The Beautiful South and Washed Out in Washington

So swing back to the Peruvian Jungle episode and you may remember that we met some folk from North Carolina while we were all staying at the Wasai Lodge. We'd told them about our trip (like we tell everyone as they all ask) and when they heard that we were to be coming up the east coast of the USA they immediately gave us their email address and told us that we should visit them when we pass through and they'd take us to their beach house, feed us southern food (including the mysterious "grits") and generally show us a good time. Nothing could have prepared us for the level of hospitality they really had in store. For reference there are three couples you need to know about - Jennell and Frank Harris, Margaret ("MC") and Stig (yes he does know about "Top Gear") Egede-Nissen and Jim and Connie Strickland.

We arranged to meet Jennell at the Greyhound station in Raleigh, the state capital of North Carolina and when we did, she already had lunch waiting for us in the car. This was the famous North Carolina "BBQ" which is BBQ pork in a roll served with sweet potato fries and two vinegar-based sauces (the make-up of the sauces varied across the state). After a 14 h bus trip this was extremely welcome and we fair wolfed it down while Jennell drove. It was a 200 mile or so journey and on they way we chatted about life, the universe and everything, sorting out the state of US and UK education along the way. We eventually arrived and Frank and Jennell's beach house in Shallotte on an estuary off the North Carolina spot. It was a stunning spot and a really lovely house which they'd had built about a decade earlier. After staying in hostels in Florida it was quite a contrast with a gorgeous room for us with a double bed, clean sheets and a bathroom with a properly powerful shower, also welcome after some of the cold, dribbly affairs we'd encountered in Latin America. We were able to have a shot kayaking on the estuary (with Charlotte falling in!) before Frank arrived with Annie and Zach, their two springer spaniels and Zach's "security raccoon". Dinner was a great clam chowder accompanied by an amazing ham which Jennell had cured herself and various pickled things (see the recipes section for these and other North Carolina gastronomic feasts!) and we were plied with plenty alcohol including some single malt which made us feel properly at home. After much chat and more putting the world to rights we eventually crashed with great promise for the following day.

Morning was broken with an amazing breakfast of crispy bacon, eggs (over easy - I hadn't seen that done before) and warm Krispy Kreme doughnuts. Charlotte had mentioned these after trying them on a previous visit to NYC. They were amazing (so much better than Dunkin' Donuts!) and we now need to seek out a branch so we can sample more. After breakfast we all jumped in the boat and headed down the river to a beach area. The whole place was stunning and was peppered by some seriously big houses, most of which were weekend retreats so it boggles the mind to consider what their permanent residences look like. The day before Jennell had baited the crab pot and lo and behold, we had a clutch of crabs so Charlotte and I watched eagerly while these were boiled (they went from blue to pink) and then we all assisted picking the meat out the shells. Jennell made the white meat into crab cakes (another recipe we collected!) and the brown meat from the claws into a dip for a later occasion. Frank then drove us back across the river to the fish market where we bought 25 lb of shrimps. Don't be afraid though, most of these were to last the winter so they were bagged up and frozen but a few were kept for the evening. The final finishing touch was put to the main course when Frank suggested that we go out fishing using some of the shrimp as bait. I'd never fished before so jumped at the chance. Frank got Charlotte set up with rod and bait and showed her how to cast. He then set me up, showed me how to cast and within about 30 seconds I was reeling in a monster (beginner's luck I suspect). I chopped it's head off (my first animal kill, I was proud!) and Frank helped me de-scale, gut, clean and fillet it. It was added to the menu along with the shrimps, crab cakes and cheesy grits (a cous-cous- like grain that we'd only previously heard of). An amazing meal resulted finished off with some shortbread that was the tiny and only contribution from Charlotte and myself. We learnt loads about southern cooking and played Jennell and Frank some tunes and sang some songs that evening. Charlotte got the comedy award by walking into a closed screen door - doh!

