We are staying on Cayo Santa Maria in a quiet little place facing west, away from the massive resorts farther northeast, on this 20km long key in the Bahia de Buenavista. A picturesque 48km causeway connects the key to the north coast of Cuba.

Yesterday we took a taxi back across the causeway to spend the afternoon in Remedios, a small 16^th century Spanish colonial town that has retained its original character. The absence of motorized traffic is magical and frees us to leisurely stroll the central plaza among locals and admire pastel coloured 18^th century mansions and arcades. Martha, an articulate, buoyant parish volunteer showed us around her church, the beautifully restored Inglesia de San Juan Bautista. It’s a gem and an inspiration and its not surprizing that four hundred local people attend mass every Sunday.

The wind is calmer this morning, the birds are singing and a few big patches of brilliant blue sky are beginning to peek out from the clouds. Waves wash briskly over a reef that is close to shore and good for snorkelling when the sea is calm and the winds are quiet (which it has not been for the past few days). A faint perfume of curry in the garden takes me back to what we knew as the “corry grass” along country roads in Jamaica. (Reader: Can you help me here? Do you know what the botanical, or other name that it might be?)

Three inviting half moon shaped beaches on the property, with their resident herons, cormorants, sandpipers, and one small snake, are thrilling to meet as I explorethe shore. Always changing, itinerant travellers with me are sea urchins, conches, giant snails and starfish. Curious fragments among colourful coral have drifted in to tweak my imagination with their hidden stories. In our morning yoga practices in the palapa over the water I make sure to choose a spot for my mat where I can see the fish through the spaces in flooring of the wooden deck.

As the sun goes down a saxophonist plays and champagne is served, heralding the evening. Dinner is uneventful but the rest of our evening is filled with the traditional Cuban music we have come to this island to listen to. Sipping a shot of Cuban rum in a small cosy bar with thirty or forty other guests, we can hear Cuba’s history in the music, influences of Spain, west Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, and the unique development in Cuba of son, Afrocuban Jazz, rhumba, and salsa, that have become a part of our planet’s rich body of music.

Gracias Cuba.