Eastern Guate

We took a taxi the 10 miles or so from San Ignacio to the Guatemalan border and as we emerged into the heat of the morning from the back of that rattling jalopy we were set upon by wad-wielding money changers before completing all the other formalities.

I find border crossings particularly stressful, they're usually time consuming, bureaucratic and expensive affairs and another worry in this part of the world is that somewhere along your journey someone has slipped you a Mickey Finn and your next stop will be an all expenses paid trip at the pleasure of the Junta, via the anal cavity probing department. To minimise this risk our packs are padlocked more securely than Houdini's straitjacket but you can't be too careful and I for one wouldn't want to be languishing in a Central American hell-hole whilst some chinless Tory half-heartedly negotiates our release.


We had spectacularly underestimated the financial side of things once more and on having congratulated ourselves on arriving at the border with less than €1BZ on us we were dismayed to learn that we needed to pay $37.50BZ departure fee each, plus $5BZ conservation tax. We had no option but to part with yet more precious Yankee dollars for this legalised extortion but we have now finally learned to keep some money on us to facilitate these border crossings.


With new stamps in our passports and relieved of another £2 each for the Guatemalan entry fee we found ourselves in the town of Melchor De Mencos looking for a reliable-looking ATM and a route out of here towards El Ramate. A new paranoia was upon us courtesy of having just read that ATM tampering is epidemic in Guatemala with sophisticated equipment inserted inside card readers which is therefore invisible to the unsuspecting user. Victims are generally cleaned out within a couple of days so we were looking for somewhere that looked safe. Seeing one frequented by locals we took a punt and got ourselves a couple of hundred quid out each.


The whole money lark is a tricky one to deal with. You don't want too much cash on you in case you get mugged, you can't be visiting cash points too often because there's a charge for using them and they may be tampered with and we don't want to use our cards too often in hotels and restaurants because that opens the door to fraud too. It's a no-win situation and we just have to hope we don't run into problems by taking out 4 or 5 days cash at a time.


With our money belts bulging with Quetzales we began walking towards the bus station but were soon accosted by a chap in a collectivo (minibus) asking if we wanted to go to Flores. We didn't but with El Remate being en route we gleefully paid the £3.50 each and two and a half hours later, after a journey through beautifully lush countryside, we were being deposited by the side of the road about 3km from our destination. We began to walk but were soon picked up by another collectivo and by 1330 we had checked into quite a nice room for the bargain price of about £16 for the night.


El Remate isn't much of a place, just a load of hotels, kiosks and the odd restaurant line the road for about a mile. It's set on the western shore of the Lago De Peten Itza, a huge expanse of water, and the town's primary function is as a base for trips to Tikal, possibly the Grand-Daddy of all Mayan ruins.


That first afternoon we had a little wander about and then invested Q35 in an hour's kayak hire. Sporadic kayaking is a bit like that second helping of cake, you think you want it but 30 seconds in you realise it was folly and you've changed your mind. The water where the kayaks were situated reeked of eggs and no sooner had we cast off, my thighs were aching and anywhere of any remote interest seemed an interminable distance away. Despite this it was certainly a tranquil hour, a world away from the bustle and "in-your-face" world of the border.


Just a few feet from shore the water was neither eggy nor murky and once we'd paddled ourselves to a state of exhaustion we made our way up one of the many jetties and had a swim in the velvety waters.
There were hundreds of tiny green fish in the lake which seemed to take a keen interest in me. I don't know whether I've ingested something that is emitting something irresistible to Central American fauna but in recent weeks I've been harangued by fish, lizards and mosquitoes, not to mention that stray dogs have been regarding me with a disconcerting glint in their eye too.


After our swim we organised ourselves some transport to Tikal for the following morning. In order to beat the crowds and the heat we would be picked up at 0530 and be at the ruins an hour later. The other benefit of going so early would be that we should see and hear the jungle in a way that isn't possible during the day with many animals being nocturnal.