Frank drove us back to Burlington the next morning (after more lovely eggs, sausages, doughnuts etc etc!) where we were handed over to Stig and MC who hadn't been able to join us for the weekend. They live with their two dogs Max and Schubert in a crazy house on a lakeside with loads of bizarre nooks and crannies, one of which we were staying in which contained a luxurious double bed, our own bathroom and a couple of other spare rooms too. We chatted (more setting of the world to rights - always fun!) and they took us out for dinner at the local golf club where they sometimes play. We all ordered burgers as they told us that it was unique in that you could specify how you wanted your burger cooked (rare, medium rare etc). Most restaurants are too worried about health and safety for that. You could also specify sides or mixtures (fries, onion rings, salad, slaw etc.) so Charlotte and I both ordered a half and half combination of fries and onion rings. There was little room left for dessert so we ordered an ice-cream-pie and shared it round. I couldn't imagine anyone eating a whole one after that amount of main course. We lit a fire in their fire pit back at the house - alcohol was drunk, tunes were played and songs were sung. We were loving it.

It's election time here in the US and both Stig and MC were working the next day at the polling booths. Unlike the UK, they allow a week or so of voting so that everyone has a chance. Stig went early but MC didn't start until 10.30am so was able to make breakfast for us - eggs again but this time accompanied by another southern delicacy, biscuits. Before you start thinking that that's really odd, a biscuit here in the US is actually a savoury scone type object and can be filled with bacon, ham etc. It was a great accompaniment to the eggs certainly. Up to this point we hadn't been able to meet up with Connie and Jim, the third couple from our jungle experience as Jim's father had just died so they were tied up dealing with that. Connie phoned that morning though and we managed to arrange a lunch outing with her and their kids Brandee and Taylor who were approximately our age. This was taken at "Mellow Mushroom", a pizza joint that had recently opened in town. They had a great selection of ales (surprising for the US) and Taylor was the expert in the local brews and helped us make a selection. All were lovely and reminded us very much of home. Pizzas were bought and shared out (mine was the best though!) and more of the world was set to right. A lovely time.

When we arrived back with MC we jumped in her car and she took us on a wee mystery tour around Burlington. They have a really lovely university campus which looked especially lovely with the leaves on the turn. We were also particularly interested to see the fraternities and sororities, something we really don't have in the UK so we picked MC's brains and tried to get our heads round that. There was also a really nice area (called "Glencoe" bizarrely enough) where there were converted cotton mill houses. Apparently, no one thought they'd ever be any use once the mills had closed (and when we saw one pre-converted we saw why!) but someone converted one and the whole things snowballed. They're allowed to build as much as they like provided that the front of the building remains intact so all of them had massive back extensions. They made lovely residences and you could see a couple that were in production. Dinner that eveing was shrimp and grits, another southern classic followed by a pear pie made mostly by Charlotte. Stig and MC had invited two of their friends round so we had a great evening chatting, sharing stories and playing some more music. Jennell and Frank dropped by as well so we could say cheerio as we were on the early Greyhound to Washington DC the next morning.

We were especially sad to leave our North Carolina crowd as we'd had the most amazing time with them. They were the most generous and accommodating hosts (MC even made us a packed lunch for the bus journey) and we were staying in beautiful houses eating fantastic food. We would never had thought to go there if we hadn't met them in the jungle but we're so glad we did and it's certainly changed the southern US steriotype for me. It actually makes me want to investigate more of the southern states so maybe we'll do that on a future occasion. I really hope that sometime we'll be able to return the favour by welcoming them to Scotland.

MC dropped us off at the station the next morning where we were due to catch a bus at 8.00am. It turned out to be running late so we sat in the station chatting to the station manager and a taxi driver waiting for possible business. They were two black guys and I'd noticed posters on the wall celebrating the "Freedom Rides" when a bunch of black and white civil rights campaigners boarded Greyhound buses in 1961 to challenge the segregation of the time. It was fascinating to quiz these guys about it as they were old enough to remember segregation and told us crazy stories about how there'd be four toilets in a bus station, two for whites and two for blacks and how black would always have to go round the back etc. It's funny how we think of the USA as being a modern country now but you don't have to go too far back to find some pretty hellish nastiness. The bus eventually arrived and we headed north.

