Your gal in Panama

Libbi Gorr discovers that comparing someone to a pizza topping in Havana isn't always the best way to win friends and influence people.

'Speak the language!' say the travel guides. 'Mix it with the locals! Converse! Mingle! Travel is so much better! Even basic Spanish is a plus when travelling in Cuba.'

But foreign phrase books are only useful when you are in control of your emotions. When a pushy little Mexican Miss with ten pieces of luggage jumps in front of you in the queue amidst the mayhem of Havana airport after you've already waited ninety sweaty, disoriented minutes, who's gunna resort to a phrase book then?

'Please,' I quavered in stilted Spanish. 'I have waited for over an hour.'

No response. Just a haughty high cheekboned glazed eye stare. The kind of look you'd get from Jennifer Lopez if you told her that Paris Hilton had a better bum.

'Please,' I tried again. 'Por favor?'

Suddenly a flicker of understanding from Miss Bag Laden. I thought – she'll move and let me past. Well, she did move but not to let me past. It was to let her friends join her. Five of them, all with bags, and all now in front of me. That's when I lost it and spake the worst word I could imagine she may understand.

'Puttanesca!' I spat.

I wasn't exactly sure what it meant. But I knew we were in the realm of olives and anchovies, toppings I don't like on a pizza. Mexicana or Margarita or Ham and Pineapple just wouldn't have the same effect. It wasn't until we landed in Mexico City and the police dragged us from the customs queue that I was informed I'd abused a Mexican citizen. Bag Laden's eye's blazed as she complained bitterly of my linguistic wrongdoing.

Apparently, I'd implied she was a cheap 'working girl' (though I'd used a more guttural term). I thought I'd called her a pizza and a smelly one at that. We found ourselves detained in the customs office for ninety minutes, terrified that we'd get done for the 156 cigars we'd illegally stashed in our luggage. If I was going to be thrown into a foreign jail I wanted it to be for something fabulously illegal, not just a flash of temper and a misunderstanding of a pizza menu. And so we waited, liquidating into puddles as the minutes ticked over.

We were detained with a local man who looked suspiciously like a drug dealer and discovered that he spoke our language. It was the language of the innocent about to get done in a culture they just don't understand.

'Cool it man,' he said, probably thinking we were fat Americans, getting done for dressing badly.

So we cooled it and our passports were returned. Needless to say, I have never voluntarily eaten another anchovy in my life.

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