It’s my new favorite song, because of or despite the fact I heard it a lot when I was in Cuba the past 10 days. In many ways the trip was an eye opener for me, and I took 538 pictures to prove it (Holy Fidel!). Music is in all the squares and streets from radios in the morning to the ubiquitous live bands at night. I was staying in casa particulares, private houses that rented rooms, and I began to suspect after a few nights that every Cuban knows how to play an instrument and dance salsa.

The cheerfulness of the music and the dancing glosses over some of the harder aspects of Cuban life, but at night in Havana when the dim lights hide the cracks and dirt of some old square, and the musicians play Guantanamera, it can be truly magical.