The pungent smell of cigar smoke mingles with the sassy movements of the salsa and from every corner in old Havana town music can be heard. Chevrolets and Dodges, beasts from a forgotten era roam the streets and a time warp smothers the city into a slumber. Once you strip back the political smoke screen, if you take a step back from the ideology, if you forgot about the tri economy that functions; one to manipulate the tourist dollar, one to survive via the black market and the other to appease the government then Cuba is truely an amazing place. Once you reprogram your mindset and adjust to Cuban time, which centres around, Salsa dancing, rum and music and has no connection to real time then all is well. Cuba is a system based upon 1st world values but trapped in a 3rd world gutter, a country whose greatest export to the world are doctors (who have second jobs as taxi drivers to generate tips to supplement the $20 a month salary they receive off the government.) A country that just recently allowed its people to own cars, to own their own house and to generate their own inventiveness to source additional income. Cuba provides free housing, education and health to its people, subsides ice cream but forces them to pay up to $2 for a bar of soap and approach you on the street for it. Cuba is a true paradox, but an amazing place to be.
