Christopher Hunt seems to heed P.J. O'Rourke's mandate for a travel writer: ``to have an awful time.'' Hunt has hitchhiked across Patagonia and motorbiked down the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Then, captivated by Fidel Castro during the Cuban leader's 1995 trip to the United Nations, he spends three months in Cuba the following winter. His ostensible, out-of-the-blue reason -- to meet Castro.

But as Hunt is bribing his way into Cuba -- yes, an immigration officer at Havana's airport demands $20 before handing him a tourist visa -- Castro is leaving on an extended trip abroad.

Retracing the march

So, while waiting for Castro's return, Hunt decides to retrace the rebel commander's steps when he came down from Cuba's eastern mountains in January 1959 and slowly made his way to Havana heading a victory caravan.

Hunt flies to Santiago de Cuba, and then treks back west by whatever means of transportation he can hop on: a succession of rickety private cars, impromptu taxis, public buses and government trucks. Putting in some legwork doesn't hurt, either.

His adventure could be called seeing it like a native, save for one big difference: He's packing a pocketful of miracles, a k a dollars.

On a personal level, Hunt finds Cubans friendly, warm, generous, proud (``Madonna has a Cuban boyfriend,'' they are quick to point out), frank, talkative (extremely talkative). But enticed by the holy trinity of ``the revolution's accomplishments'': health care, public education and sports -- sorely frayed since the post-Soviet crisis the Cuban government calls ``the special period'' -- he desperately wants to like the system, too.

A trail of Cubans

However, during his grass-roots journey from Havana to Santiago to Bayamo to Holguin to Camaguey to Sancti Spiritus to Santa Clara, what he leaves behind is a trail of bribe-takers, prostitutes, would-be pimps, black marketeers, bootleggers, bolita gamblers, money-changers, sex tourists, snitches -- and men who ask him for his socks. Some of these are the same Cubans he so likes.

His last stopover, Varadero, is a detour: Castro's march didn't stop there. The island's premier beach resort provides Hunt with a summing-up course in what he calls Cuba's ``quantity of life'' and what Cubans dub ``The Struggle.'' (``It's not easy'' is one of the mantras he constantly hears from Cubans to describe their lives.) Varadero, a foreign-flesh playground, proves to be a wonderland for all of the above.

By the time Hunt arrives in Havana again, what began as the retracing of an epic route has ended as a picaresque tale of survival. ``Cuba has all the ingredients of paradise,'' he is told, ``but Fidel doesn't know how to cook.''

Fidel? So what about meeting Fidel? The Cubans whom Hunt befriends -- from both sides of the political spectrum -- won't have any part of it. ``Don't even mention his name,'' one advises him. ``If you want to stay out of trouble in Cuba, don't talk about . . .'' and then the speaker strokes an imaginary beard.

Hunt, nonetheless, keeps trying. Whether he ultimately succeeds becomes secondary. Because during his Cuban travails, he has met what Fidel wrought.

Orlando Alomá is a copy editor on The Herald's news desk.