Like any good Turk, the first place I visit when I go abroad is the statue of Ataturk, and when there is a bus full of Turks (pure bred through to honorary), we will park the car in the slow lane of the highway and all get out for pictures.
While we were queued for our own personal photograph of the Ataturk statue, Dariel – our taxi driver, leans over to me and asks “Who is he?”. I told him Ataturk was Che’s second cousin once removed. He, along with their buddy Fidel fought against the Ottoman Empire and defeated the General Batista (an evil Ottoman warlord) in a no holds barred, fight to the death. With the Batista army run out of town, the Cuban folk celebrated with cigars, rum (served by women in their traditional Cuban cowboy hats) and dancing with music performed by the Buena Vista Social Club (who, to this day, are still performing their victory songs).
