We began our trip around Cuba in Havana, which is pronounced "Abana" by the locals and "Abana in Pyjamas" by Irene. The first thing you notice (and expect) about Havana is the old cars. They are absolutely everywhere. Due to the embargos placed on Cuba in 1959, all of the American cars in the place were made in the 50's. There are some amazing looking cars here and sometimes you don't know where to look, they are so numerous. This includes fantastically maintained cars in a variety of bright colors and old jalopies that are mostly made of bog. It is at the same time a car-lovers dream and nightmare, given that a lack of access to genuine parts since 1960 means that almost all of the cars here are genuine only in looks. Under the bonnets you will find mostly Japanese and German engines and drivetrains. We took a tour around Havana in two classic cars on our second day and we rode in a 1957 Ford Fairlane with a 5 cylinder Mercedes diesel motor, while Alan and Irene rode in a 1955 Chevy with a Mitsubishi motor. The cars are held together by paperclips and rubber bands, the steering going in the Chevy towards the end of our ride so that the Jollys driver had to wrestle the car like Nacho Libre.

The classic cars are not the only vehicles on the road. We found the only place in the world where you can buy a Russian Lada. Right here in Cuba and an old one will cost a local upwards of $25,000. The price of cars here is insane. A Hyundai van costs around $130,000.

Cuba was a big surprise for all of us. We expected a vibrant place full of life, dance and music and to a degree it is a little like that, although subdued. Scratch the surface and you find a place full of corruption, apathy and dissatisfaction. Our guide Martha gave us a lot of insight into the attitudes of typical Cubans, some of it via her outspoken criticism of the Cuban Government and some via her own lacklustre, rehearsed attitude. She summed up the disposition of most Cubans by her lack of enthusiasm, motivation or initiative.

The Government here owns almost everything and what they don't own they control. There are privately owned restaurants, for example, however the Government dictates what and how much they can sell, controls the ingredients they can buy and actively encourages them not to be successful. Apparently two restaurants had recently closed because they were too successful. Anyone who is making good money needs to portray an illusion that they are not, as well as pouring money into community projects and bribing inspectors to allow them to buy black market ingredients so that they can actually provide the menu items they advertise.

The tourism industry is owned by the Government and used to fund the military. They own all farms, fishing vessels and factories. It is difficult to find any soft drink or beer that is not the brand owned by the Government. One thing they don't make and therefore must import is wine, however more than once we were given an extensive wine list and then told there was only one choice available.

Having said that, although most meals we had here were misses, we did have a few hits. Our first night in Havana we stumbled across a little Italian restaurant where the waiter was very friendly and introduced Alan and I to our first hit of Cuban rum. I may have had a little too much of it because instead of putting my arm around Lidia's chair, I accidentally put it around the back of the lady's chair sitting behind us. Boy were she and her partner surprised when she felt my arm on her back. I'm glad that my extensive apologies were understood, given Spanish is the predominant language here. I really didn't want to start a brawl in a restaurant on our first night!

The second night was a dinner provided by our tour operators at a restaurant with nice views on the bay overlooking the city. The waitress explained that with our meal we would get not only the customary rice and beans (oh yummy!), but also a free "lick". We were all a little concerned until we realised she meant a drink. Alan and I chose a 3 year old rum for our lick, the bottle displaying "3 anos", or 3 years in Spanish. I can't speak for Alan, but it was certainly the first time I had had a lick of 3 anos'. Imagine our excitement the next day when we realised we could have a lick of 7 anos'! We were both licking anos left, right and centre for the rest of the trip.

The next night we also had a great meal at a place called "El Carbon", or "Al Capone", if you're Alan. This place was funky, with chairs stuck upside down on the ceiling and a suckling pig to die for. Only hitch was when a waiter dropped a dish of salsa on the floor where it splashed into Lidia's shoe and even hit Irene on the other side of the table. Not really Lidia's idea of wearing her "salsa shoes" in Cuba.

Over the few days we had in Havana, we saw a couple of interesting museums, bought some genuine panama hats (which I look REALLY cool in) and learned a lot of the history of the place. Given the Government controls the tourism, pretty much all of what we saw was Government propaganda, hailing the success of the revolution of 1959 where Che Guevara helped Fidel Castro overthrow the incumbent dictator, Battista, and introduce Socialism to Cuba. The museums portrayed the glory of the revolution and how it was all about the people, and promoting equality among the classes. In reality, all it did was make everyone poor (except the Government, of course) and corrupt (including the Government, of course).

