Another rendition of 'Guantanamera'

I seem to be in armchair travel-mode. This one's about Cuba.

We arrived in Havana late at night - so late, in fact, that the only bar left open in the fabulous Sevilla hotel overlooking the bay, at the very top of the towering building, was the favoured haunt of all the US gangsters that were unceremoniously kicked out by Fidel after he and Che finally secured the island for the people.

The walls of this bar are plastered with photos of the famous hoodlums, and one or two of them actually show the stars of the underworld being lead away in handcuffs by the newly formed, Cuban police. It was at this time that the long spit of land called Varadero on the central northern coast, was being turned from an exclusive golf-course for one set of wealthy visitors, into an exclusive golf-course for another, but more of that later.

Following the barman's recommendation, we sat sipping our first Moquitos whilst - tired but happy - looking out over Havana Bay where distant oil-refineries flickered, producing the ever-present, slightly sweet smell of burning crude that drifted in over the old town.

Just after dawn the following morning, I opened the huge, colonial, wooden shutters of our window, and looked down into the palm-fringed streets below. My eyes fell on a disturbing sight, about 500 yards away from the Sevilla. A tank was parked on the pavement in front of a building. I need not have worried, as this military vehicle was simply part of the permanent display outside the Museum of the Revolution. Close to it was a glass-fronted, purpose-built structure which housed a large (and incongruous, given that it was on the street) American motor-launch which we could also clearly see from the hotel. This was the Granma (sic), the boat which Castro, Guevara and a handful of others successfully landed on the island from Florida during the invasion, and it has now attained a status in mythology similar to a Viking long-ship, even though it is only 50 or so years old. The local (free-ish) newspaper is called 'Granma'.

Breakfast in the Sevilla was probably the best breakfast I have ever had in my life. The vast room where it is served is right at the top of the square-shaped tower, and all four sides of the walls open out, giving a spectacularly panoramic view of the old town and beyond and allowing the cooling morning breeze to waft over you as you eat. Sparrows flit freely around the hall, occasionally dropping to the floor or an unattended table, picking up the crumbs of freshly baked bread and croissant, and the serving table was covered in the widest selection of fresh, tropical fruit that I have ever seen spread out in one place.

It was here that I discovered that one is not supposed to refer to the Papaya fruit by it's correct name in polite Cuban society. The reason for this is that 'papaya' has become the accepted, endearing word for a woman's sexual organs, and now the delicious item that has been nominally hi-jacked by freed and empowered slaves, has to be referred to as 'that fruit' - que la fruta. H.I. and me would afterwards call it 'lady's front bottom', as in: "Pass me a piece of lady's front bottom, please."

Two things immediately strike you when you first hit the streets of sunny Havana - how relaxed everyone appears to be, and how the locals never seem to tire of hearing the old folk-song, 'Guantanamera'.

Men women and children of every size, shape and colour (from African Black to Spanish White), saunter along the streets as if they have all collectively retired and gone to live in the same little piece of paradise in the Caribbean. I know that racial prejudice must exist to one degree or another, but I never saw a sign of it - maybe because I was not trying to get a job in a cigar factory at the time. I also understand that they would dearly like to get their hands on some of the 'white-goods' that we take for granted in Europe and the US, but they all seem - like the Egyptians - to eat well. The best meal we had in the whole two weeks was a bean-stew in a small cafe for locals.

If they show any signs of resentment at all, it is like the resentment that children show toward their parents and, indeed, they are all endearingly child-like about almost everything. No doubt this arrested development can be attributed to the overly-parental presidency of Fidel Castro, but the USA must take at least 50% of the blame by not relaxing the spiteful, inhuman and just plain idiotic trade blockade that has been in place ever since Che and Fidel kicked them out of every part of the island except Guantanamo Bay.

Selfishly, I would prefer Cubans to be denied all the shoddy goods that we are blessed with in the West, just so long as they are also denied Coca Cola, MacDonald's hamburgers and access to modern automobiles which would see all the pre-revolution, picturesque American monsters - held together lovingly with wire and string - swept off the streets of Havana. Havana is currently underway on a long-term project to conserve all the fabulous architecture of the old, Spanish Colonials with World Heritage funding, but I hope - once this has been completed - this does not mean that we will no longer see washing strung out to dry on the balconies of all the former palaces.

If you are American and reading this, then you will have probably never visited Cuba - unless you slipped in via the back-door of Canada and begged the immigration authorities not to stamp your passport. Well you can blame your stupid government/s - Republican and Democrat in 'the land of the free' - for that. You can still be imprisoned in the US for possessing ( let alone smoking) a Cuban cigar, and there is one Scottish whiskey which is prohibited from import to the US.

Why? Because - unlike most Scottish whiskeys which use Spanish sherry casks to mature the spirit - this whiskey used to use imported, old Cuban rum casks for the same purpose, imparting a unique flavour to the spirit which was never experienced by Americans, and now never will be because they no longer use Cuban rum barrels. The fact that this scotch no longer has any tenuous connection with Cuba at all, and does not even have the name 'Havana' in it's title, makes no difference to the US Border Control. Now banned, the whiskey will stay banned - because they say so.

I had better break off here, because I am beginning to lose my sense of humour, and that is not a good thing for a blog on travel. I also might be accused of being anti-American. I'm not, I'm just anti American Foreign Policy. The US military are bad losers - simple as that, and they have been doing quite a lot of losing in recent years or - more precisely - not enough winning.

I am also not doe-eyed and romantic about Castro himself, as you might hear if I do any other posts on our little holiday to the wonderful island he has been controlling for so many years.