In Washington we were staying with Gil and Nancy, two lovely Couchsurfers with extensive experience (we were surfers 211 and 212 approximately). We chatted with Nancy for a bit before Gil arrived and within about 5 minutes, we'd identified a common love for Jethro Tull, Pink Floyd and classic British comedies. We went out to a CS meet up down the road and met (amongst others) a guy who'd lived in Glasgow and a girl who'd lived in Edinburgh. We spent a good bit discussing the relative merits of the two cities and reminisced about Kebab Mahal and the Mosque curries. I felt a touch homesick...

After chatting with Gil and Nancy about our itinerary, we decided to have an early start as we didn't have long in Washington, DC. We headed straight for the Mall and wandered up and down visiting as many sites as we could including the Congress, Vietnam, Korean and WWII Memorials, the Lincoln Memorial, the Library of Congress, one of the Smithsonian Museums and the White House - there was so much to see! I think the highlights for me were seeing Barack's House (we took a photo with the EYG bag and gave him a wave but he never showed his face :-() but also, seeing the spot where Martin Luther King gave his "I have a dream" speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. It was amazing to look as he did over the reflecting pool to the Washington Memorial and imagine it full of civil rights campaigners at such a turning point in history. We did get absolutely soaked mind as the heavens opened in tropical-storm like fashion. We managed to escape into the museum where we saw the Star Spangled Banner that inspired "The Star Spangled Banner" so that was a bonus - luckily all the museums in Washington, DC are free.

I'd read on-line about a legendary place that did chilli dogs and was a place that the then president-elect Barack Obama ate before he was inaugurated in early 2009. We managed to seek it out and had the chilli dog, fries and pink lemonade. It was fabulous - a chilli dog is basically a hot dog with mustard and onions in a bun smothered with chilli sauce (no beans - yaay!) and I can't imagine how anyone would eat one as a take-out. Back at Gil and Nancy's we had a bit of a jam session with Gil on his slide dulcimer. He caught on to the rhythms and chords pretty quick and we had lots of chat about Scotland and it's music and culture (more mild homesickness for me). We left the next morning feeling sorry that we couldn't stay with them longer as they were lovely people but all the Scottishness was making them fancy a visit across the water so hopefully we'll be able to welcome them to our home sometime soon.

The following morning was another day and another Greyhound to somewhere I was particularly excited about. The Big Apple!

Miami Vice

We never quite let ourselves believe we were actually leaving Cuba this time until the plane was actually taking off. But it did take off, and we did leave. Arriving in the Bahamas was a little strange. To get our connecting flight we had to go to a special terminal for US flights and enter the US officially there. At least it got customs and immigration over with nice and early. Security was of the usual unneccessarily unpleasant flavour. Sometimes you have to wonder how they train these people. The departure lounge was weird as well - more like T-bay with all the Bahaman crafts and boutique bits and pieces. Clearly there's only one type of American who visits the Bahamas - rich ones.

On the plane we sat in front of two guys boasting to eachother about crime levels, strip searches and their guns. It was as if they wanted the whole plane to know that they had been up to different, dangerous things and this somehow made them cool. It was very funny to listen to. The plane itself was a tiny little thing which at one point got a sharp kick sideways in the air and gave everyone a fright. Luckily Paul's over his fear of flying, right? Arriving in Miami was scary, I suppose. I'm always nervous when starting a new country and not knowing what to expect - we didn't have a hostel booked and weren't really clear on how to get where we intended to go. Plus it was night and we were hungry. But people were extremely friendly and helpful - so we found our hostel, and there were beds for us.

The US is weird, because it seems like it should be similar to the UK because of the language and of course there's a lot we feel we know about it because of films and TV. But at the same time it's so alien. The great thing about it is that we have all these assumptions we've made about the place because of the whole media thing, and all of them get disproved.

