When most people think of Cuba, they think either of Communism and Fidel Castro or of all-inclusive mega-resorts with pool bars and drinks with little umbrellas in them.

Neither is the reality. What exactly the reality is, is very difficult to say, even though I was lucky enough to live there for several months last year. But it is safe to say that the Cuba a tourist sees is nothing like the real Cuba.

Cubans are banned from hotels - including hotel restaurants, clubs, stores and sports facilities. Usually the only times hotel staff will bend that rule is if the Cuban involved is a "jinetera" - a jockey. A prostitute, in other words.

I have seen, time and time again, the incongruous sight of a stunning young (and I mean young), poor (and I mean poor) Cuban woman hand in hand with some old, leering man. It raises contempt like little else.

Yet, despite this seeming apartheid between Cubans and tourists, tourism makes money in Cuba and it seems all that money is ploughed right back into tourism.

There is no "second pillar" of the economy such as international business in Bermuda.

Cuba stands on one leg. And if you can get involved in the tourism industry you have access to something which divides the country perhaps more than anything else - the dollar.

There are three different currencies in Cuba. Like Bermuda, the US dollar is used there. Like Bermuda, there is a Cuban currency - the "dollar peso" - which is roughly equal to the US dollar. Unlike Bermuda, there is a third currency, also pesos, known as "moneda nacional" - the currency an every day Cuban uses in every day life. There are roughly 26 pesos to the dollar.

Also unlike Bermuda, there are "dollar" stores and restaurants, and "peso" stores and restaurants. Inside the hotels there are glamorous shops such as the European clothing chain Mango, where a T-shirt can cost up to $40.

On the streets of Havana there are shops where Spandex one-piece full body suits are sold at 75 pesos - about $3.

In an Italian dollar restaurant amazing pizzas cost about $6, but on the street you can buy "peso pizza" for ten pesos - around 25 cents. (Granted there are those who believe that peso pizza, a mass of dough and paste resembling tomato sauce and cheese, is merely a way to fill a stomach in a poor attempt to disguise the fact that there is not enough food in the country, but that is not the point.)

The point is, that if you are a Cuban who has some dollar income, for example if you run a "casa particular", where you rent rooms to foreigners in your house or a "paladar", a tiny restaurant out of your home, then life is a lot easier for you than if you don't.

In a casa particular, Cubans might rent rooms to foreigners for $20 a day but as a teacher you are paid solely in pesos and make - I've been told - the rough equivalent of $6 a month.

With dollars you can visit the grocery stores (which may not help much, as the items you want are likely as not to be in stock), but with the pesos you can only visit the outdoor markets. With dollars you can go to restaurants you cannot enter with pesos, you can buy clothes and other goods you cannot get with pesos, you can even travel in cabs you cannot travel in with pesos.

Communism was supposed to lead to equality for all, but the dual economy makes for a division in Cuba so great you can walk down the street and pick out those who have dollars and those who do not as easily as you can pick out the tourists.

Cuba is a country of contradictions.

The drink Cuba Libre (Free Cuba), the equivalent to our own Black and Coke, is second only to the as the most famous drink of Cuba, yet it also goes by another name the outside world does not hear about, a slang word which is interchangeable with Cuba Libre and which means the exact opposite of freedom.

Many Cubans say they love Fidel, then go to the bathroom saying "I'm going to go send a letter to Fidel".

Cuban men do not hesitate to stop women on the street and tell them: "You are too fat, you should exercise more. Come dancing with me, you could use the exercise." (Believe me. There is no hesitation.)

Yet, in Cuba, that is a compliment. It means they saw that you had the potential to be good-looking, and want you to do something about it.

The US - made out to be Cuba's greatest enemy - is actually the greatest friend of the government. The more sanctions against Cuba that the Bush administration lays down, the more weapons Castro has.

In Cuba, the Revolution is still going on. They celebrate it every year. But you can't have a revolution without something to revolt against. There had to be an enemy for the people to rally, and when the original enemy, the dictator Batista fell and Castro rode into Havana on January 1, 1959 with Camilo Cienfuegos, Ernesto (Che) Guevara and 79 other revolutionaries, there was no enemy left.

As Fidel moved Cuba from social democracy to communism, the US obligingly stepped into the spot. If the US ever lifted the embargo, Fidel's government would crumble.

Cubans brag about their education system. After the Revolution Castro led a massive literacy movement with the result being that just about every Cuban can read. Cubans are educated to be doctors, lawyers and engineers. Yet Cubans cannot apply for jobs, and they have no motivation to do the jobs they do get. A doctor told me he made more money in a day renting a room in his house to foreigners than he did in the medical profession in the month.

"Tell me about the youth of Cuba," I asked a Cuban friend. "Son frustuado," she replied - they are frustrated. "I'm studying to be a dentist," she explained. "But I will never be a dentist."

I knew a man who was highly educated, spoke multiple languages, had a great personality, had everything going for him. Yet he was a raging alcoholic who lived at home with his parents. What a waste, we would say in Bermuda. But in Cuba? He could not move out anyway - Cubans are not allowed to buy or sell real estate. Not even if they get divorced. There was no point in getting a job - his parents rented rooms to foreigners and made more money than he ever would on his own.

And rum is cheaper than soda in Cuba. What else was he going to do? Morals, goals and ambition, it would seem, are luxuries that Cubans, who are living from day to day, do not necessarily enjoy.

Cubans are well aware of the realities of their lives. Though it is better known for salsa, the hip-hop movement is growing in Cuba, and every Saturday afternoon there is a hip-hop concert in Caf? Cantante, a club below the Teatro Nacional in Havana. There young Cuban unknowns can get on stage and perform alongside established Cuban rappers.

The first time I went, I expected to hear lyrics like I would in the United States, about politics, society, oppression, rising up. After all, that is what I thought hip-hop is - true hip-hop, not guns, sex and drugs. But at that concert I didn't even hear about guns, sex and drugs.

Why don't Cubans rap about the usual things? Because of the government? Well, yes, some hip-hop artists told me. But mostly, they said, it was because no one wants to hear about it. Cubans have plenty to be bitter about, and if you dig for it, that bitterness does at times come out. But most of the time, Cubans are happy, generous, loving.

I sprained my ankle there and the Cuban family I lived with broke their backs getting me to the hospital in dollar cabs (which they refused payment for, despite most Cubans expecting that since foreigners have dollars, foreigners should pay), procuring ibuprofen for me on the black market, and taking care of me when I was confined to my bed for a week. Cuban friends took me into their homes and gave me what they had, it didn't matter how little it was.

The point is, everyone knows what the problems are. Cubans don't want to think about them any more than they have to. Music is to forget. Culture, it seemed to me at the time, is all that most Cubans have.

Cuba is one of the most fascinating, addictive places in the world. Foreigners living there literally spend hours talking in bakeries and bars, exploring the streets, trying to understand this country they have come to.

They are never able to say they fully understand and they can never quite explain it to anyone who has not experienced it. Havana looks like a ghost town, with buildings decaying, piles of rubble in the streets, windows with no glass and grass which grows long and un-mown. Yet it is full of life, with music pouring from every corner and Cubans ready to drop everything for an adventure.

As I wrote this article people kept asking if I would say whether I loved the country or not.

The simple answer is that I loved living there, and I would go back in a heartbeat. But more than once I would have given anything to be able to leave and come back to live the dream here in Bermuda.