British travel writer Claire Boobbyer has been writing about Havana for almost two decades. She first went to Cuba in 1998 to see why the Christmas Day public holiday had been banned by Fidel Castro.

With a mum-made Christmas cake in tow, she was quizzed by Cuban customs about the cake's cultural connotations and required to have the cake X-rayed. Within days she fell in love with the country and now divides her time between Havana and London.

Claire has danced, dived, drunk, biked and walked around Cuba, and is still discovering new corners of this enigmatic isle.