‘After befriending a group of Argentineans, he mimicked their every mannerism, while peppering his Spanish with extravagantly-pronounced colloquialisms.’
On beauty contests
‘One of my English students was dismayed when I said the Beauty Contest was neither televised in Britain nor likely to warrant a brief newspaper story. Ecuador’s moment in the sun would pass unheeded. When she regained her composure, she defended the competition with the wild-eyed devotion of a religious proselytiser.’
On women’s prisons
The philosophers party
On the Tico way
On Cuban dinner parties
On making polite conversation
On meeting the workers
On Cuban dancing lessons
On disappointing lodgings
On enemies of the state
‘The setting was a giant marquee in a rather unfashionable district. All the elements were ranged against us. Torrential rain poured down throughout the evening. As we approached the venue, scores of armed police – partnered with fierce chained Rottweilers – milled menacingly about. Their brooding presence suggested we were the problem.’
On rooming in the red-light zone
On badly planned journeys
‘‘We will walk by the light of the full moon!’ exclaimed the romantically-inclined Angelica as we slunk beneath a canopy of trees obscuring the sky and all its earthly subjects in total blackness. We were armed only with a torch that shone bleakly under the power of its dying battery and the advice to walk in a straight line to regain the entrance. But there were no drunks to follow, or if there were, they were disguised by the enveloping mantle of the forest night.’