My body clock has gone haywire at the moment and for the past week I've been falling asleep at about 2100-2130 and waking up at anything from 0400-0600 so I wasn't fazed about the early start in the way that Rip Van Stone was. What I wasn't prepared for was to wake at 0250 for my customary nighttime pee and not be able to nod off again. And what I don't understand is that no matter how much I drink during the day I only discharge water through my shirt whereas come nighttime I can't go 4 hours without a Jimmy Riddle.


We got to the ruins as scheduled and decided to have a hearty breakfast first before setting out. Tikal is massive and you can expect to walk a good 6 miles through the jungle to see all the sights so we figured we needed a good amount inside us beforehand. This tactic worked beautifully in our favour because it meant we ambled around the site in perfect isolation whereas the other 100 or so early-risers were all bunched together. These ruins are fabulous but so much better if the perception is that you are completely alone with them. You almost get the sense that you are the one discovering them and we both feel very strongly that, for example, Chichen Itza and Tulum are ruined by the amount of people milling about and the fact that you can't get a photograph without somebody's ugly mug getting in the shot.


So what is Tikal then? It's a Mayan city dating from 700BC which, by virtue of the aggressive nature of the tribe which settled it, grew over the next 600 years to become a vast trading post and seat of power with around 100,000 inhabitants. It was a sprawling place of 4000+ buildings, the most impressive of which were 6 massive pyramids ranging in height from 100 - 170 feet.
The fact that the city was largely abandoned in about AD900 and not discovered until the 1840s means that the jungle grew around it unchecked for  nearly a millennium. This gives the visitor the wonderful experience of a jungle walk, great in its own right, with the added bonus of happening across part excavated structures emerging from the foliage and shrubbery every so often. It's a magical place and has reinvigorated us after getting "templed out" by Chichen and Tulum.


Just as we were walking towards the exit the heavens opened in another spectacular downpour. The rain really is amazing here, it buckets down and you are soaked to the skin in seconds, though it remains warm. It's actually a relief from the sweltering heat for a short time though the humidity prevents your clothes from drying out afterwards so it's a bit of a pain in the derrière.


Back in El Remate we went to see my friends the fish again in the lake and planned our next move; south to Rio Dulce by bus and upriver to Livingston, an isolated town on the coast populated largely by Black Caribs, descendants of African slaves who were either shipwrecked, sold or found their way there following an uprising in 1795.
"A town called Livingston in Guatemala? What's all that about then?" I hear you ask. It's named after US congressman Edward Livingston who was charged with governing central America in the 19th century by then president Andrew Jackson.


Before leaving El Remate on Saturday we spent an hour back in the jungle on a canopy zip line tour. Once we'd overcome the fear of putting our faith in two young chaps who spoke no English we were soon hurtling through the jungle around 100ft up at terrific speeds. It was exhilarating stuff, particularly the longest line which was 300 metres in length. I didn't tell Kerry about the lady I'd read about who fell to her death in nearby Honduras on a similar venture until after we'd finished!


With adrenaline still coursing through us we took a second class bus down to Rio Dulce that afternoon. This took around four and a half hours and whilst it was buttock-numbing it was also a fascinating ride. We passed through lots of towns and villages and saw a lot of Guatemalan life en route. What struck me was how happy most of them seem to be and they are much more willing to engage the gringo than the Mexicans were.
It's quite humbling to realise just how little these people have and puts life in the UK in perspective. We don't seem to be happy unless we're complaining but I for one will already think twice before griping about my lot in future.


The land we passed through on the second half of the journey was very distinctive, everywhere you looked were mounds a couple of hundred feet high, all covered in dense trees. It was classic Central America I suppose and representative of a place where it's baking hot and rains a lot. It's like Devon used to be, when we used to have summers.


