Cigar smoke is Cuba's trademark aroma.
Ponsonby student Fiona Webster is the winner of the Herald's dream destination contest, receiving a $3000 Flight Centre travel voucher.
More than 700 of you wrote in with stories of your dream destination and choosing the top 20 entries was a tough job - the quality of entries was high. And out of the 20 this one is victorious...
The throb of big-finned American cars hangs in the air and mingles with the smoke from my cigar.
It is dusk. The street is loaded with warmth, dust and stickiness.
A narrow street of Spanish colonial buildings with peeling paint and intricate balustrades relaxes as night time creeps in.
The drumming gets louder
as my compadres and I turn a corner.
The street opens out on to a square filled with coloured lights and music. A cafe has spilled its contents of people outside.
A band, made up of anyone who wants to join in, plays on and around a small stage, which bounces with its burden. Dark-skinned people groove to the rhythms, adding their music in shouts, claps and yahoos.
Everyone dances: old women with soft, swaying hips and closed mouth smiles, skinny boys and girls wearing bright patterned cotton shorts and skirts, stunningly beautiful women and elegant men dance together with passionate intensity.
There are white-haired men in suits who dance the same way as they did when they met their wives, buried their parents and christened their grandchildren.
And here I am dancing, with my Havana cigar, adding my own rhythms.
My senses are filled up and flow over like a glass of champagne. I drink it all in.
This is Cuba.
FACT FILE
Things to see and do: Cuba has more than 300 beaches of fine white sand and crystal-clear water. The most famous is Varadero, but there are others to the east of the capital city in Holguin and Cayo Largo del Sur, as well as in the northern keys of Ciego de Avila and Villa Clara.
Getting around: Most parts of Cuba are served by a modern fleet of buses. Hire cars and taxis are also available.
