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The faintly decrepit town of Cardenas felt like permanent siesta-time ruled there, the atmosphere hanging over the elegant if crumbling colonial buildings was so laid-back. Dogs snoozed in the afternoon torpor beneath the town’s chief monument – to The Bicycle. We had stopped to buy fresh mango juice at a stall where a woman came up to me with a basket of oranges, which she would have liked me to buy. When I declined, with a smile, she just blew me kisses. Sleepy, charming Cardenas is a world away from the popular beach resort of Varadero, though actually just ten kilometres south of it. Few tourists come here, and indeed we were just passing through, on our way to Cuba’s central region, where there are beaches so beautiful, they put Varadero’s uncompromising long strip into the shade; and so uncluttered by sun-oiled humanity, that for the most part, dancing butterflies are your only companions. And the province of Matanzas has more, much more to offer the off-the-package traveller, from crocodile-infested swamps; through endless seas of sugar-cane, in which little hollows have been flattened out every now and again to accommodate picnicking couples; to the most exquisite jewel in the Spanish colonial crown – Trinidad, a town in which it is as if some authority has decreed that neo-classical architecture is compulsory. Even the shacks here have colonnades.

Yet that brief experience of Cardenas – The Bicycle monument and the warmth of the orange-seller, stayed with me, typical of the inspiring and endearing components of the Cuban experience. Why travel to Cuba? Most people naturally want to enjoy the sun and the beaches, but what they find is that the atmosphere, the culture and the Cubans themselves are all quite different from other Caribbean islands, and that there are as many experiences and places to visit as there are reasons to stay. Above all, the courage, resilience and dignity of the Cuban people shine out, their graciousness, sensuality, humour and joie de vivre unquenchable.

Let’s be frank, though – crisis and change are two key words in the current Cuban vocabulary, and in a sense, to visit Cuba now, is to experience the darkest hour before the dawn. “Would you believe it?” asked a Habanera. “With the fall of the Soviet block, we lost 85 per cent of our imports, including petrol and diesel fuel. But we’ve survived, in spite of the U.S. embargo. 50 years ago nobody here rode a bicycle, not even children. And now we have two million of them”. On the international economic scene, the odds are clearly stacked against small, poor, single-crop countries, and Cuba’s primary export is still sugar. One response to reducing this dependency has been the spectacular growth of tourism, now overtaking sugar as a hard currency source. As Fidel Castro said, “We do not have many things, we are not an industrialised country, we have some disadvantages. But in tourism, we have a great many advantages. We have sea, we have bays, we have beautiful beaches, we have medicinal waters of all kinds. We have mountains, we have game, and we have fish in the sea and in rivers, and we have sun. Our people are noble, hospitable, and most important – they hate no-one – they love visitors, so much so in fact that our visitors feel completely at home”.

A campesino or cowboy on horseback (though this ‘boy’ was a man in his 70s), stopped to smile and pose for photos with his shy foal; and the sweet smell of molasses drifted across from a sugar mill. Up ‘till 1989, 70 per cent of the cane was cut by machine, but what with the lack of fuel and spare parts, nowadays much more is done by hand. At the Tey Pepito sugar mill, cane has been arriving since 1847, formerly by train or truck, today mostly by oxen cart. The ever-resourceful Cubans use the plant fibres as fuel in the mill, once the juice has been extracted. Cardboard, paper and pressed-wood furniture are made out of the pulp; while the extracted molasses go to the distilleries and for cattle feed. Part of the sugar extract is also used in a breakthrough medical discovery, now exported to 11 countries. Policosanol or PPG5 combats high cholesterol levels and poor blood circulation, without side effects.

Once the guarapo extract has been released by crushing the cane, it is boiled with lime to purify it, and clarified to make it even more pure. Then it is cooked yet again to get rid of more of the moisture, and left in evaporating pans until the sugar starts to crystallise. These brown crystals are raw sugar.

Huge, sinister-looking crocodiles appeared to be snoozing in a swamp on the Zapata Peninsula, their languorous pose betrayed from time to time by high-gear reaction from an anxious mother. Giant land crabs scuttled across the road from the long, empty shoreline on one side to the flat marshes on the other. The Zapata Peninsula recalls the Mississippi delta with its thick stretches of mangroves, lush vegetation and time-warp isolation – local people still carve a precarious living from charcoal-burning, tree-felling, fishing – and hunting crocodiles. Nowadays a few of them are servicing the burgeoning eco-tourist trade, for this remote, inaccessible – and backward – peninsula is Cuba’s richest region for wildlife. It’s also rich in history and legend, claimed by a Spanish conquistador by the name of Zapata in 1635, who proceeded to wipe out all the original inhabitants. Rather than surrender their gold, they threw it into what has become known as Treasure Lake. Like the area which surrounds it, the lake is well endowed with wildlife, such as the delicious bass; and visitors arrive by boat at the resort of Guama on the southern end of the lake, staying on an artificial island where the cabana style homes of the original local people have been recreated, complete with a rather strange sculpture grove of ‘Indians’ (which they are clearly not) in native ‘activity’ poses.

But the call of the wild is louder, with bird-watching, hiking, fishing and horse-riding on offer in this extraordinarily bio-diverse peninsula. Our guide divulged that Cuba’s largest population of manatees, ploughs up and down the Hatiguanico River, and that the local delicacy is a fricassee of freshwater tortoise, though crocodile is also on the menu, of course, rather delectable when grilled with limejuice and garlic. From the red, white and black mangroves and tiny button trees came the constant birdsong of parrots, parakeets, flamingos, cormorants and cranes; as well as rarer species such as dwarf hummingbirds, royal woodpeckers, Cuban emeralds and endemic specialities like the Zapata rail and Zapata wren.