We arrived at Rio Dulce just as the sun was setting, a problem because it puts enormous pressure on finding a room. As usually happens in these circumstances we took the first room we were shown for fear of not finding anything better but really, we were mad to take this place. I'm almost ashamed to tell you that it had a window missing, mouldy walls, no towels, soap or even bedding, one pillow which was no thicker than a piece of paper should you dare to put your head on it and an open plan kazi which was reached by walking through the shower. Perhaps if I described it as how you might imagine a prison cell to look, or a squat, or a prison cell that has had squatters in it, then you'll get the picture.
How Kerry put up with it I do not know. She's quite a gal! It was without question the filthiest pit we have graced with our presence on this trip and I will do what's necessary to ensure we don't sink as low again.
The irony of course is that we slept like logs, me attaining the recently unheard of wake-up time of 0630.


Next morning after the disgusting sounding but surprisingly delicious breakfast of scrambled egg, refried beans, fried banana, cheese and cream all in a tortilla we were off upriver on a water collectivo to Livingston.
The journey was described as being the most outstanding in all Guatemala and it didn't disappoint. We saw lots of birds that everyone seemed to be ooh-ing and ah-ing at and some remote settlements along the banks too. The jungle was so dense all the way and as we approached Livingston we went through a spectacular limestone gorge which, with its vines and whatnot hanging down was a dead ringer for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Lost World.
We also succumbed to another monsoon on the way and, once again, were soaked through.


Unfortunately, our awe was tempered once we stepped off the boat, I don't know that I've ever seen a filthier or more ramshackle place. The derelict hotel at the docks set the tone which was continued wherever you looked. Houses are seemingly painted once and then never again, anything metal is rusty, most things once open are now closed and the laid-back demeanour of the natives could so easily be 'lazy-arsed-itis'. What sand there was on the bit of beach we found was black, the water looked like the primordial soup from which life itself first emerged and whilst I'm not one to erect a 2 foot high picket fence around my house and clean it with a toothbrush every Sunday I do think I would at least make an effort to tidy up if I had about half a million plastic bottles and other detritus in my garden as some people seem to have.
It's such a shame. It's a classic example of what could be a paradise fouled by man. It was expensive too, £1.50 for a beer against 80p in El Remate.
On top of all this our room, though an improvement on Rio Dulce's squat, was woeful.
Having quickly decided this wasn't the place for us we formulated plans for our escape on Monday. Boat along the coast to Puerto Barrios and bus from there to Guatemala City ought to do it.


Trouble looms in the form of me possibly having to shell out on a new case. I suffered a mechanical the other day when pulling it along and the handle came clean off in my hand. I've fashioned a temporary fix but fear it won't last long.


Finally, you may have noticed that this blog sees the inclusion of paragraphs for the first time. This is not indicative of a sudden intellectual leap on my part, it is that someone has kindly pointed out how to insert them, something that I had previously tried and failed to do alone. So thank you Sandy Robinson-Jones and if you can also explain how to insert photos then we will erect an altar in your honour in our house when we get home.
(We haven't got a house to come home to - Kerry)
(I know. Shhhhh. I'm just buttering her up.)

Belize Please Me

The prospect of leaving Mexico was an exciting one for no matter how much you might like somewhere there's always a bit of a buzz about heading somewhere new. After initially thinking we'd cross the border and head to the wonderfully named Orange Walk Town before making for Ambergris Caye via Belize City, we were delighted to learn that there was a daily ferry from Chetumal directly to San Pedro on Ambergris so it was a no-brainer to opt to travel that way. It would only be a 2 hour journey instead of around 6 or 7 via Belize City, plus we'd get to travel by boat and there's been a distinct lack of those since we set sail (metaphorically speaking) from Exmouth back in April. It's slightly ironic too because when we were putting the plans together for this trip we both thought how fabulous it would be to take a passage on a cargo ship from Europe to the USA and even went as far as selecting our point of origin, destination and pricing it all up before a weekend jaunt from Plymouth to Roscoff firmly turned us off the idea. We were bored stupid on the 7 or so hour sailing back from Roscoff on that Sunday afternoon and the prospect of an 8 day crossing from Tilbury to Philadelphia would have seen us needing to be institutionalised on arrival in the States so we quickly ditched that plan thereafter.

