Cienfuegos

Cienfuegos is at once a totally different city to Havana. The latter, as with all capital cities, can be a depressing, claustrophobic place. In fact, you really have to be able to see wonderful colonial buildings to appreciate them instead, as I do, a decayed

bygone of an obsolescent time. Cienfuegos is, by contrast, a city of wide boulevards with slightly boring blocky, rectangular buildings on either side of the road, but it was built by the French in 1819, so there you go. There are large pedestrianised streets that contain a languid panoply of people of all colours and races (in fact, Cuba seems to have one of the most tolerant, easy-going, mixed race societies I have ever seen this side of the Far East). It seems richer in other little ways: fewer beggars (although begging is definitely not approved anywhere by the government); many of the kids were playing with mobile phones; a gym sat proudly on the high street; and loads of Americans who come in directly by plane or cruise ship and seem to have none of the angst that we do about tipping lavishly. I know they are American because I was trapped in a lift with a gaggle who were moaning about the latest antics of their new president. "You've only yourselves to blame", I opined, "if you'd bothered to vote/not vote the right way none of us would be looking over our shoulders for ICBM trails". They looked down and shuffled their feet. Encouraged, I added, "mind you, all the other contenders from both parties were such a religiously-anal, lying, self-seeking bunch of asswipes with far too many teeth any normal human being has a right to possess, it's no wonder you all voted for the Maverick". Grateful that even an Englishman could get it, they tottered off to their rooms.

OK, that didn't happen because the lifts had just been refurbished and I was kicked off at the third floor before I could open my mouth. *Sigh* another opportunity wasted. Anyway, back to Cienfuegos. They took us to a theatre, the Teatro Thomas Terry, built by some Venezuelan guy (Thomas Terry) in the late 19th century. It had the most amazingly deep stage with auditorium acoustics better than the Royal Albert Hall. We were especially impressed when Niall (our Saga guide, remember?) demonstrated said acoustics with a very passable rendition of something from The Marriage of Figaro (I don't know, don't ask!). It also seemed to have an alarming relief of a manic Brian Blessed staring down from the lintel above the stage. I would have taken a picture with Linda's phone but she would have had to probably donate a kidney in fines. Hah! Bet they've never even seen Flash Gordon.

I've mentioned that the Hotel Jagua is down a long road leading into the bay. Well, if you leave the sunset bar and turn right you can carry on to the end of the road to the point where Cuban kids get together for a quick grope. Ahh! Young love. There's a

small park there where, just as we were walking by a cactus tree, a startling iridescent green hummingbird hovered at arm's reach to take a drink. Beautiful. But the main reason we were here was a little cocktail stand that Niall whispered served the best mojitos in the area. Sure enough, the guy made two that must have taken him ten minutes to grind and bruise the mint with the sugar before "ruining" it with a quintuple sextuple measure of Havana Club. As usual, we were caught by a couple from our party who commented, "fancy seeing you here". "Trailblazing, as always", I quipped. Judgements have been made, I suspect.