Everyone earns the same wage, whether you're a doctor or a waiter, which our tour guide explained was equivalent to about $US30 per month. We couldn't help thinking there were other forms of income people were accessing, however, given our tour guide and her husband had just paid $12,000 for a car and she always was dressed impeccably, with highlights in her hair and an iPhone.

As I said, the regime encourages corruption by denying basic goods and services to their people. All families are given coupons each month, which they trade for products at small, sparsely stocked convenience stores. Your coupons entitle you to a specific number of items each month, including 5 eggs, one bag of rice, etc. Each region is only allocated a certain amount of goods each month, so that there is an active black market in things like toilet paper. When the shipment arrives, everyone in Havana rushes to get as much toilet paper as they can get before the allocation runs out. One of our tour guides' side-lines was to buy as much toilet paper as she could get in the various stops around our tour route and then sell them back in Havana where there is a shortage. By the time our tour was finished she had packed the bag seat full of goods to distribute back home to family, and undoubtedly sell the rest.

This capped wage also promotes a lack of incentive, motivation and ambition in the people of Cuba. I mean, why try harder to provide good service when it's not going to get you anywhere, right? This means that the tourism industry pretty much doesn't give a crap about tourists and they don't really try hard to please them. We ordered a beer tower at a bar in a busy square where there was a great vibe, with salsa music playing, people laughing and a one-legged, cigar-chugging man busting a move like Tony Bartucchio. The beer came. 5 minutes later four foam cups came. Now it is criminal to drink beer out of foam cups, so Irene asked a waitress to bring us some glasses. She nodded apathetically and then promptly ignored the request, while glass after glass of beer was delivered to tables around us. 15 minutes later, I went inside in search of the elusive glassware. I explained to 2 waitresses our desperate need and received the customary nods. 10 minutes later, no glasses. I approached the second waitress and explained that our beer was getting warm and we REALLY needed those glasses! What is going on in there? 5 minutes later, ONE glass is delivered to our table. By this stage, we were pretty much flabbergasted and so we sent in the big guns. Yes, Alan stood up to his imposing full height, pulled his panama hat down over his eyes and marched into the fray like a warrior on the fields of Bannockburn! He went straight to the source inside the bar (that being the guy washing the glasses) and came back with the goods. I watched Irene flutter her eyelids, her heart melting like an eskimo pie in the sun, as her heroic man triumphantly placed the holy grail in front of her. We then drank warm beer and left.

One last observation about the lack of regard for tourism and I drop the mike. What is the first thing anyone on the planet thinks about when Cuba is mentioned? Give a cigar to the person who just said "cigars"! Now what would you expect to experience when you go to Cuba? My guess would be that we would be literally sick of seeing and hearing about cigars. How wrong you would be! We were taken to a cigar factory, where we weren't allowed to take photos or really see anything much of interest. There was no opportunity to try or buy cigars here. We were then taken back to our hotel. The next day we had to ask our tour guide if we would have the opportunity to buy cigars and only then did she take us to a cigar shop. I would have liked an explanation of how to choose a cigar, how to smoke a cigar and perhaps some "cigar tasting", but no, that is not how Cuba works. We did, however, buy a few cigars, including a pack of 5 which apparently were the cigars of choice for Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, Winston Churchill, John F Kennedy and Al Capone (the gangster, not the restaurant).

On our final night in Cuba we had a wonderful dinner in a lovely restaurant called El Oriente, then went to a salsa club. There was a great salsa band playing comprising about 10 members with an average age of 92. The night culminated with an old lady who could have conceivably been Fidel Castro's grandmother who sang up a storm while her arms flew around her body like a windmill in a hurricane. It was very entertaining, made even better by plenty of anos licking.

Overall, despite my ramblings, we had a ball in Havana with Irene and Alan. There was lots of laughing and licking going on and aside from enduring a day of visiting historical sites frequented by Ernest Hemingway that would have bored a three-toed sloth to death, we had an awesome time. Time for a ROAD TRIP!