A Maverick Cuban Way is a flowing narrative of Cuba after the Castros.
In her Maverick fashion, Mary Jane went to Cuba on a whim. A solo traveller, she met someone who suggested a casa run by a woman named Mikalena. Mary Jane travelled around the Island on local buses.
She went to the Bay of Pigs museum and discovered that American-backed rebels had landed in a crocodile swamp. No one told her the Cuban Flag was American in origin.
Her most memorable experience was of hiking to Fidel Castro's hideout from the CIA in the Sierra Maestra with a guide discussing socialism, the Revolution, and every fifteen minutes a different type of plant.
Mikalena's son was a doctor, as one in every 150 people in Cuba are. Mikalena practised voodoo black magic.
Mary Jane went to the Cuba's Guantanamo lookout and took photos of secret photos from inside the American base. Later, she met the son-in-law of one of the American marines in the photos.
Most importantly she met people who were happy, given food by the Government, saw no homelessness and children who are all well.
She danced Salsa in Havana, smoked cigars and hung out in Hemingway's hangout, the Café Floradita.
With 247 maps, photos and other images.
BY THE AUTHOR OF A MAVERICK NEW ZEALAND WAY, FINALIST IN THE TRAVEL CATEGORY, INTERNATIONAL BOOK AWARDS, 2018.
About the Author: Mary Jane Walker is a writer of historically well-informed travel memoirs, with her own unique voice. A Maverick Cuban Way is the third book in a series of eight. Mary Jane always wanted to visit Cuba, an island which conjures up images of revolution, romance and roaming back in time. Being a Maverick, it is just so fitting to go to Cuba, an island which rejected America's way of doing things. So too did the author's home country New Zealand, in a smaller way: it rejected visits from nuclear-powered submarines (Mary Jane at age 15 kicked one of these) and vessels carrying nuclear weapons, and declared itself nuclear free, and was excluded from a military alliance because of that. Mary Jane travelled the whole island in three weeks and loved it. She was in a beachside restaurant when Harry Belafonte turned up; went to the Sierra Maestro Mountains where Fidel hid as a guerrilla for 18 months; and climbed Pico Turquino, the highest peak in Cuba. She met and spoke with taxi drivers, academics and locals from all over Cuba. Though the country is poor many are happy, and do not want to see a society with a major income divide re-emerge.
