I’m sitting here, sweltering in 32 degrees heat, sipping a mojito, inhaling a large Havana and swaying to the music of the Buena Vista Social Club.

A fan is wafting waves of cool air in my direction, while I sigh for a thunderstorm, and this and that.

If I had the energy, I’d join my wife and cat who are dancing the merengue round the room.

You’d think I was in Havana, instead of Cowes on the Isle of Wight.

But I’ll be making my way back to Cuba on – for the first time – a sea cruise – for there will be a lot more soon, when the 47-year-old US trade embargo is finally lifted.

My friends in Havana assure me this event is reaching its final stage.

When it does you’ll need to book a cruise promptly for the American cigar lovers will be way ahead of you.

Taking about Cubans, how do you get 25 of them in a phone booth? Tell them they own it.

Actually there will be some confusion when the Cuban emigres return home, for they’ll be reclaiming their homes that have been occupied in their absence – in some cases by foreigners who thought they could get a prime Cuban property at a bargain price.

Then there will be the corporate duels about who owns the rights to the Havana cigar brands: the Cubans or the company’s who’ve been producing Dominican versions for years.

But let them worry about all that for the first thing I will do when I return to Havana, after two years, is grab a seat at the bar in El Floridita, and ask the bartender to line up a row of frozen daiquiris.

The first time I did this, 13 years ago, I knocked my first drink on the floor. It wasn’t a mistake I ever made again, even when my Swedish friend, the world famous photographer Jan Olofsson, tried to convince Havana’s bartenders that I was Ernest Hemingway’s lovechild and that we had come to claim the tab (in drinks) Papa left behind the bar.

It didn’t work but we still had a great time in a crumbling dilapidated city that feels more like a village.

With a bit of luck by the time you take that cruise to Cuba more of the country’s restaurants will actually be able to serve you a slighter better cuisine than the usual pork and beans, and chicken.

And if someone sings Guantanamera, Cuba’s national song, to me one more bloody time I may start a revolution of my very own and gag the musicians.

That said, I like Cubans, their lifestyle and attitude. They’ve been living on rations for decades but it hasn’t quelled their spirit. Many of the Habaneros I met a couple of years ago told me that while they would welcome the much-needed economic boost the lifting of the US embargo would bring, they’d prefer to retain their identity and culture.

So when the opportunity arises get out there quick, for Cuba, especially Havana, will never be the same again.

James Leavey

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