Use your best imagination to flesh out the following scenario:

• Take 125 travel writers from 28 countries.
• Add them to the already-busy Occidental Miramar Hotel just outside Havana.
• Line up several constantly-idling huge buses to…
• Shuttle them to various ceremonial speeches.
• Ribbon cuttings.
• Festive welcome drinks.
• Restaurants.
• And a catamaran cruise.
• Tell them to be ready to board the bus at 7:00 a.m.
• Don’t open the breakfast buffet until 6:45 a.m.
• Add in a million degrees of humidity and heat.

Now imagine herding 125 cats.

You’re getting close to setting the scene…though I’m guessing cats would be easier to corral than trying to pull travel writers away from free food.

Let’s just say this. I have either been in Cuba for my entire life or just a few days.

There is something about endless hurrying up and waiting, or shuffling slowly in a tango line to the bus, or rushing, rushing, rushing, only to wait…that warps time into a hot sticky syrup.

Add in conversations in a Babel-of-broken-languages, a million degrees of humidity, lack of sleep and my own personal perimenopausal tropical landscape, and you can probably begin to understand how my brain feels enveloped in a thick fog of drippy condensation.

But today I found working WiFi!

This, my comrades, is a rare and beautiful thing.

So. I have engaged in my own mini-revolt and excused myself from the Cuban bus-shuffle and a morning destined to be filled with much pomp and splendour. Instead, I will take a taxi to meet them all for lunch (see above re; meals and writers).

But between now and then I will stake out a piece of chaise lounge territory. I’ll listen to the birds and the chattering palms, I will ponder capitalism and communism, read my book and, just like I did last night as I watched the sunset from the bow of the catamaran, revel at how much I love the opportunities presented by this travel writing life.

Cats and all.