Cuba

Cuba is the most singular island in the Caribbean — the largest (110,860 km², bigger than Portugal), the most populous (11.2 million inhabitants), the most history-laden and the most paradoxical. Cut off from world markets by the US embargo since 1962, it has crossed the 20th century without yielding to the transformations that homogenised so many countries. The fall of the USSR in 1991 and the periodo especial that followed had a paradoxical effect: they froze the country in a state close to that of the 1950s, turning each Cuban city into an accidental film set — pink Buicks and Chevrolets, pastel colonial façades, wrought-iron balconies with laundry hanging out to dry, social life in the street.

Cuba's heritage richness is exceptional. Nine UNESCO World Heritage sites, including Habana Vieja (Havana's colonial centre), Trinidad and the Valle de los Ingenios, the Viñales Valley (world-unique karst mogotes), the Castillo del Morro of Santiago de Cuba, the city of Cienfuegos (French neoclassical urbanism), the Desembarco del Granma national park (site of Castro's 1956 landing), the Alejandro de Humboldt park (biodiversity), the colonial city of Camagüey and the archaeological landscape of the Sierra Maestra. Each merits a trip in itself.

Cuban culture is among the richest and most vibrant in the world. Cradle of son cubano (the traditional musical style born in Santiago in the 19th century, direct ancestor of salsa, mambo and cha-cha-cha), Cuba gave the world Compay Segundo, Eliades Ochoa, Buena Vista Social Club, Celia Cruz and many legends. Dance (salsa, rumba, conga) is everywhere — in the casas de la música, on public squares, on the Plaza Mayor steps of Trinidad every evening. Literature (José Martí, Alejo Carpentier, Reinaldo Arenas) and cinema (Fresa y Chocolate) have also left their mark on world culture.

But Cuba is not just a frozen set — it is also a paradoxical contemporary nation: rigid communist political system but deeply mixed-race and tolerant society, chronically scarce economy but among the warmest hospitalities in the world, diplomatic isolation but exceptional cultural openness. Accept the shortages (water, electricity, everyday goods), the slowness (Caribbean pace, ageing infrastructure), the unforeseen (Cubana domestic flight cancellations, restaurants out of certain dishes) — that is the price of entry for an authentic and deeply human Cuban experience.