Tempt fate, and fate usually responds. A few weeks back (see entry ), I speculated that last year’s rental car would again be waiting for me when I returned to Cuba this month. Naturally, when I approached the agency office, paperwork in hand, no car awaited me. The chagrined-looking clerk asked me to come back in a couple of hours, and even as I was leaving had picked up the phone to Havana. The car arrived as promised and – go figure – was the white Hyundai Accent I had last year, though now with stains on its seats, a few scrapes on its sides and an odometer that read 42,000 kilometres, an increase of 34,000 in 12 months. It still had all its badging – in Cuba, any car nameplate is a trophy – but I noticed that the front Hyundai emblem now was riveted on. Yet even after the passage of a full rental-car year (equivalent to seven years for a private car), the Accent ran fine. The tie-rod ends and front struts rattled a bit – no surprise given the frequent pothole shocks a Cuban car su