We'd also thought our Spanish days were over after leaving Cuba, but tis not so. Miami has a huge Cuban population so we actually found that most people were still speaking Spanish, and all the signs were in Spanish too. (In fact, I found myself automatically trying to interpret the Spanish translations, without thinking to read the bigger English sign above.) There were also Cuban flags all over the place - were we in fact still in Cuba? The main difference is that there Cubans are rich and influential, and you won't see a Viva Fidel poster anywhere. Otto told us that there are some very influential Cuban senators holding back any progress in improving US relations with Cuba, and that it's no coincidence that Florida was one of the key states involved in the re-election of Bush.

Miami also represented to us the return to food, and I'm ashamed to say we began our stay with a trip to McDonalds. There's so much for the consumer everywhere! Where would you start? Paul had dreams of making fajitas, but though we could now buy anything we needed in the supermarket, making that meal was another personal triumph. The kitchen in the hostel basically had 2 rings on a cooker, and a couple of pots. Not cutlery, not plates, no other equipment of any kind besides a microwave! We did pretty well with a few plastic forks and a pen-knife!

I'm not sure what my expectations of Miami were. We were staying in Miami Beach - the posh bit where all the holiday makers stay - everything was so clean and white and quiet and rich. And American. No-one could understand our accents except the Spanish speakers! On our second day we hired a car and Paul braved left-hand driving. I braved trying to navigate us out of the city. We triumphed and hit wide open highways listening to American radio stations heading for the Everglades National Park. The radio was particularly funny to listen to. Being in Cuba we'd forgotten all about advertising. And it was especially weird to hear medical procedures being advertised. Paul's favourite was 'Laser Vaginal Rejuvination.' It was so nice just to have the freedom of driving about, not worrying about which bus to catch, or walking to places. The Everglades is a big swamp area at the bottom of Florida mostly built upon alligator tourism. Really interesting. Really beautiful. It was a good day. And next... Orlando.

We caught the bus the next afternoon (we've bought Greyhound Discovery Passes which allow us free travel for 60 days on any route in the US and Canada - we just turn up an hour or so before the bus leaves. Great because our plans keep changing and last minute tickets are expensive.) We had a particularly hairy moment getting to the station though. For some reason Greyhound stations are hidden in obscure places out of the way - as if the Americans are ashamed of actually having long-distance public transport. The bus driver wasn't being overly helpful in telling us where to get off, and as a consequence dropped us in the middle of a highway with no pavement and no crossing. But a helluvalot of cars. The bus station was on the other side, and our only choice was to run with our big heavy bags. We were taking our life into our hands with that one!

Orlando was another weird place. It's one of those places that other people always went on holiday to when I was at school, but I'd never considered going to myself. And the outskirts is basically made up of theme parks - in fact, a whole big section of the highway is owned by Disney. Our day in Orlando, then, was to be spent at one of these theme parks - Seaworld's Aquatica (a water park recommended to me by someone I worked with). We made a great mission to get there - everywhere's very far apart - and when we arrived we found that everyone was British (I'm not exaggerating). We'd happened to come during British half term. I wonder if it would have been empty the week before or a week later. At least we weren't the palest people around any more. We've built up pretty good tans. Some of the Brits amazed me - they were there for the whole week, staying at one of the expensive hotels with all their kids, and going to a different park each day. Must have cost an absolute bomb. Never thought I'd say this, but it sounds like a huge amount of fun and maybe I'd consider doing that myself some day.

Anyway, it was all incredibly exciting. I managed to smuggle our food through the bag searches saying I had special dietary requirements. Well I do - I require not to spend extortionate amounts on theme park food. Not sure if the checker believed me, but she let it go. The security felt like it was of airport standards, and the rules were ridiculously strict. We spent the day splashing around on lots of different water slides and looking at dolphins with the colouring of orcas. Loads of fun.

