World of Wonders - Out into the country Trinidad y Vinales

At the Havana bus station the porter tells me and another foreigner that the bus will be filled up so we had better sit together at the back. Only after some distance do we realise that the bus is half empty - and then it's of slumbering people who all look like they have had too many mojitos the night before.

Some times these things are meant to happen - Paul is a Canadian who is a similar age to me, returning to uni to study his masters in politics and development, who had spent a year working in human rights in Colombia. We talk non stop to Vinales - and literally don't stop talking for the next two days as we explore the pretty countryside around this Cuban village. It's an uncanny and enjoyable meeting of minds but when we return to La Habana, we go our separate ways - we are all talked out.

Paul has heard that there is a possibility that Fidel Castro will make a public appearance on his birthday, the 13th of August. It's unlikely, but worth waiting a day or two in Habana - he is now 82 and the longest ruling head of state. The day - as predicted by the largely ambivalent Cubans - turns out like any other - and I wander around a deserted Plaza de la Revolution.

The next morning I am on the bus heading towards Trinidad, a world heritage listed city about five hours south - I like the ambiences of world heritage listed cities - my Peruvian home, Cusco, being one… I wander its deserted, sleepy streets and meet up with Paul again. We swap stories of where to get the cheapest water in this two tiered economy and where the best Cuban pizza is.

Not to bore you - Cuba has two economies - one for the Cubans (Pesos Nacionales) and the other for foreigners (CUC). Basically if you are a foreigner, you get charged in CUC which means you are paying in US dollar equivalency - and it turns out very expensive. One of the very few exceptions is pizza shops - they are doughy, covered in a smattering of cheese and tomato - and reckon they have to take a large portion of the blame for the fat Cubans. But they fill the gap and don't even make a dent in the pocket - I changed $10 US to pesos nacionales on arrival in Cuba and give $2 worth to a beaming and very grateful cleaner in the ladies toilet on departure - so for $8 I got a lot of grease and many meals!

I join a yacht sailing to Cayo Blanco (White key) in the Cuban Caribbean. It is full of Italians stripped down to barely bikinis and tight fitting speedos - they cream every inch of their bodies and from 8am they are in the glaring sun, flesh exposed and nearly all puffing away on what will be an endless chain of cigarettes. I try to imagine and what a boatload of Australians would be like -- I guess the cancer message really has pervaded our society.

Conscious that I'm the only person on the whole boat with a hat on, I'm fully aware of the reasons why we do the things we do (heaven forbid, you can hardly miss the media campaigns) but I wonder if we in Australia have stopped living in order to preserve life?

Fidel Castro led a revolution because of the great injustices created by an overly corrupt American controlled capitalist government. He created a place where education and medicine is free and everyone receives a food ration - and yet at what cost? The cost of freedom of the media (I wonder about the value of this when see the tripe on commercial channels in Australia and when the government meddles in the SBS/ABC for not being 'balanced'.) In Cuba, they don't have the ability to buy a car or be self employed (largely)

But in a land where we are enslaved by the idea of saving for the future and owning the latest model car - I am not so sure it's a model of life worth striving for. However - this is important - I have the freedom to find out, and that counts for a lot.

Belonging to a market system society I don't realise to what extent I am educated to that system - take the Cuban farmer who gives 90% of his tobacco crop to the government. I don't get it, and yet he sees the value in the system because he gets that land (rent free) for the rest of the year to grow what he pleases.

Some of the highlights during this trip was meeting a 19 year old American, a self proclaimed anarchist, who has been playing his harmonica to travel through Central and South America, who states, "I don't like money, I only want enough for me to live, and if I have a good day busking, and it is too much, I give it away…" He inspires me in so many ways, his words, and enthusiasm for living is music to my ears.

Then there was the American high school teacher, with her braids and checkered dress that looked like she was auditioning for Dorothy out of the wizard of Oz. Appearances, as we all know, are deceiving - she teaches Latin and other immigrant kids in schools in the USA and opened my eyes to a whole new side of America. That is travel for you - eye opening and revealing - instead of making judgements based on what you see and hear in the media; you meet real people and learn from them.

Bo said that Cuba would make me sad, and he was very right - shortages characterised daily life, crumbling infrastructure and a system that divided and elevated foreigners from the average Cuban. In a way it seemed like they just didn't care as you arrived in a shop or restaurant and the fat shop girl, bulging out of her miniskirt and sweating in her cheap, badly cut but very tight top would almost studiously ignore you, intent on her work of shuffling papers, chatting on the telephone, or perhaps gazing into thin air.

Patience, clearing of the throat or shuffling didn't seem to disturb them. With persistent smiles and lots of roundabout, convoluted chatting so perfected in Latin America they would nominally thaw and I saw a special sense of humour, stifled by the system.

Cuba needs much more time and patience than I had during this trip. I did, however, fall head over heels in love with the words of Cuban nationalist Jose Marti whose words are beautiful and applicable today - the dashing Che Guevara whose iconography is everywhere in Cuba - and whose beliefs inspire me - and the fortitude of Fidel Castro Ruz who followed a dream.

I returned to Lima via Panama and once again I got a thrill being in this geographical and literal transport hub for central and south America as planes headed off to Buenos Aires, Caracas, Cali, Santo Domingo and Mexico City - and Argentineans, Mexicans and Panamanians wandered past on every side, I felt I was lost in a exotic, Latino melting pot. And yet, while I revelled in my increasingly Latin identity, I found myself looking forward to my return to Australia.

I Cultivate a White Rose / Cultivo Una Rosa Blanca
Jose Marti
I cultivate a white rose /Cultivo una rosa blanca
In July as in January/ En julio como en enero
For the sincere friend / Para el amigo sincero
Who gives me his hand frankly. /Que me da su mano franca.
And for the cruel person who tears out / Y para el cruel que me arranca
the heart with which I live,/ El corazon con que vivo,
I cultivate neither nettles nor thorns: /Cardo ni ortiga cultivo,
I cultivate a white rose. /Cultivo una rosa blanca.