Rosie Swale Pope on who’s really Running Cuba

I can’t think of a better resolution or "promesa", as the Cubans say, for those who love rare places - than to head for Cuba now before anything there changes.

It is an island that is like a chameleon stuck within a fragile time capsule. I had always wanted to go to Cuba, so I decided to run across it from West to East (for Age Concern) by myself, a journey of over 750 miles as the pelican flies...

The air was velvety, the sense of adventure ahead intoxicating, as I emerged from José Martí airport on 8th November 2001. A crescent-shaped moon, like a gondola, balanced in the sky amid the stars. The night seemed timeless. I couldn’t bear to break the spell by rushing into town by cab, so I set off...

I ran for an hour towards Havana, about 15 kilometres away, exchanging greetings in my enthusiastic (but not very good) Spanish with others who walked along the small track beside the highway. Some I met, Miguel and his wife Maria joked about coming to run across Wales with me.

I’d never before arrived in a communist country like this one, where my first impression was simply how laid back everything appeared. Finally, before arriving too near the city, I pitched my tent among some palm trees and fell peacefully asleep.

Next morning, I arrived in Havana Vieja. Among the beautiful time-battered houses, homes bright and pin neat glimpsed through open shutters, music streaming out into hot sunshine. Monster local buses, old American cars, rattling and running on love and kindness only. Peso stalls selling pink ice creams and bicycle taxis - whose drivers I was informed, are often teachers, doctors or pensioners eking out an extra living. I travelled west to the official start of my challenge in one of these Chevies - like something out of a gangster movie, armed with nine passengers and a lot of song. Two days later I was in quite a different world.

Yellow, gold and scarlet butterflies fluttered around me on the small bumpy road that led in and out of Cabo Corrientes on the Peninsula de Guanahacabibes. Dragonflies soared and swooped on rainbow-coloured wings. There could not have been a more fabulous place to begin a long run. Jungle with wild banana leaves peeping out was on one side, a blue sea and pure silver beaches with emerald rock pools on the other.

After the little outpost of Bajada, the road continued through the jungle. Darkness fell and I got out my little tent. An impulse the first night in Cuba, now really needed.

It was hot and humid already at dawn. Soon I reached the first village after the forest in a small clearing. In minutes I was surrounded, a circle of smiling faces; children in red school uniforms, women with babies, and men in tattered, jaunty hats. "What was I doing? Where was I going?", they all wanted to know. A bunch of children ran with me for the next 2 to 3 km before disappearing home.

From there, I ran through a long valley to San Juan Martinez where cigars fit for faraway millionaires are made and grown, where horses with string for bridles pace elegantly, and there’s always three to each bicycle.

Cuba is so beautiful, but it’s more than this which got to me. 750 miles from end to end became 1000 miles by the time I finished. It was impossible to want to go in a straight line, even when one existed in such an amazing country. It took almost 7 weeks. I was never to get home for the Christmas I’d planned. I have so many images of the run that I’ll treasure for the rest of my life...

Gazing at the surreal shapes of the mogotes of Viñales in the moonlight. Being serenaded in Baracoa by a musician playing his guitar while he rode along free-handed on his bicycle. The trucks along the Carretera Central, which belched black smoke like evil demons, jam-packed with people (who seemed immune to it) singing while hitching to work..... I’ll never forget making a quick trip from Pinar del Rio to Havana and back to run the Cuba Marathon as an extra. The only marathon (which I was overjoyed to finish in 04.52) where they give you a medal before you even start!

Above all though, I was touched and overwhelmed as the walls of little bars, in each small town along the way, bulged outwards with everyone crammed in to sign my logbook. What moved me was their pride, the double economy making Cubans’ lives ever harder. Education and medicine are free and State-controlled wages are paid in Cuban pesos. But most necessities must be bought in US dollars (from the dollar shops) - where a pair of shoes costs nearly a year’s wages and a tube of toothpaste almost half an old person’s pension.

I reached Punta de Maisi lighthouse, at last, on Christmas Day itself with trembling knees and worn out shoes. Christmas seemed most special to me in Cuba, for the very reason that it is not made special. I thought of what JLA’s Claire Milner had remarked before I set off, "I’d like to think that your run will be as much of an adventure for those you encounter, as it undoubtedly will be for you". I hope so much it was.

Rosie Swale Pope, from Tenby in Pembrokeshire, is a 55-year old modern day adventurer, whose other marathon exploits include:

• sailing single-handed across the Atlantic in a 17-foot boat.
• horseriding the length of Chile (3000 miles) and running across Iceland, from the Arctic Circle to Reykjavik.
• presenting Channel 4’s "Revenge of the Rain Gods" a journey around the Maya World.