Product Review

BY THE AUTHOR OF A MAVERICK NEW ZEALAND WAY, FINALIST IN THE TRAVEL CATEGORY, INTERNATIONAL BOOK AWARDS, MAY 2018.

This is not a travel guide. Why? Because you can’t read a travel guide from cover to cover. But you can read Mary Jane’s travel memoir of Cuba just after Fidel Castro. In a flowing narrative that comes with 247 photos and maps, Mary Jane begins with a particularly strong and well-informed historical chapter, which sets the scene for more contemporary descriptions that follow.

Mary Jane spoke to many local people, staying in casas particulares (guest-houses) and travelling on local buses. Containing some guidance for travellers, but not a guidebook, A Maverick Cuban Way describes Mary Jane's journey from Havana around the island, via:

• the beach resort of Varadero


• the French-founded city of Cienfuegos


• Playa Girón, beside the historically notorious but ecologically significant Bay of Pigs


• the old-fashioned town of Trinidad


• the city of Bayamo, honoured in Cuba's national anthem La Bayamesa


• Fidel's 1950s hideout in the Sierra Maestra


• Pico Turquino, the highest mountain in Cuba


• Santiago de Cuba, the second city of the island


• Guantánamo, the site of the American base, a Cuban town, and the Guantánamera


• Baracoa, a once-isolated coastal town with a strong Haitian influence; and


• Camagüey, an inland city of the plains.