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yesterday morning i woke up back in mexico in a damp beach hut in tulum, and wandered down to the shore to admire the dawn light over the water, when three heavily armed soldiers wandered past along the sand, patrolling i guess for narcotraficantes or escaping cubans. This is not the reality i was hoping to return to after Cuba. I am beginning to feel eerily watched, but still totally bemused, even a little bored, like a Murakami character.

A Cuban told me that non-Cubans think surrealism is a literary tradition, whereas Cubans know it only as a way of life. They say this about magical realism in Latinamerica too. Fancy is a pleasant enough reaction to dictatorship. But then, Cuba's not really a dictatorship, it just looks like one.

the papers are full of fidel's communiques, which have been mainly gleeful diatribes about the imminent collapse of capitalism in the US and encouraging post-hurricane reports of recovery. 'We Are Lucky to Have a Revolution!' blurted the english-language paper, implying that without one, people would have died, or reverted to some kind of neotribal flylord opportunism, not mentioning any (new orleans) names.

well, people are recovering. there are very few vegetables or fruits which makes an already notoriously bad diet even worse. i lived off pizza and icecream. the icecream is really good. the hurricane damage is really bad. the worst hit places i visted were Viñales and Baracoa, two of the biggest tourist areas on the island. Baracoa looked like a bomb site. A local informed me that the bar at the bus station was completely destroyed, and after the terrifying tsunami-like waves receded from people's homes they were able to pick ocean fish and bottles of rum from the rubble. the rum must have been some comfort in the weeks without electricity.

viñales was strange, and people bugged me all day, so i didn't really enjoy it - attempts to walk in the tranquil countryside were defeated by being chased down the street by men offering guided horse rides and, well, themselves. I did enjoy hiding from the rain for four hours with a wonderful older lady who had been a teacher of literature, and recited poems while she smoked a fat puro and fed me coffee. the education system is truly remarkable. i can think of no other country where campesinos routinely quote poetry at you. it's less charming than it sounds because they also want to marry you and get the hell off the island, and are not afraid to throw themselves at any passing blue-eyed stranger.

when people asked me if i liked cuba my usual answer was 'it is unique in the world.'

It was not until I was in trinidad that i really started to get Cuba, or maybe surrender to the surrealism. took a guided horse ride (i caved) up to some cascades and on the way back, waiting for the pissweak israeli chicks to catch up, danced salsa in a chicken yard while old men played campesino guitar. The next day I stumbled across the temple of Yemayá, which i visited every day afterwards, and learned a bit about santeria from the kindly babalao (priest). Next door in a 'casa de cultura' (another chook yard) i drank warm rum while more charming old men quoted more poems and were so excited that i was a writer that they improvised me songs about The Diamond Anchor, which they sang between boleros about Che.

hilariously, the babalao agreed that Che Guevara is Cuba's answer to the Virgen de Guadalupe.

It was a timely blessing for The Diamond Anchor. The book is done, covers and all, and my child is being hauled off to the child-pressing plant this week, there to be duplicated for good or ill. a bizarre feeling in the midst of bizarre feelings. things can only get weirder from now on, which is somehow comforting. perhaps it's not a Murakami at all - perhaps it's a Hunter S Thompson.

oh i also got a grant from the australia council for the next book, clocked over another year, and won a couple of awards. i am happy to be in this particular rabbithole...