The Avenida de las Misiones is the broad and leafy colonial Avenue 
in Havana that takes you from the Capitolio to the waterfront. Half way along is a boat. It doesn't look much, an old-fashioned motor yacht that might have entertained Hollywood b-list starlets in the 50's. A boat you would not look at twice except that it's behind bullet-proof glass and surrounded by armed guards. For this is the Gramma , the boat on which Fidel, Che and 80 pals set off to launch the revolution.
I hope on board they had a serious supply of mojitos. They were taking on not only an army of 100,000, but a favoured holiday resort of American mobsters and racketeers. But they won, kicked out the mob and modern Cuba is their legacy.
What a frustrating country; sublime music, grinding poverty, majestic buildings, run-down slums, gleaming 40's American cars, commuters in cattle trucks. Cubans are welcoming but you don't feel entirely welcome. You just can't feel the pulse of Cuba - you think you are getting to know it, then you realise you haven't a clue.
So you give up trying to work out the logic and just enjoy the music. It is everywhere, Cuba is one big impromptu party. You learn to follow the sounds - soon you will be with a score of young and lively Cubans, flirting and dancing with abandon to the music of a makeshift 5-piece band on a sultry evening. Maybe they will have got hold of some rum, maybe not. Tomorrow it will be back to the struggle of getting food - tonight they party.