Our last few hours in Chetumal were a comedy of schoolboy errors and naïveté as we sought to ensure our passage to pastures new was as smooth as possible. Firstly we wanted to lighten our load somewhat and had earmarked some items to send back to Mission Control (Kerry's mum - hi Jean) including one of my 2 jumpers (I brought 2 jumpers! Why?), Kerry's high heels (very little opportunity to wear them, it's flip flops all the way), the Mexico Lonely Planet, Kerry's first diary and a couple of "little something's" for people. We purloined a box from a shop, bought some masking tape, fashioned the parcel and labelled it up and took it to the post office where the lady told us we'd need to complete a customs form and this could only be done on weekdays. Our next mission was to get some cash. We'd run our Mexican pesos right down to nothing and then suddenly realised this would present us with a problem in paying our departure tax and we'd also have no money to change on arrival in Belize. As we only planned to spend a few days in Belize we thought we'd rely on American dollars and set about finding some in Chetumal. A bank clerk directed us to her ATM but as far as we could make out it only administered pesos; had we tried the machine next to it, as we did the next morning, we'd have discovered one machine did provide US currency and one machine didn't. The final irritation to befall us was that there were two separate agencies next door to each other offering ferry tickets to San Pedro. We chose the first and as we were entering the shop the guy from next door shouted with a cheery smile that he had half price tickets. We assumed he was just trying to get our business by employing a classic "get them in the door" trick so we ignored him being the worldly-wise and ruse savvy pair that we are. After parting with our near $50 and taking our place in the queue of people making the same journey we found that some had indeed paid about $25. Bugger! The crossing was memorable for the pummelling we took by sitting close to the bow through quite choppy seas. After about 5 minutes of pootling out of the harbour our pilot let rip and we bounced for the next 45 mins in a good impression of Barnes-Wallaces finest. It was quite amusing to begin with but it wore off once you realised that you were experiencing the equivalent of a minor car accident every 2 seconds and then a much more substantial one about every 15 seconds. Each time the boat reared up and glided through the air momentarily you were just waiting for the whiplash inducing crash down into the water and our necks hurt for a couple of days afterwards. The second half of the crossing was a little more sedate and by 1700 hours we were docked at San Pedro and queuing up to go through immigration. This consisted of a guy sitting behind a desk asking "Have you been to Belize before?" The expected negative response was met with a "Well welcome to Belize" and your passport being stamped. My positive retort was dealt with with a "Well welcome back to Belize". San Pedro is a tiny town with ramshackle wooden houses and a curious populace including descendants of the Maya, of mixed European and Maya background, black Caribs and Chinese. If Mexico was a culture shock after the USA then this was again. It's obviously incredibly poor, though there is a large influx of tourists here year round, mainly Americans who come to dive and snorkel the 2nd largest reef in the world after the Great Barrier Reef in Oz. I was very wary about Belize and its inhabitants after my experiences last time I was here and had pretty much convinced Kerry and myself that we would get a fair bit of grief whilst here. The one saving grace is that everybody speaks English, it being a former British colony and actually known as British Honduras until 1981, so should there be any bother or misunderstandings then you at least stood a chance of explaining your point of view. We got a few "hellos" and some "welcome to Belizes" and even a "can I help you?" as we wheeled our cases through the streets looking for the Ruby Hotel. The directions we were given were in total contrast to what the map in my guidebook was telling us and I just thought "typical Belizeans" until I realised we'd landed on the North of the island and not the South resulting in my own orientation being a mirror image of what it actually was. Having finally got our bearings we checked a few hotels out but Ruby's was the best value and even that was quite expensive. After eating out that first night we realised our money wasn't going to go far at all here so we'd better do what we'd come to do and then scarper. Oh, but the joy of speaking English again after 7 weeks of conversational mutedom was