I grew up in Cuba. I've been in the UK since 1993. Studied for ages at Oxford, among other things Sanskrit, and English and Spanish Literature. Got a couple of degrees. Left my DPhil unfinished to join the BBC World Service as a journalist. Now I work for BBC Africa.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

I've been lucky enough to travel almost all over the world and to meet amazing people, many of whom I now count among my friends. I've enjoyed endless hospitality and have offered my fair bit too.

Interests

Music, cinema, dance, the arts in general, languages, laughter and freedom.

• arts
• literature
• singing
• dancing
• flying
• movies
• traveling
• music
• journalism
• languages
• mountains

Music, Movies, and Books

Films: "Kukushka"; anything by Tarkovsky, Hitchcock, Kurosawa (especially "Derzu Usala"), Jarman, Almodovar, Fassbinder, Herzog, Bergman, Kusturica, Fellini ("La Strada", "8½"), Visconti, Buñuel, Truffaut ("Jules et Jim"), Satyajit Ray ("Aparajito" and the two other Apu movies), Ahn Hung Tran, Wong Kar-wai, Ouedraogo, Gutierrez Alea, Kiarostami, Makhmalbaf and many others.

Music: Maria Teresa Vera, Ibrahim Ferrer, Buena Vista Social Club, Freddy, Rolando Laserie, Irakere, Schonberg, Nancarrow, Gyorgy Kurtak, Gorecki, Beethoven, Stockhausen, Prokofiev, Africa Express, Paco de Lucia, Carmen Linares, Yat Kha, Noir Desir, Juliette Greco, Ravi Shankar, Hariprasad Chaurasia, Fabrizio de Andre, Arturo Sandoval, Caetano Veloso, Nina Simone, Hermeto Pascoal, Jimmy Scott, Miles Davis, Machito, Mercedes Sosa, Violeta Parra, Maria Bethania, Malena Muyala, Stromae, Bob Marley, Led Zeppelin, Captain Beefheart, Janis Joplin, Deep Purple, Hendrix, Pink Floyd, Sigur Ros, Tom Waits, Yes, Vladimir Visotsky, Garik Sukachev, Lube, Stelios Kazantzidis, Ali Farka Toure, Baaba Maal, Cesaria Evora, Fairuz, Fanfare Ciocarlia, Jacques Brel, Khaled, Fela Kuti, Manu Dibango, Orchestra Baobab, Papa Wemba, Salif Keita, Toumani Diabate, Mangala Camara, Youssou N´Dour, Chabela Vargas...

Books: "Master & Margarita" (Bulgakov), "Cien años de soledad" (García Márquez), "Memoires d´Hadrien" (Yorcenar), anything by Borges, most Hemingway, Tolstoy, Shakespeare, Achebe, Akhmatova, Browning, Blake, St. Exupery, Conrad, Hesse, Carpentier, Houellebecq, Mahfuz, Svetaeva, Rulfo, Mishima, Sabato, Kawabata, Pablo Neruda, Salvatore Quasimodo, The Upanishads, B. Gita, Ezra Pound, T.S.Eliot, Rimbaud, Pessoa, Gonzalo Rojas, Delfín Prats, Kavafis, Elitis, Pasternak, Kafka, Calvino, Joyce, Celine, Heaney, Pamuk, Tom Robins, Pynchon, Nadine Gordimer, R.K. Narayan, Ryszard Kapuscinski and many many others...

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

I heard shaman Nikolay Oorzhak singing in the steppes of Tuva, Siberia. "This is what I sing about", he told me, and pointed at a bird that was flying slowly over the steppe, and at the Sayan mountains, a distant lake, and further down the road, Mongolia...

Teach, Learn, Share

Journalism, languages

Countries I’ve Visited

Albania, Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Benin, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Brazil, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cambodia, Cameroon, Canada, Chad, Chile, China, Congo, Costa Rica, Croatia, Czech Republic, Côte d'Ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo, Denmark, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Estonia, Ethiopia, Finland, France, Gabon, Gambia, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Guatemala, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Honduras, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, Laos, Latvia, Lebanon, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Malawi, Malaysia, Mali, Malta, Mauritania, Mexico, Monaco, Montenegro, Morocco, Mozambique, Nepal, Netherlands, Netherlands Antilles, Nicaragua, Niger, Nigeria, Norway, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russian Federation, Rwanda, Saint Lucia, Senegal, Serbia, Sierra Leone, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Swaziland, Sweden, Switzerland, Syrian Arab Republic, Tanzania, Thailand, Togo, Turkey, Uganda, United Arab Emirates, United States, Uruguay, Vatican City State, Venezuela, Viet Nam, Western Sahara, Zambia, Zimbabwe

Countries I’ve Lived In

Cuba, United Kingdom

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