Baracoa is a tranquil little town on the north-eastern tip of Cuba, in Guantánamo province (it turns out that there's more than just an American prison there!). Christopher Columbus first landed there in 1492 and described it as 'the most beautiful land human eyes had ever seen'. Obviously a lot has changed in 500 years (notably the construction of several ugly apartment blocks along the seafront) but even now it is a pretty town surrounded by lush green mountains; many of the buildings are painted in a myriad of bright colours and there are some nice murals and many striking images of Che Guevara.

I flew there from Habana in a small airplane, landing on Baracoa's precariously short runway which is bordered at both ends by the sea. This was the first stop on my two-week tour in Cuba, with Sharon and Warren, both from Melbourne, and our Cuban guide, Roger.

The weather was beautiful when we arrived - hot and sunny - so we headed straight for the beach and had a lovely relaxed afternoon sunbathing and swimming in the clear turquoise Caribbean waters. The coastline in Baracoa town is either rocks or black sand and the water isn't very clean so we went to Playa Maguana, a nice beach that was a little further away, with our taxi driver, Pachuco. The road to get there went through countryside and villages and was lined with palm trees, banana plants and cocoa plants. There were lots of horse-drawn carts on the road and sheep, goats and cows roaming the roadsides. The beach itself was like a farmyard, with pigs, dogs, chickens and ducks wandering around! The water was very clear so we were able to see some pretty fish swimming on the reef. Before we left we bought some delicious home-made chocolates from a local guy, which kept us snacking for the next few days.

In Baracoa we were staying at Willian's casa, which was lovely. Accommodation, like most things in Cuba, is tightly regulated by the government; although there are hotels, the more popular form of accommodation is 'casas particulares', basically homes that people have turned into guesthouses (they are allowed a maximum of two guest rooms with a maximum of two foreigners staying in each room).

I was apprehensive about the food in Cuba because I had heard that it could be limited and bland but the food at Willian's place was amaaaazing. They made humungous meals, always beautifully presented - for breakfast I would have a plate with six or seven different fruits plus ham, cheese, bread, eggs cooked how I liked, coffee, hot chocolate and juice; then for dinner I had seafood and noodle soup followed by dishes of shrimp, lobster, fish and chicken with rice and banana chips, finished off with fruit salad and strong coffee. After a couple of days I was suffering with a sore stomach from eating too much!

One day we went on a hike in the countryside alongside a crystal clear blue river with a view of El Yunque flat top mountain. We waded through a river and climbed over big rocks to reach a little waterfall where we could go swimming. Along the trail was a little house where we stopped to eat our packed lunch and they gave us some coffee - it was delicious (they make it from the locally-grown coffee beans). We saw some holes in trees and telephone poles made by woodpeckers (which in Spanish are called pájaro carpintero, 'carpenter bird', how funny?!).

In the afternoon I walked around Baracoa town - the central square is dominated by La Catedral de Nuestra Señora de la Asunción, which is very dilapidated. Inside the cathedral is a bit like a building site and, oddly, there are no images of Jesus anywhere. It houses a cross allegedly brought from Europe by Christopher Columbus - whether or not it was actually put there by Columbus, it has been proven to be from that era. In front of the cathedral is a statue of the head of Hatuey, a chief of the Taíno indigenous people who led the initial rebellion against the Spanish for a few months before being betrayed, captured and publicly burned at the stake.

In the residential streets around town there were lots of people chilling out on their porches in their rocking chairs (rocking chairs are very popular in Cuba - every house has at least a couple!). I saw some of the ration shops where people queue up to get their allowance of bread and whatnot.

On the streets there were some very skinny, neglected looking horses pulling carts full of people around while other people travelled on the back of trucks - I saw one old lady (I would guess she was in her seventies) in her flip-flops, climbing off the back of a packed truck. There was not much traffic - most people got around on bicycles or bici-taxis (like a rickshaw powered by a man on a push-bike - not at all comfortable on the bumpy roads of Baracoa!).

The next morning we visited the Archaeological Museum, tucked away in the caves among the trees above town. It exhibits some traditions and stories from the Taíno culture (the indigenous people who inhabited the region before the Spanish arrived), which included burying people in the caves. There was a great view over the town from there.

We spent the afternoon chilling out at the fancy El Castillo hotel, which is a converted Spanish fort on a hill above the town. We had lunch and daquiris and enjoyed the nice swimming pool with a view over Baracoa and across to El Yunque - it was SO hot and sunny.

In the evening we went to a 'paladar' (a private restaurant), the only one in town - it is one of the few enterprises not directly run by the government, instead they pay a high fixed tax and can then keep their takings. I had a tasty meal of crab meat with coconut sauce washed down with mojito. Rum and rum cocktails are the most popular drinks in Cuba - they are made with the abundant locally-grown sugarcane. Later we went to a bar that had a live band and some locals showing off their best salsa moves. The manager of the bar was a crazy little man who kept referring to himself as Patrick Swayze; Roger was Steven Segal, Sharon was 'the girl from the King Kong movie' and he insisted that I looked exactly like Cuba's most famous ballet dancer, Alicia Alonso, when she was young!

On our last day in Baracoa we went for a walk along the Malecón (road alongside the waterfront) - at one end is a statue of Christopher Columbus and the other is another Spanish fort.

I could see I was going to have to be very patient in Cuba - everything took a long time and there was a lot of hanging around for no apparent reason. Even to buy postcards, the cashier made a handwritten note of the registration number and price of each postcard and laboriously calculate how much I owed and how much change I was due. Internet is pretty scarce, slow and expensive and it is only available to foreigners! Even at our casa, they were building a new porch and there were about five men banging and shouting continuously from 8am to 8pm for the three days we were there, with little progress evident at the end!

Other observations… patterned tights seemed to be very fashionable in Cuba - in black or white under very short skirts (even for professional women - it looked strange!); and moustaches seemed to be popular (for men and women!).