CB: The motorcycle journey happened in 1996 and was the first long journey I made through Cuba. I was photographing the whole while and taking photos of American cars, but at that time I hadn’t conceived of a coffee table book. That came later when I realized I had a lot of photos of American cars, but also because the more I traveled through the country the more it became obvious that the number of old American cars was quite profound, about one in six. I was coming across cars I'd never seen. I’m English and I didn’t know the history of Chevrolet and Oldsmobile etcetera, but I did know I was seeing vehicles that were extremely rare, such as Hudsons and Model T Fords—almost every day you see a Model T in the countryside as a daily run-around vehicle.

LYA: You teach travel writing to people, tell me about that.

CB: I gave a course two nights ago. More or less monthly I teach a full learning annex and I’ve been on faculty for about five years. It’s basically Travel Writing 101; a three-hour class where I give all the basics, the tools a would-be travel writer needs to set out and get enthused, and tips on how to avoid common pitfalls neophyte travel writers make.

LYA: Have you had any success stories from your students?

CB: Absolutely. There was an English guy who was a waiter in the Bay area and he took my class. He sold to Conde Nast Traveler in about six months or so. That was six to eight weeks after graduating from my class, and he’d never been published. He called and said, “I just got my first story published!” He sent it to me with photos. He’s actually a good photographer as well as a good writer. He’s now launched a full-time career.

LYA: Let’s go back to your adventure in Cuba. Did you ever feel your life was at risk?

CB: That’s a really excellent question because a lot of people have great fears about traveling to Cuba. My first visit was in 1993, and I made several more short visits before I began my motorcycle trip, but nonetheless when I took the motorcycle in, I had a lot of fears. Not about the physical danger of muggings and whatnot — my experiences in Cuba told me that it's a very safe destination from that perspective. But I had certain other fears, even though I couldn’t put my finger on it.

I think one fear was that I would run afoul of Cuban officials, because it's a Communist state, and the government keeps a very close eye on folks, especially foreign journalists. It was also during this journey I had some tremendously important political epiphanies that had a profound impact on my political perspective of Cuba. At the same time I had become aware that Cuba is very much a police state. I had my encounters with Secret Police when I expressed myself politically for the first time incautiously on the telephone to the States. Within 24 hours I was taken in and interrogated. Cuban intelligence made its final appearance seconds before I left Cuba, also. One of my fears was losing my motorcycle to Cuban officials, but my biggest fear of all was losing my notebooks.

I was not only taking notes for my guidebook – critically important notes about accommodations and bus routes and other essential information – I was taking other notes as well. Those notebooks included some damaging conversations with individual Cubans, and also my own perspectives and feelings, many of which were very positive towards Cuba and the government, and many which were negative. In the last moments, when I was preparing the motorcycle to exit, I had actually hidden my notebooks. It was only once onboard the boat that I felt I was being paranoid for no reason. Because the motorcycle was going to be on the deck and I knew it was going to be washed by sea spray and waves, once we were ready to sail I took the notebooks from under the saddle where I’d taped them for hiding. I thought I was safe, so I tucked them in my baggage in the hold of the boat. It was only at this stage the Secret Police came specifically to read my notebooks. They had quite clearly been keeping tabs on me, unbeknownst to me, and they came and said, “Your notebooks Mr. Baker."

LYA: And they looked at them.

CB: They read them! And what was really fascinating was… I don’t like to give it all away because this is an important part of Mi Moto Fidel… but I went through an epiphany. In earlier trips I had been viewing the Cuban Revolution very sympathetically. And whilst I still have tremendous sympathies and respect for the accomplishments of the Revolution, it was during the motorcycle journey that I changed my perspective.

So what happened was the tone in the notebooks, which were ordered chronologically, began to shift. By notebook #4 the shift was happening. At that stage more Cubans (who will only make critical comments if they believe you can be trusted) were beginning to open up to me and I was finding a different Cuba —a different perspective coming from the people themselves. And that was reflected in the notebooks.

So the Secret Police began reading them. As I said I had had an interrogation, and that’s absolutely the right word for it, in the eastern provinces of Holguien six weeks prior. I’d been through the questioning and knew the process. It was almost an identical thematic interrogation as he was reading my notebooks. He wanted to know if I was a journalist, and since I wasn’t traveling on a journalist’s visa, I tried to pass myself off as an ordinary teacher and consultant on tourism. He asked why I needed all these notes if I wasn’t a journalist. But more importantly they were looking for negative commentary. They weren’t going to let these notebooks out of the country if there were negatives.