With the Cuban Revolution of 1959, at last roads, electricity, schools and medical services came to the Zapata Peninsula, as well as the first holiday resorts on the glorious beaches one glimpses through coconut palms, such as Playa Larga and Playa Giron, on the east coast. The violent and ill-fated Bay of Pigs invasion took place on Playa Larga, whose coral reef is now one of the most important diving locations in the Caribbean.

On the road to the historic harbour town of Trinidad, we stopped off at a beautiful, natural diving and swimming pool called Ocenote. Deep in the rocks, the transparent water reflected brilliant green tropical vegetation above, and clearly displayed shoals of exotically coloured fish – some with black and white spots, others vivid blue and red like a parrot.

Trinidad lies in the geographic heart of the island of Cuba, known as Escambray, its cities liberated by that archetypal revolutionary hero, Che Guevara. Founded in 1514, Trinidad was an important economic centre based at first on trade in leather goods and salted meat, and later, far more profitably, on sugar and the labour market. The traditional financial clout of the town is mirrored by the sumptuous houses of the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, many of which have floors and walls of Carrara marble imported from Italy, spacious interior patios with fountains, and high ornate windows guarded by rajas, akin in principle to mashrabiyas, from which, like Arab women, the Spanish women could view the world, unseen. But Trinidad hit hard times – the sugar market moved to Havana and her harbour silted up.

An atmosphere of decayed grandeur and a nostalgia for glory days long gone is encapsulated in the appropriately named Romantic Museum. Small details in this exquisite mansion made it come alive for me as a home, like the splendid Andalucian tiles of blue and yellow around the ovens in the kitchen, and a collection of ivory and lace fans, which doubtless were wielded by many a flirtatious senorita. From the first floor balcony there are magnificent views over the town and central square below, with its royal palms, swathes of pink bougainvillaea, elaborate ceramic urns and classical statuary on pedestals, and much lacey wrought-iron fencing. Around this square, the Plaza Mayor, are grouped graceful gems of colonial architecture, including the church, inside which I noticed that the priest had parked his Lada. Clearly, only a higher power could protect this Russian motor relic.

Trinidad is viewed as such a cultural treasure that UNESCO has classified the whole town as a World Heritage Site. What with the joint Cuban-UNESCO renovation work, the residents of the older buildings, doubtless much to their annoyance, are not permitted to install indoor lavatories.

Trinidad is not all fossilised history – the music created by her population of predominantly African descent is mesmerising, especially the traditional Afro-Cuban variety associated with the Senteria cult. And the beaches aren’t bad either – in fact they are superb on the Ancon peninsula, where the best hotels are located; though La Boca, where the Conquistadors first landed, is nearer town, and patronised at weekends by seriously stylish young Cubans, a tribute to their resourcefulness, if ever there was one, when one considers the U.S. embargo, rationing and so on.

Inland from Trinidad are the Escambray Mountains, their ascent providing ever more breathtaking views, at first of the lovely town below, the sea beyond; and then the fertile plain of the vast estuary of the Manati River, covered with the vast old sugar plantations. In fact the San Luis valley is known as Sugar Mill Valley, and here we saw melancholy relics of the bad old days – barracks and cemeteries. The valley’s most solemn landmark is the Tower of Iznaga, a testament to oppression. From its forty-five-metre elevation, a single Spanish overseer could watch over hundreds of acres of sugar cane – and monitor the labour productivity working them.

Happily, times change, and as Castro said, “We do not have many things... but we have medicinal waters of all kinds”. At the top of the Escambray Mountains is a huge old sanatorium, where nowadays health tourism is the buzzword. At this bracing resort amongst the pine trees, once a treatment centre for tuberculosis, there are now state-of-the-art facilities from stress management, through mud baths, to acupuncture. Cubans have responded to shortages with so many ingenious solutions, such as the liquid detergent developed from sisal and the aloe vera cactus we saw growing all over the Escambray Mountains as we descended. Aloe Vera, of course, is a key ingredient in contemporary skin care, hair and complementary health products.

Apparently many travellers overlook Cuba’s principal port, Cienfuegos, in their dash back to Havana from the justly famous Trinidad. Some find it run-down and time-warped; but I loved the tranquil, beautiful bay, the broad handsome boulevard snaking along the shoreline, where everyone, but everyone turns out to see and be seen at sunset. And if it’s culture one’s after, the colonial-style buildings around the Parque Jose Marti and the mansions along the Prado are splendid indeed, even if some of the latter are crying out for renovation. Cienfuegos has its own castle too, at the harbour entrance, a lively theatre and terrific art galleries. The Spanish finished Jagua Castle in 1745 as a bulwark against marauding pirates operating out of Jamaica.

We were staying down on Jagua Bay, next door to an out and out Mughal palace, if a diminutive one. In fact the Palacio del Valle, now the Museum of Decorative Arts, like many of the seafront mansions of Cienfuegos, was built in Mughal style in the 1920s. Like its famous predecessor at Agra, it too was built for love – as a wedding present, though it transpired that the bride couldn’t stand it and never lived there.

Just outside Cienfuegos are Cuba’s first Botanical Gardens, with over 2,000 plant species, laid down, not unexpectedly in this area, by sugar magnates. It is rumoured to contain not only therapeutic plants, but others that can be used as poisons. Rain stopped play that day, and as I stood on my hotel balcony, with the sun tremulously trying to break through the thunder clouds over Jagua Bay, down below, under the palm trees, the door of a pink ‘57 vintage Chevy was open. From the car radio streamed that unquenchable essence of good times in Cuba – their inimitable Salsa music.