wonderful. We chatted to our waiter and the guy behind the shop counter who reminded us of Lurch from The Addams Family. We went into a tour agency and asked for full details of every tour they offered and savoured being able to understand whole sentences and not just 20% of them and we also found a few travellers to have a chinwag with too. One of these was John, a Canadian chap who has been travelling for 18 months now and has no plans to go home. He was late 30s and said his only fear is getting to 55 and wondering where his life went but I told him everyone probably does that so just do what you have to do. One of the most profound things anyone has ever said to me was by a lady at work who, when I told her I was going away said "well, no one lies on their death bed and says that they wish they'd worked more". I love that, so thank you Jane. Having said that (in case you're reading this boss) I love my job too. Ahem! Sunday on Ambergris Caye turned into a bit of a disaster as a spot of hard selling by a pair of persistent tour agency reps saw a dark cloud descend on us. Walking innocently along to hire bicycles for the day, two fellows approached on a golf cart and said they had the deal of a lifetime for us if we would go over to the shade to allow them to explain. I said that there was no point as we didn't want whatever it was they were flogging to which one asked how I knew I didn't want it when I didn't know what it was. With me smarting that he had applied irrefutable logic he proceeded to tell us about a day on a boat; fishing, snorkelling, eating lobster, visiting private beaches and finished off with a sunset cruise. I struggled to get excited because I knew it would cost an arm and a leg and could barely contain my disdain. Kerry however quite liked the sound of it. I suppose it's inevitable that we would need to spend a day apart at some stage or another, the last time we did so was Friday 13 April after all, but I would rather have planned it than felt the need to have one as a result of the aggravating persistence of two pushy gits on a golf cart. As it turned out I had quite a nice day alone, cycling about 25 miles in all and visiting the most southerly point of Ambergris: Kerry's day was somewhat less satisfying it transpired. With white flags flying from both sides next day we were up and out on the water early to go snorkelling on two sites; the Hol-Chan reef and then "Shark Ray Alley". Our party consisted of us two along with 3 Chinese girls in their early 20s and only when we had pounded over the waves for 10 minutes and sat anchored on the reef being briefed did one of them divulge that she couldn't swim. Kerry and I were incredulous. Not only was this a swimming trip but we'd also just sped directly out to sea on a tiny boat and none of us were wearing life jackets. Albeit unlikely, had we been flung out of the boat for any reason we could have waited to be picked up but she probably couldn't. And isn't paying to go snorkelling when you can't swim a bit like hiring a car when you don't drive? In the event she ended up in a rubber ring being towed around by the guide. The reef provided spectacular snorkelling and fabulous visibility. My brother, who is a dive master, would be able to dazzle you with statistics and lists of names of flora and fauna but from me you'll have to make do with the fact that I could see a long way and I saw loads of fish, some humongous and some little tiddlers. One thing I could identify was a huge turtle which swam towards us and then arced away to the right and came up for air. After nigh on an hour on the reef we were back in the boat and a few minutes later were at Shark Ray Alley surrounded by Stingrays and Nurse Sharks. In true fisherman style a couple of the sharks were this big (stretches arms out as wide as they can go) and some of the rays were as big as a king sized bed. Our guide scooped up both a shark and a ray so we got to touch the rubbery ray and gravelly skin of the shark. There was a bit of a current out there of course and as I was about to touch the ray I found myself carried round to its tail area which freaked me out a bit. If Steve Irwin could fall victim to a stray barb then I didn't doubt that my flailing could instigate a similar outcome so I quickly manoeuvred myself to a safe place. Back on dry land we completed our self-tour of San Pedro, posted our box back to Blighty and sheltered from a tropical storm as we wiled away our last few hours on this Caye, so named after the large amounts of Ambergris that were found on the shore by its first settlers, pirates of Spanish, English and, bizarrely, Scottish descent. Scottish pirates? I've never heard of that one before. Yo ho ho and a