Last outpost of the Cold War

By SANKHA GUHA

The War on Terror has shone a spotlight on one of the strangest places on Earth.

Guantanamo Bay was an enigma long before the sinister Camp X-Ray and Camp Delta opened for business.

Castro has railed against it - "The naval base is a dagger plunged into the Cuban soil".

The US acquired it under a treaty signed in 1903, denounced as illegal in the present Cuban constitution.

But far from wishing it away, the Cubans should market Guantanamo - roll up, roll up for the last chance to visit the Cold War.

My suggested itinerary:

) Guantanamo. Peer across the razor-wire fence in Oriente province where Cuba's "Frontier Brigade" maintains a round-the-clock stand-off against US marines. The base beyond the wire is no makeshift camp but an area the size of Manhattan, where a mini-US has been created, complete with fast-food franchises.

2) Bay of Pigs. Party on the very beach in Matanzas province where the US was humbled back in 1961. At Playa Giron (the local name for the Bay of Pigs) you can stay in holiday bungalows where prisoners were held in the aftermath of the failed CIA-sponsored invasion - pig-roast and scuba packages are on offer. Admire the bloodstained shirts of fallen heroes at the local museum.

3) Havana. Stop off at the seven-storey hallucination known as the US Interests Section of the Swiss embassy. The US has no diplomatic relations with Cuba, so this imposing building slap in the middle of the Malecon (the main seafront drag), bristling with antennae and crammed with CIA spooks, is not the US embassy.

And across the road from not the US embassy is a huge mural portraying a cartoon Uncle Sam growling at a plucky Cuban across the cartoon sea, who shouts: "Senores imperialistas, no les tenemos absolutamente ningun miedo!" ("Oi, imperialists, we aren't even slightly scared of you!")

4) Live show: Castro himself. The same Castro who (along with Khrushchev and Kennedy) nearly blew up the whole planet during the missile crisis of 1962.

Forty-two years on, the all-singing, all-ranting demagogue can still be seen at open-air rallies, churning out the same old tunes.

In a world where we don't even know what our enemies look like, Castro is a monument to the comforting certainties of the Cold War.

Visit while it lasts, while he lasts.

- INDEPENDENT