ln an amazing balancing act, Cuba is at once poor and broken, and rich and thriving. From the beat of the music echoing through towns and villages to the hustle of Havana’s glorious, crumbling streets, Cuba challenges and enchants all who venture in. lts political isolation has prevented a tourist flood, and locals are sincerely friendly to visitors.Whie Fidel’s infrastrure has seen better decades and the food is, well, best not spoken about, the last great bastion of communism enchants with its intoxicating human spirit. Or was that the rum?

November to May to avoid the heat and hurricanes-or Fidel goes, and whenever you want to shake your booty

Walking along Havana’s Malecon on a warm night Pretending you can salsa in a nightclub Taking a photo of a’ 50s Cadillac on your first day Speaking Spanish to the locals-even if you can’t! Taking in a baseball game in Cuba’s Major League-Go lndustriales! Smoking a cigar… just because Drinking mojitos… because

Read Trading with the Enemy: AYankee Travels Through Castro’s Cuba by Tom Miller-it’s a rich of Cuban lore, and a great travel book about Cuba

Listen to Polo Montanez’s Guajiro Natural. Montanez dies tragically in 2002, but the raspy, mellow strains of this album will leave you feeling full of life

Watch everyoune’s favourite, Fresa y Chocolate, 1995’s hit Havana comedy directed by Tomas Gutierrez and Juan Carlos Tabio

Eat something home-cookd, especially an ajiaco stew, featuring potatoes, meat plantains, corn, old beer and anything else lying around

Drink a minty, sweet rum mojito as the sun goes down

Noes facil (‘it’s not easy’, applied to virtually everything)

Cigars; communists; rum; salsa; Fidel; poverty; sex; the Buena Vista Social Club

Even if you know the food is bad, it’s actually much worse; many people actually like communism; everything is priced in US dollars, and more expensive than you’d think; TV soap operas are the biggest show in town

Cubans drive they want, where they want. lt seems chaotic at first, but has its rhythm. Seatbelts are supposedly required and maximum speed limits are technically 50km per in the city and 90km per hour on highways, but some cars can’t even go that fast and those that can go faster still.