bottle of Tenents Super perhaps? After wanting to visit Ambergris for so many years I have to say I was a tad disappointed by it. The main reason for this is that there is no beach that you can swim in the sea from due to a plague of sea grass that envelops the island. It is undoubtedly one of the most picturesque places I've ever been to, classic tropical vistas and palms bending over towards the jade ocean but if you can't get in the sea when the sun is beating down on you then what good is that? Sorry Jonny but you and I will have different destinations when we  finally slip our moorings and sail off into our respective retirements. It's also very expensive, as is all of Belize which, if you saw the place and how people live, then you would be amazed at that. This, along with the anticipated trouble we would have on the mainland, made us decide to hotfoot it through the country to the fiscal sanctity of Guatemala where our shekels would afford us much more than in Belize. One thing I did want to do though was spend a night in Belize City, I wanted to see if it was still as horrendous a place as I recalled from 13 years ago. Back then, travelling with 2 tiny tots and a 14 year old we were pushed and shoved, begged at, lewdly gesticulated at and, in the case of Jasmine and me, held up at knife point. We hardly dare go out from our hotel because people would flock around us asking for money and if we did escape their attentions then we would be contending with rats and open sewers. It was a stinking cess pit of humanity but the passing of time had aroused my curiosity again. Would it be the same and if so how would the 42 year old me deal with it compared to the 29 year old me. Plus, everyone we'd met who we told we were headed to Belize City said we were mad, that it's run by the Asian Mafia, that we'd get mugged, have all our possessions stolen or violated in other unspeakable ways and this almost acted as a bit of a challenge to us. Well, we disembarked from the ferry and walked the 600 yards to an hotel we'd earmarked. En route we were spoken to several times by Belizeans but none of it really constituted hassle, we weren't asked for any money and there wasn't a flick knife or a Mafiosi in sight - so far so good. Our room was rudimentary and by drawing back the curtain we had a tremendous view of a large corrugated iron roof but there was a communal balcony which overlooked Haulover Creek, a pleasant place to sit and get gnawed to the bounds of your sanity by mosquitoes. We went out for a walk about, fully expecting to be mobbed but no one took much notice of us. We found a restaurant tucked away on a promontory on the south side of town and shared a dining experience with well-heeled Belizeans and, by the looks of it, several Americans from the cruise ship moored offshore. We walked back towards town afterwards, me still pinching myself that this was Belize City. I didn't want grief but it was somehow an anti-climax that we weren't getting any. We needed to work out our departure for tomorrow so walked through a terribly poor area of town to get to the bus station. Wooden houses on stilts abounded and more often than not groups of men were sitting on the steps or loitering around outside them. We aroused a fair bit of interest and it was, as Sir Alex Ferguson would put it, squeaky bum time, but the most threatening exchange was when one of the guys said "hello". The bus station was like nothing we'd experienced up until now. Seemingly situated in the town rubbish dump it reeked of rotting vegetables and sported vehicles of indeterminate vintage and perceived comfort ranging from "Oh dear god my poor arse" to "G-get m-me o-of t-this b-bloody b-bus NOW". Once we'd sussed things out we were free to take in the rest of the sights of the town but to be honest, there aren't any. There's no museum, no seafront to speak of, nothing in the shops to look at and certain areas are deemed out of bounds, even for locals. We did see a half-crazed individual directing traffic by standing in the road and shouting at it, a white haired Rastafarian with dreadlocks down to the backs of his knees and a female beggar who, on realising we were from England said "Oh, how do you do? I say, could you give me 200 pewnds sterling?" and then cackled like the nutter she undoubtedly was. Dinner that night was notably dire as our first choice had closed at 1700 leaving us with the option of a Chinese or a suspect looking cafe. Having been damaged by an experience in a Chinese restaurant in Exeter before we set out we opted for the cafe and began to peruse the menu. A young chap came over and advised us not to pay too close attention to the menu, they basically had burgers on offer, beef or