We took the night bus away from Orlando. Everything was great up until that point - fun day at the water park, and everyone we met was so friendly and helpful. Including a strangely insightful man on the bus who spotted that Paul and I are married (most people assume we're just boyfriend and girlfriend because of my age) and who gave us some kind of contemplation card on compassion for other people. Perhaps he knew we were about to encounter an absolute arsehole of a security guard at the Greyhound station. As soon as we entered the building we were treated like idiots and criminals, and subjected to a thorough search while this guy was rude and insulting. Then to my horror they confiscated the bottle of rum we'd only just bought for our next hosts, and we only narrowly escaped having the penknife confiscated too (how would we survive without that?). The whole thing made my blood boil. The rules seemed so arbitrary and petty. The main guy was clearly an idiot on a power trip, and the other guy said he wished he'd been the one to find the rum - they were dividing our stuff up for themselves before we'd even left the checkpoint. Afterwards I wished I'd argued that as the rum still belonged to me (I just wasn't allowed to take it past security) and I'd bought it as a present, I still had the right to do with it as I wished. I should be allowed to go outside and give it as a present to anyone I wanted to. Or failing that, empty it into a bin. I certainly didn't want them to keep it. But I was too tired and upset to do anything daring. And we still wanted to keep the penknife.

So I leave you as we sit on the bus heading to meet our North Carolina friends from the Peru jungle trip, and our endless summer is finally ending. It's gloriously sunny, but noticeably colder. I can't wait for autumn -it's been a long time coming.

The Rain Came Down and the Floods Came Up

14/10/10 But thankfully, Otto and Mylena's House stayed firm.

It was the most spectacular wind a rain shower I've ever seen and as we peered through the shutters the street started to run like a river. Occasionally Mylena brushed the water out to stop the house filling up as well but told us that it was actually a tropical storm and NOT a hurricane (it had actually been demoted) and sometimes the winds were so bad that they had to hold the doors close and put metal bars accross them. Inevitably, the power went off - it's quite common for the authorities to turn the power off in these situations before it gets taken out by a falling tree. Quite sensible really if you think about it. We were concerned abour Otto who was supposed to be coming back from work on his moped. He did eventually arrive telling us how the wind had blown his helmet off as he'd been riding along. It certainly wasn't moped-weather. We'd planned to go to the cheapo restaurant that evening but with no power we reckoned it would be closed. As we never expected to be there anyway we had no food so we threw ourselves on Otto and Mylena's mercy and they shared their dinner with us. I played some tunes and gave them the chat about Scottish music in return, kind of literally singing for my supper. It turned out to be a really pleasant evening despite the circumstances. Otto and Mylena were extremely kind and welcoming to us, partucularly in our hour of need. We really felt we made some friends there and we'll always be grateful. It was great to have another experience of the trials that Cubans regularly go through and there was definitely a feeling of cameraderie with the locals that we'd all survived a crazy storm. It did however give rise to the second part of our Cuba video with the band in Santa Clara as well.

15/10/10 A Chinese Graveyard

The power stayed off all night and didn't come on until next morning after Mylena had made us a small-but-perfectly-formed breakfast with the little food they had in the house ('hurricane bread' and 'emergency quail eggs'). We had a look out the window and saw part of the reason we didn't have any power - a tree that had fallen and hit the power lines. A guy with a machete was dilligantly chopping branches off it while a bunch of other folk watched. As we walked around the town that day there were trees and branches down all over the place.

We'd really got all we wanted out of Havana by that point but we had spotted an interesting looking graveyard from the airport taxi the previous day so we decided to investigate. It turned out to be a graveyard for Cubans of Chinese origin and they all had really interesting Spanish/Chinese names like "Fernando Wong Dovales" and "Alejandro Chui Wong". There is a reason that there's a big Chinese diaspora here which I read about but I can't remember it now. At some point I'll check it out.

We decided to brave the market again in order to live and eat like Cubans but the money change place was closed due to the lack of power. The market was open though so we managed to buy things by converting the price (in pesos) they gave us into CUCs (at a rate of 24 pesos per CUC) and giving them slightly more than that. It seemed to work.

