WHEN TIME MARCHES FASTER

Last time I saw Fidel Castro was a couple of years ago in an Oliver Stone documentary. He was marching around his office to show us how fit and virile he kept himself. He did about a hundred laps a day and I couldn't help but notice he was wearing Nikes, the pinup brand for capitalism via exploitation of the weak. Very strange, considering what he stands for (but not, as the case may be, in)

Well, no matter how good the office-marching regime was, time got Fidel. After being sidelined for months with major health problems, he's released pictures to the world to reassure us all that he's just fine thankyou very much.

Why didn't someone tell Fidel that the film of him walking and talking looks more like Weekend At Bernie's III. Right down to his outfit and movements.

The pictures made me sad. They made me wonder what makes someone so desperate to hold onto his job, his place in the world, his life, that he is in complete denial of the fact that he is not okay.

That's the thing about Cuba: time. You can walk down streets frozen in time, the cars, the buildings, the music. The people move through their life cycles on those streets, between those walls, and the scene stays the same.

But no matter how long Fidel Castro has managed to stop the clock in Cuba, it's a battle that not even he can win. Time will always be the victor.

The cars have stopped starting, the buildings have long since started crumbling.

And Fidel is dying.

WOOPS

Day 2, The Dip.

Had a bit of a breakdown cooking dinner last night... when I realised this WAS my new home and that my phone wasn´t going to ring and i needed a beer but didn´t have a car to jump into to go and get it and i didn´t know where anything was anyway .. i know one person within thousands of kilometres and that all the knives were blunt and hang on a second, what was wrong with my old life... and now I can´t just walk back into it cause i tied it up in a neat little bow and chucked it out.

then i started crying. messy. plus, the pasta went soft.. what with leaving it on the stove for half an hour.

think i was just exhausted because everything seems fine today after a 12 hour sleep... just realised I need to learn to spend 2 days alone without tiring of my own company.

1ST IMPRESSIONS MEAN... DIFFERING AMOUNTS

10.30am
I wake after another 12 hours' sleep to the cheesy sounds of Latin pop filtering up from an unidentified location.

The vista from my second~floor window is one of rooftops, not uniform sort you imagine, stretched out as far as the eye can see. It's like a field of metal stakes growing towards the heavens. I've always meant to find out why so many countries are characterised by the metal~sticking~out~of~roof phenomenon. Someone once told me that you don't have to pay the house tax on an unfinished building, but I find it hard to believe that tax law is uniform across Latin America, the Middle East and India.

Having heard MC is the pollution capital of the world, I'd expected dirty air that gives you a choking feeling when you breathe. You know, like in Mumbai where it's packed with moisture and fumes and smells of shit and food and incense... and every breath is like your lungs are eating a meal.

This air is light, bright.. and bears only a faint smell of I'm not sure what.

TOUCHDOWN

I'M IN MEXICO!!!!

Yes, it's a miracle, as I left the small detail of packing and downloading all my music and photos onto laptop until 10 hours before my 7am departure from home. Hence, no sleep. I've left the place looking like a department store where someone had an epileptic fit.

Having not slept in the 3 days preceding departure, then sleeping for the entire 30 hour journey exluding layovers and meals, I feel a little as though I've been hit by a train... or a bus.. even a taxi. Any vehicle bigger than me really.

I stink. That's a long time without brushing teeth or washing body. Grab my bags and load myself up.. large backpack on back, medium backpack on front, shoulder bag over top, camera bag perched on wheeled suitcase with no centre of gravity, and duty free carry bag in other hand.

Somehow I squeeze all of us into the bathroom to clean my teeth.

I clear customs |again| and burst through the gates as quickly as anyone carring 6 bags can burst, eyes tuned for Ara... eyes gradually becoming accustomed to hundreds of unfamiliar faces none of which belong to her.

Hmmm. I have her phone number. I go to the cash machine, build a pyramid of my various bags, take money out, dismantle pyramid, load myself back up again. Refuse offer from kind man to use his mobile phone, go to convenience store for phonecard, put down bags, take out wallet, pick up bags, go to phone etc etc.

Thing is, the card doesn't work. I seek verification from various innocent bystanders and they all agree.

I accept another man's kind offer to use his phone. Still no action.

Go and buy an iced mocha and end up with a cupful of chilled cream. Go back to phone. Spill chilled cream all over bags in attempt to dial number.

Get someone else to dial for me.

She answers. Turns out I'd forgotten to send her the flight number and she was waiting at the other gate.

We exchange rapidfire conversation all the way to the apartment, and finally I'm 'home'.