Me, Fidel and the pelicans

I'm not really a beach person, despite the evidence of this blog - Mauritius, Fiji, Vanuatu, Goa and Jamaica are all chronicled in the archives. However, as I get older, the notion of sitting quietly on the beach, watching the waves lap against the shore as I sip something with alcohol in it and reread my Montalbano books on the faithful Kindle becomes more alluring.

And, it must be said, Varadero is rather good for such things. The sea is a beautiful azure, the sky is blue, the sand is white, and nice people come along from time to time, offering to fetch a drink, or a snack. You could almost forget that you're in a one-party state, where individual liberty cannot be taken for granted.

We were, perhaps, fortunate that I had selected a really good resort, with excellent and plentiful facilities, with staff who seemed genuinely pleased that we had come, from waiters to barstaff, gardeners and the guys on the beach who would find us a spot for our sun lounger. And yes, I did tip relatively generously, because I know that happy staff make for a better experience, and that the money goes into the actual local economy, rather than enriching a foreign hotel chain or supporting the government.

But it all felt rather comfortable, rather than like communist Poland in the 1970s with sunshine. As one listens to some Schumann chamber music, watching the pelicans dive into the sea to catch fish, the notion that all of those people around you are being repressed becomes rather abstract. Repression in Cuba is, typically, somewhat relaxed. Yes, people get arrested, but only for a few days. It's almost as though the authorities don't have the single-minded will to really oppress people in the way that, say, Stalin did in the Soviet Union in the 1930s.

The illusion is made almost complete by the existence of a communist state in a post-communist world. Like Wile E. Coyote is the Roadrunner cartoons, Cuba has staggered over the edge of the cliff, yet continues to deny economic gravity. The agricultural sector is weak, two-thirds of its oil comes via a sweetheart deal with Venezuela, the American boycott is still pretty effective, the state sector is moribund, and large parts of Havana are quietly falling down around the ears of its citizens. And yet life goes on.

So, is it worth going? Yes, I think that it is. As a window into an economic and social experiment, anyone who takes an interest in how societies work, and how individuals are motivated, Cuba offers a unique perspective, and one that I fear cannot last. That isn't because the experiment has failed - you can't entirely claim that it was given a chance - but because the hurdles it has to cross are getting higher and higher.

And the Cubans seem like really nice people, who one day will hopefully get a chance to run their country their way, without the malevolent influence of United States foreign policy casting its usual shadow.