The Exile

Just copy one of these cards and then e-mail it to the lady in your life. Trust me, she'll love you for it.

Yes, but are you a good little girl who swallows every drop, or a bad little girl who spits it all out?

Very well, you have your little Cuban cracker - now where are you going to take her? If you have rented a private flat for your stay in the country then you have no problem, but for some reason that I can't figure out the British just love their all-inclusive package holidays, and that means that you are going to have problems with the hotel. It is not that the little miniskirt isn't going to be allowed in - that business of Cubans not being allowed into hotels was always more myth than reality - it is that you are going to have to register her and pay for her night's lodging. If all you want is a quick bit of the old in-out before you send her on her way, that may turn out to be a bit rich for your budget.

You can try to smuggle her in, but the police and security guards who stand outside places like the Hotel Nacional - pictured left - are on the ball when it comes to spotting an opportunity to make some easy brass. They don't want to stop either you or your miniskirt, but they do want a few dollars for agreeing to look the other way. You aren't breaking any laws, but this is Latin-America, and you don't speak the language very well, do you? Come on, just pay up with a smile.

If you are with a prostitute then life is easy because she will have a place to take you. You won't believe this but ordinary people are quite happy to rent out their house or flat to you for an hour or so and the girl will have a list of them. You give the owner of the place $25.00 or so and the whole family just up sticks and goes and sits outside whilst you and the girl get down to your horizontal jogging. As you leave they return to their home as if nothing has happened.

However, if you are with an ordinary girl, the chances of her having a list of available rooms to rent in her handbag are fairly remote. Give her time and she will certainly be able to rustle something up, but that is at your expense, naturally, and time is something that you may not have to play around with.

Now you see why renting a flat for your stay in Cuba makes a lot of sense. If in spite of everything that I have written you have not done that, then just check your little darling into the damned hotel where you are staying and pay the fucking bill with as good a grace as possible. Try to be philosophical and look upon it as the bill for fucking. . .

Other than that, and provided that your new miniskirt is aged 18 or over, then there is no reason why you can't shag yourself silly as part of your Cuba trip.

I saved the best until last - a great photo that will expand to a good size on your screen. A real spring morning of a girl, ripe for the plucking, who had no idea at all that she was about to become a star.

Cuba is no more of an island brothel than any other third world country, but it has acquired the reputation as Europe's shagging shop, so if it is girls that you are after, let's take you through the process and make sure that you don't wind up in jail.

These two little darlings came up to me as I was taking some photographs one evening. Neither of them was on the knock as a full-time trade or profession, but neither was willing to pass up an opportunity that was sitting there all on its own, smoking a cigarette.

They wanted a tenner each, or £15.00 for the two together. Since either of them would have probably given me a heart attack at my age, I just bought them a beer each and they agreed to be photographed and interviewed.

The girl on the right was 17 and her cousin a year older. That means that only one of them is of legal age to put a nice shine on a foreign knob. Contrary to what you may have heard, the Cubans take these things very seriously. If two Cubans want to go to bed, then nobody cares how old they are. However, if the girl is under 18 with a foreign man and the police get wind of it then they will prosecute.

You can check a girl's age by asking to see her carnet, or identification document. If she claims that she left it at home, then forget it because she is lying. It means that she is either under age or the plods are after her for something - either way she is trouble so find someone else.

The finding is easy because they will find you. I was walking through the main square when a lighting engineer for a concert that was due to be held there dropped her gear and asked me if I fancied a quickie? I get the feeling that Cubans don't take sex all that seriously and are quite happy to treat it as a profitable bit of fun.

The Cuban blokes are just the same - which is rather nice if you are a dog rough social worker, say, and find it difficult attracting men back home. Funnily enough I was enjoying a glass of rum in some swill shop or other and fell to talking to a young fellow who basically made a living out off getting females who bark as a means of communication onto their backs. In theory his bastard work was in some office or other, but the nice thing about the Cuban system is that if you neglect to turn up now and again, nobody gives a stuff. As with the fishermen that we looked at in an earlier posting, this cocksmith could pull in enough by stretching just one pussy to make the rest of the week his own.

Coming up next - where to take your miniskirt!

The first thing that you have to do is get your fortune told by an old bird like this one. OK, she is hamming it up for the camera, but that is all part of her charm.

You will find these fortune tellers dotted around Havana, but they are mainly to be found in the squares of the old city. How much they charge depends on how much they think that you can pay, but having your fortune told is a tradition that goes back many years in this city.

The second thing that you will want to do is have your photograph taken with the cigar smoking old ladies and gents who also sit out in the squares just waiting for you to arrive. They are going to want about 50p each.

Traditions like this go back decades in Havana, so make sure that you help keep them alive.

Take one Flying Pigeon bike as made in China and imported by the thousand into Cuba. Attach by whatever means necessary a Russian made engine, old American water pump motor or Japanese chain saw engine. Use an old soft drink bottle as your fuel tank and a piece of bent piping for an exhaust. Bingo - you have an authentic Cuban riquimbili, a contraption that is pronounced rick-in-billy.

God knows where the name came from, but these lethal devices are now very common on the Cuban roads. Technically they are illegal, but the police seem to have given up trying to stop people making them and using them to get around.

The noise that they make is ferocious and you will hear a riquimbili clattering in your direction from a couple of hundred yards away. As it heads away from you the stench of petrol fumes that it leaves in its wake will have you choking.

Still, it's an authentic bit of Cuba, and the owners of these motorised bikes are only too pleased to explain - often at great length - just how they made them.

If you are staying in Havana, then you really can't miss the fishermen on their rickety rafts who go out every evening at dusk.

They are built out of the packing foam that every electrical appliance that you buy these days comes with. If you take enough of it and then glue it all together you can create a raft.

Every evening at dusk, dozens of these guys grab their rafts from wherever they have been stored during the day and leg it across the main road that separates Havana's promenade from the buildings opposite. They have to move quickly as they do not have the all important licence or permit, without which nothing in Latin-America happens. Well, doesn't happen legally that is - this is Latin-America after all.

Lying flat on their stomachs with their feet in the water, they then paddle out about half a mile, before casting their lines out and spending the whole night fishing. Just before dawn they return with their catch.

Most rafts carry an ice-box which is half filled with sea water and is used to keep the catch alive until it is either sold or goes to fill the stomachs of the fishermen's families.

One of these young men told me that he goes out about once a week and earns enough to ensure that he doesn't have to bother about doing anything else for the rest of that week. He sells most of his catch to the paladeras, the privately owned restaurants that dot Havana, and the rest goes to make fish stews for him and his family.

As earning a buttie goes I can think of worse ways of making one.