Drink rum, smoke cigars and learn how to salsa

24 hours, 4 flights and 3 countries later and we enter Cuban airspace on a Fokker 100 (It's amazing how the name of a plane can help to identify any English person within 50 yards) and the cabin crew are spraying insecticide, as ordered by the Cuban Government, throughout the plane.  You see - Cuba is very... different.

Havana (where we spent our first week) is a Cuban cliche of crumbling colonial buildings and classic cars from 1950s America (though the cars are slowly being replaced, in a shockingly short sighted move, by Ladas!).  Since Fidel Castro assumed power, following the revolution in 1959, Havana - like most of Cuba - has been falling into a state of disrepair ever since.  Power cuts are frequent, shops are woefully inadequately stocked (Cubans are issued ration books) and there are only two TV channels (one showing propaganda 24 hours a day, the other offering such delights as 'Maths Problems' and 'Chess Problems').  On the flipside the country boasts a 100% adult literacy rate; 15.3 hospital beds per 100 population; a maximum 8 hour working day (enforced by law); free childcare and retirement at 55 for women, 60 for men.  We procured all this positive information from the bullet ridden Revolutionary Museum, so the source isn't 100% reliable.

Another potentially unreliable source of information was the owner of our 'Casa Particular' (A house with rooms to rent to tourists - one of the few private business enterprises Castro allows).  We have no reason to doubt her (and she had no reason to lie to us) but some of what she said shocked us.  Namely:

• Each family takes it in turn, for 3 nights a month, to "keep watch for counter revolutionary activities" throughout their street between the hours of 10pm and 1am (?!) and then report back to a centralised 'committee' by way of an hour by hour diary of goings on.  Our Casa owner felt this was just an excuse to spy on people as the last counter revolution was at the Bay of Pigs in the 60s.
• Everybody earns the same money.  A cleaner will earn a similar salary to a doctor.  An average monthly wage is about  £20.
• You can't buy a house or a car.  The government gives you one if you are a 'good worker'.
• If a Cuban is caught with a foreigner in their car they're assumed to be running illegal taxis (and therefore are capitalists) and their car is taken from them.
• It is possible, though highly regulated and very difficult, for Cubans to leave Cuba as a tourist.  If they go for more than 11 months their car and home is taken from them permanently.  Given the low wages paid (by the Government) to Cubans very few can afford to get off the island and those that can afford to arouse suspicion.
• If you go to hospital for elective surgery "you have to take your own supply of blood".  A relative must accompany you to hospital and give blood.  Giving blood in general is strongly encouraged - a hospital representative comes to everyone's door, knocks and asks who will be donating blood.  Another representative is available to drive 'volunteers' immediately to hospital just in case they change their mind.

You can see why people still build rafts to get to Florida.  As two failed refugees did just before we got there.  They'd converted an old truck and (and I'm not joking here) attached a sofa on top as a buoyancy aid.  The American Coastguard saw a floating sofa and, being American, shot it to pieces.  I guess the only real surprise was that the sofa didn't have half a dozen US troops on it.

The Cuban Government doesn't like the American Government doesn't like the American Government much (and vice versa).  As is pretty evident from the Government produced billboards likening George W Bush to Hitler and proclaiming him as a terrorist (and other, more infantile, insults).  The Revolutionary Museum is certainly a government mouthpiece.  Plenty about JFK's efforts to kill of Castro (Bay of Pigs).  Nothing about the Cuban Missile Crisis that nearly destroyed the world as we know it.  Castro encourages piracy of Hollywood films and shows them in Government owned cinemas.  He will not allow banks and businesses in Cuba to trade in US dollars and rubs Uncle Sam's nose in it by sending more doctors to hurricane ravaged New Orleans than the US managed to send itself.

You'd think that with all this going on Cuban's may be suspicious of foreigners to the point of being unwelcoming.  Not the ones we've met.  As was proved when we tried to take a tour of a cigar factory.  After being taken to a factory that doesn't operate tours, by an old American taxi (the model was a Plymouth if anyone's interested) we stumbled upon the bar that forms part of the factory.  Over a mojito (our first in Cuba) we were entertained by the 3 barmen (despite there only being room for one behind the bar) and given a free cigar.  During the conversation we asked where we could buy fruit (or at least that's what we think we asked).  10 minutes later barman #1 returned with a mango.  Barman #2 then peeled it and chopped half of it and served it to us with cocktail sticks.  Meanwhile Barman #3 rammed two bare wires into a plug socket to get the food blender going to allow them to make us a freshly prepared mango milkshake.  And they wanted nothing in return. 

