And what if to see the real Cuba, one had to ride this train which clanks along at 50 km/h over the 835 kilometers of the Santiago-Havana line? In Cuba, the train is the best way to mix with the masses, people that tourists only glimpse through the windows of their air-conditioned tour buses without ever meeting them, without ever hearing their stories. This ride takes us deep into the heart of a country much more difficult to penetrate than it seems and thus avoid out-dated cliches. Emmanuelle Han embarks aboard the mythic “Tren Frances” and lets herself be led from one end to the other along this legendary line, “the Pearl of the Caribbean”.