After that we headed back to the big hotel with the super-expensive internet as we still had no idea what the story was with our flight. We knew that we were booked on the flight to the Bahamas on the Sunday but we still had our (re-arranged and paid for) tranfer flight to Miami. The lady at Bahamasair hd said that she would contact Bahamasair in Nassau and they could speak to American Airlines there who might (might) be able to re-arrange a new flight for no cost but it was by no means certain. I was wondering that if American Airlines heard the word "Cuba" mentioned in connection with us they might just refuse to cooperate altogether. We'd also contacted our travel agent who was also trying to sort things out but with all communication being difficult and expensive it was very frustrating trying to find out what the story was. Eventually after much emailling and thrashing around I came up with the idea of checking the American Airlines system with our original booking number and lo and behold, we found that we were booked on a flight to Miami at 7.18pm on Sunday 17th October, just as we wanted. Someone had been working in our favour and at the moment it looks like it was the Bahamasair lady as she'd left a message on Otto and Mylena's 'phone back at the Casa.

We managed to make ourselves a reasonable tomatao/okra/spring onion/pasta/GARLIC concoction and ate it before settling down to watch Dr. Who on the wee computer for the evening.

Our last day in Cuba was pretty unexciting with more Dr. Who watched, books read and stuff listened to on the iPod feeling a little like refugees. We went to bed feeling a little nervous that we might be cancelled again (you know how your mind works in such situations!) but thank goodness, that wasn't the case. The next morning our taxi arrived far too early for us but Mylena said it didn't matter and we should continue to have a leasurely breakfast. Otto spoke to the taxi driver to make sure we were charged CUC20 and not CUC25 as the opportunistic taxi driver had charged us two days before. It turned out that the deal was sealed with a few of the "Old England" toffees (with an interetinly uber-Scottish decorated bag) that we had given Otto and Mylena as a thank you gift. Inspired! Our flight took off a it late but at least it took off this time and after some spectacular views over the Carribean we landed in the Bahamas. We were a bit concerned about crossing the US border having just come from Cuba. We thought we'd be doing that when we landed in Miami but it turned out that there's a border crossing at Nassau Airport. After a few questions from the humourless border guard (who didn't seem to notice "Cuba" on the list of countries we'd visited or chose to ignore it...) we were in the departures lounge and off to the US of A and the next section of our adventure.

Our memories of Cuba will always be mixed. Once the regime changes we'd like to go back and maybe explore more of the island but, despite it's best efforts it remains a bit of a challenge for tourists and especially the impoverished backpackers like us. We will however have extremely fond memories of the lovely Casa owners we met to here's to Carlos and his wife in vinales, Maria and her lovely family in Trinidad, Mary and her family in Santa Clara and the ultimate stars of the Paul and Charlotte in Cuba show, Otto and Mylena.

Miami here we come!

Too much avocado?

13/10/10 Last night in Havana

I'd always thought it was received wisdom that you can never have too much avocado. But as Paul and I made our way through a whole giant avocado this evening, it went from being yummy to just soft green stuff, and I found myself thinking 'I don't want to eat any more avocado right now.' Perhaps the world has turned upside-down.

On another note, Otto says we might not be leaving Cuba as a hurricane is coming to Havana. No!!! Must... Get... to... Miami...

14/10/10 Hurricane

So we got ourselves to the airport just as they cancelled our flight. There were other flights cancelled as well, but not all - so I had some hope we'd still be able to get away, somehow. We waited in the queue at the Bahamas Air office, and as I heard the word 'Sunday' bandied about despair hit my stomach. Then the words 'nothing else we can do.' When it all sunk in I felt dead and couldn't quite bring myself out it again. We'd built ourselves up to escaping Cuba (finally), but now we weren't even stranded a day. We were stuck here for 3 more nights. It just felt like a sentence. I didn't want to be just 'surviving' any more - I wanted to go back to living. I couldn't bear the thought of spending any more time trying to get through the segregation system and avoid being hassled on the streets. All I could feel was nothing. There was nothing we could do and there was nothing to do here. It was the worst possible place to be stranded. I didn't want to move, let alone find another expensive taxi to take us back and see if Otto and Mylena would have our room still (I suppose we're practically family now). It took a lot to lift the spirits and finally get out of the airport. Mylena was at home (luckily) and sympathetic (although she kept saying it was only a little hurricane. I hope it's huge). Now we wait, and continue to survive.

