Of things past and present

I've recently signed up to Facebook and have been posting photographs there. This prompted me to dig out the journals I kept during my various travels. It's amazing the number of things you forget. Names, incidents that made an impression at the time, even places you passed through. I was in Cuba in 2006. Hence my fascination with all things Cuban. Incidently, there is an Irish based business where you can buy Cuban coffee and other things. Well worth a visit.

In spite of everything that's written about Cuba there is something about the place that gets under the skin and leaves an impression unlike any other place I've ever visited. In my journal, written in Mexico about a week after leaving Cuba, I've written I MISS CUBA like a physical ache in the stomach. It was the saddest place I've ever been but also the most unaffected in spite of the tour groups, the two-tier system, the jiniteros and jiniteras. The obvious poverty of the many was made worse (if it's possible) by the fact that the high level of education of the people means they know what they're missing out on.

But, the obvious inequities in the Cuban system are mirrored all over the non-first world. In Mexico which, on the surface, is a developed, first world country the ordinary people don't have the same freedom of movement that we take for granted. It's not a case of being prohibited to do something. Sometimes the whole system of visas and the invasion of privacy inherent in applying for a visa to travel is as much a deterrent as an outright ban. How privileged are we with our European passports?