of poet, writer and campaigner for national independence José Martí, who was far uglier than Mr Guevara, but was at least Cuban. Sarah and I wanted to go to the top of his tower, but the lift was broken, or closed, or something. So it goes.

Our host in Havana was Chris, and towards the end of the trip, wandering round the Necropolis Colón, the pair of us imagined a TV series involving the Cuban hero travelling through time, with Christopher Lloyd shouting, "Martíííííííí" a lot. But the project stalled when we realised not many Cubans will have seen the Back to the Future films, and not many Back to the Future fans will know who José Martí is. And then this rather unnerving sight made me think of other, darker film franchises.

Form an orderly Cuba

Oh, yeah, so I guess I didn't mention I was going away to Cuba. Sorry, but I didn't want you to discover my flat was going to be empty for two weeks then break in and steal my stuff. Anyway, I'm back in place, having had a most excellent time. An indecent number of photographs will follow. I'm not sure a detailed write-up is on the cards; I ended up forgoing cultural notetaking in favour of blitzing that big pile of lit and drinking mojitos.

Cuba: holiday reading

BOOKS. LOTS OF BOOKS.