We managed to take a tour of another factory the next day.  They take cigars nearly as seriously as they take dominoes.  It takes 9 months to learn how to roll a cigar (by hand as they all are) and strict QA measures are in place to check every single cigar.  The job isn't without its perks though.  You can smoke as many cigars as you like (kind of like a Cadburys for people with a death wish) and the factory employs someone to read to the workers - a government produced newspaper in the morning, a romantic novel in the afternoon.  Plus you get to take 3 of the best cigars home each night.  Most if these freebies  end up in the possession of tourists as there is a thriving black market inside and outside the factory.  If you do smoke cigarettes and wonder how your fags are made we can tell you that the tobacco that's used is the crap that they throw on the floor at the cigar factories.

The fact that 3 men were employed to do one man's work is mirrored throughout Cuba.  At one shop there was nothing but 3 half empty domestic freezers and one till.  There were two staff at the checkout.  There are also no post boxes in Cuba.  They have (manned) post huts.

There are two different types of shops and two different currencies.  The 'luxury' shops (for tourists) are stocked with such delights as overpriced hot dog sausages (£3 a tin) and tinned luncheon meat.  You can exchange one tourist peso for 25 local pesos.  Though what you'd buy with it (apart from pizza) is a mystery to both of us.  Forget what we said about food in Peru.  The restaurant food here is the most uninspired, greasy, tasteless dirge imaginable.  Seriously, if luncheon meat is considered a luxury you can imagine what the locals consider acceptably describable as 'food'.  Other 'luxuries' include soap and sanitary towels just in case Cuban women decide to menstruate more than the permissable 3 times a year prescribed by their ration books.

After around a week in Havana we spent 6 days in Trinidad on the south coast of Cuba.  We got off the bus to be confronted by dozens of anxious guesthouse owners desperate for us to stop at their place.  The owners all have to stop behind a rope cordon to stop the poor gringos being crushed in the stampede.  This boundary is enforced by a policeman who is only too keen to make sure the locals keep their distance.

The only other time we saw a policeman do anything in Cuba was to intervene between and arguing group of men in one of Havana's squares.  The argument had become so heated that it had not only drawn the attention of the local constabulary but also a sizeable crowd that had grown to witness it and, at times, join in.  The cause of the commotion was unclear.  Politics?  Religion?  Fatherhood of a child?  No.

Baseball!  And the season had finished two weeks ago!  I guess some things are more important than dominoes and cigars.

Trinidad (bus station aside) however is a very relaxed and tranquil place.  Apparently a very typical Cuban town.  The guesthouse we stumbled upon was absolutely fantastic.  Ran by Jose and Airida (who treated us more like family than tourists - particularly when Kieren was suffering from food poisoning contracted in Havana) - the food was fantastic, the mojitos conjured up are frequently touted as 'the best in Cuba' by dozens of guests who have signed her guestbook and the room was huge (with two very grand double beds).  We can't explain how much we enjoyed staying there.

Another benefit of staying with Airida and Jose is their ability to arrange activities with locals.  We rose horses up a mountain and through rivers.  Daisy, as Charlotte had named hers (though Kieren thinks that, judging from its anatomy, it was more of a Dobbin than a Daisy), did her best to lighten her load by ploughing Charlotte into an overhanging chunky branch.  It's worth stating now that Cuban Health and Safety legislation is pretty lax.  We didn't get a helmet to wear and our tutorial was limited to 1)  How to pull a rope and 2) How to kick a horse. 

However we both made it back safely so there's no real grounds for complaint.

We also, thanks to a friend of the family:  Antonio, Learnt how to salsa.  Though any of you who have see Kieren dancing before will not need to ask how it went.  So, more accurately, Charlotte learnt how to salsa.

The next evening we visited a local Casa de la Musica to see how it's done properly.  This is basically an open air bar where local bands play and Cubans dance.  The atmosphere, to coin a phrase, is truly electric.  Music is a massive part of Cuban life - just walking down the street you're bombarded with different sounds as you pass each house.  It's kind of like Northfield but without Sean Paul.

Northfield however, for all its glory, doesn't have Ancon Beach:  A cliche with golden sand, palm trees and warm aquamarine waters.

So Trinidad has a picture postcard beach, colourful warm people, plenty to do if the beach isn't your thing and very cool nightlife.  It's not hard to see why it's became our favourite place so far. 

Combine that with bustling Havana and our genuinely intriguing education on what it's like to live in a communist state and you've got somewhere we wish we could have spent just a little longer in.

Next Stop:  The Big Apple.