...Here comes the storm. We're hauled up here like refugees. The wind is whistling ominously, and the rain is downpouring torrentially. It's pretty spectacular. I hope it cancels other flights. I feel like the too much avocado thing may have become a metaphor for Cuba.

Cuba - an Incomplete History

OK, so after much reading and asking questions, here's the run down of Cuban history as I see it and my opinion on this country and it's state of affairs...

Cuba gained independence from the Spanish in the late 1800s but not really as a result of a Cuban uprising (there had been one prior to that egged on by José Marti, now regarded as a Cuban national hero). The US had already shown an interest in acquiring Cuba and in early 1898 A US battleship called "The Maine" (obsessively sent "to protect US citizens") anchored of the coast of Havana mysteriously exploded and the Spaniards were blamed (since then it's been suggested that the US blew up the ship themselves to give them an excuse to intervene in Cuba. It's probably not a coincidence that the Captain and crew of the ship happened to be safely ashore at the time...). The US offered to buy Cuba for $300M as recompense, Spain said "no", the US declared war, blockaded Cuba (how things change...) and in summer 1898 a peace treaty between the US and Spain was signed in Paris (no Cubans invited) saying that the US should respect Cuban self-determination. The Cubans were now independent from Spain but under US military occupation. The eventual withdrawal of the US was accepted by means of the "Platt Agreement" which stated that the US could still intervene militarily in Cuba's affairs whenever it saw fit. This allowed them to acquire the famous Guantánamo Bay naval base which of course, they still have.

A number of fairly dodgy puppet regimes governed Cuba over the next wee while including an army sergeant called Fulgencio Batista, who seized power in a coup in 1933 and later that year, the Platt Agreement was repealed (but the lease on Guantanamo extended for 99 years with the stipulation that both sides would have to agree before it was ever terminated. Yeah right.). In 1944 Batista's preferred candidate lost an election and after a few years of governments who ran the Cubans into the ground, he re-took power with a vengeance in a second coup in 1952. He then ran a seriously corrupt and unpleasant dictatorship trying to gain legitimacy by means of rigged elections in 1955 and 1958.

Now names that you'll recognize start to crop up. A revolutionary group formed in Havana led by the bearded Fidel Castro. He organised an attack on Batista's army on July 26th 1953 aided by 119 rebels. The attack failed and a number of Castro's army were captured and tortured to death. Castro himself escaped but was captured a week later by an army general who defied orders by taking him to jail instead of shooting him on the spot. Fidel was sentenced to 15 years in jail but was later released when Batista tried to gain popular support by releasing all political prisoners following the dodgy election in 1955. Castro fled to Mexico leaving a couple of supporters in Cuba to organise things there while he trained folk up as his revolutionary movement, now named M-26-7 after his failed coup. At this point enters the face on the T-shirts and posters, a young Argentinian doctor named Ernesto Guevara or "Che" for short. (“Che”, incidentally was the generic name Cubans called Argentinians, like calling a Scot “Jock”.) He had spent some time travelling Latin America on a motorbike observing the people and the poverty there and forming some fairly seriously left-wing views (no doubt influenced by recent events in China and Russia). He was young, intelligent, handsome and idealistic and as far as I can make out wasn't power hungry but was genuinely well-meaning. He ended up in Mexico after being chucked out of Guatamala for being a leftie. He'd heard about the Cubans in Mexico on the grapevine and you can imagine him riding up on his bike, flinging off his helmet, shaking back his hair and saying "hey boys, I hear you're planning a revolution, can I be of any assistance?". It’s not how it really happened as the motorbike was knackered and left in Chile but you can begin to see why he's become such an icon. Post revolution (once he'd helped establish socialist Cuba) he left Cuba and tried to instigate revolutions in the Congo and the Andes. He was captured in Bolivia where he was shot by the US-backed army there.

