Voluptuous art deco automobiles growing old disgracefully, a wizened old Cuban in a guayabera shirt and Stetson, a mesmerisingly beautiful mulatta staring down anyone who cares to look. These fledgling agents for everything, with their rough English and likeable nature, present themselves as the keys to scratching the surface in Cuba. Despite the palpable feeling of having dollar signs daubed on your forehead, going with the flow, adopting a calm impenetrability and indulging your senses is the best way to tackle Cuba. Havana is a shambolic old madame, possessed of raffish charm. Narrow streets prop up pastel Spanish terraces, crumbling with damp and decrepitude.
Grand avenues give onto plazas, parks and monuments.
Richly ornate in parts, dangerously rickety in others, its layers of colonialism, capitalism, corruption and communism are superimposed with scant regard for appearances. Hammered by the waves of the Straits of Florida, it's the frontier between Cuba and its vast northern neighbour. It's also a place where prostitutes and fishermen wait for their respective catches and young Cubans come to entertain improbable dreams. Although often motivated by the chance of a quick dollar, making friends in Cuba is easy. Chatting in broken English, French and Spanish with two Cuban boys fishing, I wonder at their resourcefulness.