For 21 years I have often thought of a big fat Cuban with a Mojito …

But now I don’t smoke … 20 a day in the early years, 40 a day in the latter, a smoker for 23 years … I wanted a cuban with a mojito for the most part of that ..

I’m in Cuba (cannot load pics here but will when I get to the states) you gotta see it, to believe it!

 … 2 mojitos in & 1 x cuba libre in, soooo wanting a big fat Cuban (cigar not bloke) … but yet I can’t ..  I quit with Allen Carr easyway, 2 years ago, who teach you to get off nicotine .. as much as I want that Cuban, I know it is packed full of the stuff, and one drag will see me addicted again.

Damn you Allen, damn you habit … but god bless Cuba … what a funny place ….

Part of the reason for my Cuba visit, was not just my favourite cocktails and Cubans there is a bigger fascination … Castro, Guevera, Communisim, Embargos.  You hear so much, bay of the pigs, Guantanamo, Hotel National, cars etc … and I have read so many books, Cuba and the Bay, Open veins, Che’s diaries (I preferred the Bolivian one) … and have wanted to come for years … to what I believed was a place stuck in time. 

Over the next few years big changes will happen in Cuba, the government will move over circa 1,000,000 people from the state payroll, rationing will lift, tourism will increase, hey maybe even embargos will be lifted, increase in foreign investment, Cubans may even have the ability to freely travel, more doctors will be traded for oil, Cuba without doubt, will transform, I wanted to see it before that… 

I wanted to see it and have it captured in my mind as it is still now, stuck in the early days, when cocktails, jazz, salsa and cigars ruled, where the likes of Capone, Sinatra, Gardner, Hemingway, Flynn hung out at the National Hotel (incl Buena Vista Social Club) without a care for the rest …

and where has that mojito and cuba libres, been sipped? … and where am I now? …

well Hotel National of course, in the bar overlooking the pool and sea with the pictures of the greats surrounding me, listening to very funky live Salsa, where at this precise moment, selfishly, I have not a care in the world … (well other than I cannot smoke a friggin’ Cuban) …

Ooh and I cannot stay too late – friends from the UK arrive tomorrow!

CBT - x