ANDREW vs THE COMMUNISTS

Cuba, Fidel Castro’s militant heavy communist island in the heart of the Carribean can be a daunting place for your average tourist. Still closed off to the USA it has only recently begun letting the Western world across it’s borders after decades of fractious, political deliberation and military tension. Those wishing to enjoy it’s warm climate and white sandy beaches are subject to careful scrutiny at customs and intense bouts of questioning. After a grueling 10 hour flight young Andrew was approached by one of Castro’s finest, clad in military garb, accompanied by a doberman that better resembled a fur-coated razorblade. Ever the skeptic, when asked the fairly routine “Do you take drugs, you like Cocaine?” Andrew responded with caution, checking noone else was watching and then leaning in close to the guard and whispering “well…yeah, sure.”

Thirty minutes later the rest of the holidaymakers waited on as a bemused Andrew was taken into a holding cell by a troop of armed guards and given what is collectively known as “a good once overing.” A frantic holiday rep bargained, to no avail, with the militia to release a rather perturbed Hindley from the clutches of the West’s last Communist regime whilst his colleagues drew straws to see who would break the news to his parents across the Atlantic…

Adding fuel to the fire was the fact that Andrew had opted to travel light to Cuba, opting not to pack a suitcase but rather to throw a few pairs of shorts, tees and a toothbrush into a bag usually reserved for ‘recreational smoking materials’. After undoing the threads in his bag and cobbling together enough to form a candyland cigarillo it seemed as though we’d seen the last of Andrew Hindley, who looked condemned to the annals of the Cuban judicial system for the next few years after bringing illegal substances into a nation eager to exact it’s power over democracy and uphold it’s zero tolerance drug policy. Stoic in the face of adversity however, Hindley, inexplicably and without warning, emerged from the room and raced onto the back of his transfer bus, ushering the driver to make haste.

Only Andrew and the Cuban army know what went on in that small holding room on that hot and humid February evening, but what is conceded is that if Comrade Hindley fancies emigrating to a communist state he would find more friends in North Korea.