When I was in Cuba in the early 1990s, I remarked to a guide how clean the towns and countryside were. She smiled and said: 'We Cubans are trying to build a modern country of which everyone can be proud.'
I didn't tell her that when I made the same comment to a hotel worker, he snickered: 'We have nothing to throw away. How can we create garbage?'
At that point, when the Soviet Union had collapsed in the 80s and Cuba had been left adrift to make it on its own, the country was in a dire state. Most media pundits were predicting that Castro's Cuba was heading the same way as former Soviet block nations.
Yet, almost two decades later, with Fidel Castro turning over power to his brother Raul, the country is still thriving and evolving for the better - mainly due to tourism. Speaking at a recent conference,
the Minister of Tourism Manuel Marrero Cruz said Cuba welcomed a record 2.3 million foreign visitors last year.
The vast majority of those visitors usually return. Marc Fryma, a Canadian businessman who said he had travelled to the island more than 140 times, is perhaps a rarity but his visits reflect Cuba's allurement.
