Six months after undergoing surgery, President Fidel Castro might well be "almost trotting," as his Venezuelan friend and ally Hugo Chavez put it, but with little news of his condition, some Cubans remain skeptical.

"There are reasons to be incredulous," a 51-year-old retired screenwriter said on Thursday, pointing to the revolutionary leader's frail appearance when he was last seen on television three months ago.

"I don't believe in such a recovery," he said, declining to give his name and adding "it's best not to think of this."

But several other people interviewed in the streets of Havana said they firmly believed the 80-year-old president's condition was improving steadily.

On Thursday, Cuba's parliamentary president Ricardo Alarcon said Castro's recovery "is going very well," and his eventual return to power, would depend on his further "postoperation progress."

Castro underwent intestinal surgery on July 27 and "provisionally" handed over power to his brother Raul, who is Cuba's defense minister and longtime number two.

He last appeared at a public event one day before his operation.

"We'd like to see him," said Elia Echeverria, a 28-year-old security guard, leaning against the decaying facade of a once grand Havana mansion. "But we will only see him when they decide so," he said. "They," he explained, are the top communist officials in this one-party state.

"If they say he is recovering, then he is recovering," he said, with what sounded like a hint ofirony.

Venezuela's President Chavez announced in Caracas on Wednesday that Cuban Vice President Carlos Lage had told him Castro is "walking more than me; he's almost trotting."

Several people in the Cuban capital insisted Castro clearly lived up to his nickname "El Caballo" -Spanish for "The Horse.”