CUBA IS one of very few places you can be arrested for a chocolate-related offence. I discover this in Baracao, a pretty town at the eastern end of the island, when a man shuffles up to me on the seafront, whispers "Pssst, amigo" and shiftily indicates that I am to pay particular attention to the rolled-up copy of the official Communist Party newspaper tucked under his arm.

Edging closer I peek inside as he opens it up to reveal a large bar of chocolate. "One dollar," he growls at me.

As it happens, I'm a little peckish, so I agree to the deal. But as I reach for the item, he stops, looks outraged, wrenches the newspaper and its cargo back and stomps off, crying something like "What are you doing?"

Surprised, I turn to walk away, only for him to call me back, point to the police car that just passed us, and complete the transaction with a big grin on his face.

Unlike Cuba, the chocolate is rich. Indeed the nation is so poor that there is food rationing, and luxuries such as chocolate are for export only, to generate much-needed foreign currency. This, of course, results in many bars of the sweet stuff - not to mention bottles of rum and those famous cigars - magically flying out of factory windows and falling off the back of lorries.

It is estimated that in this, the first and last communist state in the Western World, the wages paid by the state are enough to live on for two or three weeks each month. The rest is made up of black market income, tips from tourists, or money sent home from Cuban exiles, mostly in Miami.

Everywhere you look in Cuba you can't escape the face of communism - literally. Every few hundred yards, there is a smiling billboard portrait of President Castro. "Forward with Fidel!" many proclaim; others expound how lucky the people are to live in Cuba, rather than those poor souls doomed to reside in the capitalist enemy, America, with its decadent promises of consumer goods and an inferior musical tradition.

Certainly this long, finger-shaped island floating between Jamaica and the Bahamas has natural wealth: the beaches are fine, the waters blue. The land is fertile, although decades spent as a satellite of the Soviet Union, producing nothing but sugar cane, have left the country barely able to feed itself.

This has a knock-on effect on tourists, for although they aren't restricted to the meagre rations that the locals have to survive on the Cuban cuisine has to be the country's greatest turn-off. Low quality, often served in small quantities and virtually the same short menu everywhere, it will be less than three days before you get very sick of the ham and cheese sandwich - a snack as prolific in Cuba as toilet seats are inexplicably scarce.

The best choice for eating out is to avoid the state-run restaurants and go for a private "paladar" dining room, one of a new generation of private enterprises legalised by Castro a few years ago as a means to kick-start an economy on its death-bed. The best way to find them is to ask for a recommendation from your hotel staff. Don't believe a word that you are told by people on the street - low-level fraud is one area of the economy that is booming. Similarly, homestays - "casas particulares" - tend to serve better food in feast-like quantities at low prices.

Pork is the mainstay of the local diet, with chicken a close second. These are usually served with rice or beans - often in the local combination of black beans and white rice known politically incorrectly as "Moors and Christians". Beef is illegal outside state restaurants because there is little land suitable for raising cows; as is the case with lobster meat, due to its profitability for the government. This is not to say you don't get them in the casas and paladars, just that you they might be whipped away from under your nose if a government inspector happens to call by while you are eating - and the "lobster" is actually more likely to be crayfish.

Of course, the country's shortage of ready cash is also why you can see all those 1950s American cars on the roads of Havana - the locals have kept them running because there was never money to replace them.

In fact, there are two currencies in Cuba, the National Peso, for locals; and the Convertible Peso, which foreigners must use. It won't come as a shock to find that relative prices for the Convertible mean you are paying about 20 times what the locals pay.

What Cuba has in abundance - music, dancing, high spirits (mostly rum) - is free. You will never drink a better mojito cocktail (rum, sugar, lime juice, crushed ice) and, like the mother country, Spain, the bright young things go out at night and come back in the early morning. The salsa clubs start jumping around 11pm and everyone is welcomed - frequently dragged - on to the dancefloor. The local boys also do a roaring trade in romancing female tourists, so don't get too carried away.

FURTHER INFORMATION Tucan Travel (www.tucantravel.com or 020 8896 1600) offers three different tours through Cuba, taking in buzzing Havana, the colonial charm of Trinidad and the beaches of Varadero. Prices start from £430 per person, including nine days' accommodation and internal travel.

Air France (www.airfrance.co.uk or 0870 142 4343) flies from Edinburgh to Havana, via Paris, for £434 return including taxes.

CARBON FOOTPRINT About 1.979 tonnes CO2 per passenger on a return flight from Edinburgh to Havana via Paris (two-and-a-half footprints).