Anyhow, Guevara, Castro and co took a ship over to Cuba called "Granma" in 1956. It was filled with his trainees who started a guerilla capmaign which lasted for the next two years with success coming on January 1st 1959 when Batista fled. Castro became Prime minister and started setting up Cuba as a socialist republic (meeting then US vice president Nixon in mid-1959 who accused Castro of being a commie, something he didn’t admit ‘till a lot later and probably then only to win over the Cuban Communist Party). Socialist reforms in Cuba followed, including the nationalisation of all US businesses in Cuba with no compensation and as a result the US instigated the trade and travel embargo which continues to this day (this made our visit to Cuba trickier and more expensive - a US citizen who visits Cuba is still liable for a US$25 000 fine if found out and US businesses such as American Airlines will have nothing to do with Cuba). Cuba then inevitably made friends with the USSR (also seriously pissing of the US) and allowed them to plant US-aimed missiles on Cuba aimed at the US (the famous Cuban Missile Crisis). The US did try and wrestle Cuba from the reds by means of an invasion in 1961 at the Bahia de Cochinos (Bay of Pigs) but that failed and the US was eventually distracted by events in Vietnam.

The fall of the Iron Curtain in the early 90s crippled Cuba beyond belief as it removed it's most important trading partner. A period of particular hardship began called by now President Castro "the Special Period" which the Cubans we've spoken to talk about as a particularly hellish time. In 1993 Castro attempted to end the hardship by allowing a double economy to develop with one in Cuban Pesos and the other in US dollars. The dollar economy was eventually replaced by the “Convertible Peso” (CUC - with one CUC roughly equivalent to a dollar) and US dollars were taken back out of circulation. There remains now the Peso economy (generally for Cubans only and particularly the poor) and the Convertible economy (for tourists, richer Cubans and those who want to make serious dough). Pretty much all industries remain state-owned including the hotels and tourist resorts but in 1998 Cubans were allowed to rent rooms to tourists as Casas Particulares (albeit for a very high tax) and many have entered the tourist market this way as it's one of the few ways they can make serious CUC cash (as opposed to earning ~£8 a month in Cuban Pesos). Tourism has flourished and now Cuba's even seeing the impoverished backpacker tourist (like us) arriving as a result of the cheap accommodation now available in Casas. The rise in tourism has however led to the unfortunate side-effect that many have found that there's more money to be made begging money/clothes/soap etc. from tourists than doing something productive. A further echelon of society have become "Jineteros" who hassle tourists in the street offering restaurants/cigars/casas/taxis that they then don't provide themselves but lead you to demanding a hefty commission from you or the establishment providing the item/service.

Castro is now 84 and retired from public life after a bout of diverticulitis being replaced by his brother Raul. With Obama in place the US is showing vague signs of extending an olive branch with for example the US National Ballet being allowed to take part in the festival here in Cuba this year. After both Fidel and Raul die, who knows what will happen here. If you ask the Cubans they just shrug - it's very much a wait and see job. It's been very interesting being here, particularly as Cuba is probably on the brink of a radical change. Most countries have a history which is complete but here you definitely get the feeling that it’s still in progress. Cuba does live up to it's reputation of feeling like the 1950s with the crumbling buildings, vintage cars, fairly bland (an unavailable) food and lack of the modern technologies we now take for granted (long distance bus tickets are written out by hand a rung up on old-style mechanical tills) and all of this is as a result of the US embargo. Arguably, the embargo has kept Castro and co. in power as it’s given him a good “bad guy” to unite the Cubans against. In the US’ favour it’s true that rights of free speech here are iffy, there are political prisoners who we’d describe as “prisoners of conscience” and the Cubans have little to no say over who’s in charge but the embargo has certainly kept your average Cuban in unnecessary poverty so who’s human rights record is dodgiest? Take your pick.

So if and when the embargo is lifted what will happen? Will Cuba suddenly become just another Caribbean island with only the rich coming for the sun, sea, sand, salsa and expensive hotels? Will it get a high-speed broadband network with Skype, Windows Messenger and will all the Cubans suddenly own iPods? Will the vintage cars all be scrapped and replaced by Ford Mondeos? Who knows? Certainly, it's been a pleasure being here and I'm sure the ever resourceful Cubans will embrace whatever future they have and try and persuade it to take a taxi/buy a cigar/go to a restaurant.

Viva la Revolucion!

The Cuba Diet

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