His questioning got stronger and stronger as he went through notebooks #2 and #3, and obviously he was reading piecemeal. Then he got to notebook #4 where this great change happened, and he’d already reached the critical point of the questioning, “What do you think about the Revolution, what have you written about it, what have you written about Cuba, and is there anything negative?” I was panicking because they had an agent whose job was to stand over me and intimidate me, to gauge my reaction as the other agent was questioning me. At the moment I was about to buckle under, my knees were going, I was going to lose all my notebooks, he handed them back to me and said, “You can write a good book with that.”

LYA: What did you learn from your adventure you could share, especially for someone who might be a little fearful?

CB: Well, I learned an important lesson during the attempt to get to Cuba. If you’re determined to make something happen, however difficult it seems, if it's a true dream it will happen. You'll make it happen. That was really reflected for me when I arrived in Florida to pick up the pre-arranged sailboat that was going to take me to Cuba. I hadn’t seen it before, I don’t think I’d seen pictures even, but I had a commitment from the skipper who used to take his own motorcycle into Cuba. So I’ve got everything ready, and I took one look at his boat and simply turned around. I said, “I’m not putting my motorcycle on that piece of crap.” The sea was very rough, there was a storm at the time...

I didn’t even say hello to the skipper, I just said, “I'm not going on that boat. What do I do now?” I was so full of belief that this day I was going to Cuba. I think it was only because I believed my dream was going to happen that I actually got another boat arranged within two hours. And it wasn’t as if I arranged it, I just serendipitously found another boat that was ready to leave for Cuba and had been cleared by customs. I’m atheistic, so I don’t believe in the Gods, but if there are gods, they were certainly working on my behalf at that moment.

LYA: One last question. From your British perspective, tell me your take on Bush’s attitude towards Cuba.

CB: I am also a U.S. citizen, a 25-year resident of the Bay area. I think that in itself tells you where I might be politically. I live in the Bay area because I thoroughly enjoy its liberal take on the world and the local’s belief that we need to be contributory in society. I was very very dismayed by the election results because I think that in the last four years America has been on a dangerous path internationally and domestically. So while the feeling in my local community, and perhaps even the whole of costal California, was of great hope that we could turn America around to a much saner, respectful course in the world that would pay attention to resolving issues, I feel the majority of America is caught in some incorrect perspective and time warp and has got its priorities mixed up.

LYA: I agree. I heard one of Bush’s campaign speeches in Florida catering to the Miami mafia and saying, “Freedom is on the march.” So next stop, Cuba.

CB: Yes Mark, it’s really sad to think what the next step might be. A lot of Cubans are very fearful there's an agenda for Cuba, that it’s next. Thoughts that there may have been secret plans to put troops in Cuba on any pretext, and we know pretexts were used to get into Iraq. Had Iraq not become the mess it is, I think Cubans would have a good rationale to be fearful that America would come stomping in with troops. But the Bush administration seems to have pandered to a small clique of extreme Cuban-Americans in Miami for electoral reasons. It’s important to remember Cubans are disproportionately powerful politically in relationship to their numbers down there. It’s pleasing to know there’s a growing moderate voice amongst that community that provides more balance, but it’s not getting heard by Washington.

LYA: Thank you very much for your time, Chris.

CB: Thank you, Mark.

Is the adventurous life of a travel writer appealing to you? Learn how you can make it your reality. Experts Mark McMahon & Chris Baker can show you how. Click here for more information.

To contact Mark, click here.

To contact Chris Baker, click here.

The following are Mark's previous articles for the magazine:

• Inti, Shamanic Wisdom From Ecuador - In Quito
• An Accountant In Argentina ~ An Interview With Joel Graham
• Through Bolivia ~ Riding My Bike On The World's Most Dangerous Road
• Living Large In Buenos Aires ~ Argentina
• At The Bottom Of The World - Ushuaia
• Adventures In Colombia ~ The Journey Continues
• El Salvador Autohotel ~ Salvadoran Hotel Pleasure ~ by Mark McMahon
• An Interview With Jim Rogers ~ The Indiana Jones Of Finance
• Bolivian Safari ~ Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia
• Baby Blue And La Paz ~ Making It Through In Bolivia
• What Doesn't Kill You...  ~ Noel Kempff National Park, Bolivia
• Bolivia To Buenos Aires -On The Road
• ANTI-AMERICAN SENTIMENT ~ Politics In Latin America
• Cuba ~ Having Fun