chicken was the only choice to make. We both went for beef and 2 minutes later, after an audible ping, we were presented with two of the saddest burgers we had ever seen. You know how burger joints show images of fulsome and juicy repasts in their marketing blurb with the actual food presented to you looking like its been sat on by Hattie Jacques? Well, in this joint, if they had had any pictures advertising their wares they would have been of the "Hattie burger" with the actual offering being several steps back down the culinary evolutionary scale. On the balcony of our hotel that evening I listened to a Belizean telling two Yanks how only the English, Spanish and French had felt the need to conquer and colonise over the course of history. He'd overlooked the Dutch and the Portugese of course but it was an interesting point he made. I'd always just thought it was 'white man' but it's a certain sort of white man, or perhaps more to the point, very few who ever attempted it were successful. Anyway, whilst considering what dreadful / accomplished* (*delete as you feel) forebears I had we ate a peculiar breakfast of meat pie and eggs in Dit's the next morning, a restaurant I'd eaten in many years ago, and was surprised and touched to receive a carved wooden napkin holder from the owner by way of memento. With belly full we walked up Orange St to the bus station and boarded the bus to San Ignacio, a town close to the border with Guatemala and the base for many a gringo in these here parts. We weren't the only travellers on the bus to San Ignacio, there were two young American girls too who were on week 2 of their own open-ended odyssey and we had a good chat with them about their plans. The bus hammered along the Western Highway at a tremendous speed to the accompaniment of reggae music. It's very un-Latin American here, it feels much more as though you're on a Caribbean island. At Belmopan, the capital, our driver and conductor disappeared for a bite to eat and a cheerful lady got on who was selling drinks and nibbles. She was beaming with smile and sang through each transaction or to the bus load as a whole. She was hilariously entertaining and I wish we'd recorded her cameo. The second half of the journey, from Belmopan, was a much more stop-start affair with locals getting on and getting off with annoying regularity. On top of that I was reaching the end of my discomfort tether with my knees firmly embedded in the seat in the front and my bum cheeks long since in the land of Nod. It was a mighty relief then to arrive in San Ignacio, although with the bus station being little more than a potholed area with stagnant puddles it was a bit tricky to get to terra firma without fouling our packs. For a town with so many hotels we had a bit of a job finding a satisfactory room. We were accosted by a hotel agent straight away but as soon as he began leading us uphill we told him to sling his hook. I tried a succession of rooms whilst Kerry sat and minded our packs but they were either full, had no air-con, were too expensive or seemingly uninhabited. After a good half hour or more I found one, run by an elderly couple with a large house and a fussy disposition. Having both showed us to the room they then insisted on demonstrating every aspect of it and how it worked. By the time they were done we had the tv on, the air-con, the fan, the light in the mirror in the bathroom, the toilet had been flushed, the bin was pointed out, the balcony door was open and we'd had a 5 minute long explanation about how to lock the outside gate. We were glad to see the back of them but an hour later, as I lay on the bed starkers and Kerry was standing in front of the fan, there was a knock on a door. We weren't sure if it was ours or not but that question was soon answered as our host unlocked it and opened the door. I think he was more surprised to see me in my birthday suit than anything but he beat a hasty retreat and nothing more was said about what was one of the more bizarre episodes thus far. There wasn't much to see in San Ignacio itself, as I say it's more of a base for seeing the sights of the area, but it was a pleasant little town with a pretty river running between it and it's neighbour, Santa Elena. For us it was just a rest stop, a break on the journey into Guatemala and an opportunity to gird our loins for tomorrow's border crossing. So to sum up Belize I'd have to say it was a great 6 days and about 100% better than I thought it might be. Though we only stopped in three different places they were quite diverse and from thinking it was a god-forsaken hell-hole before we went I now think it has a fair bit to offer and the people are friendly too. I was intrigued to discover if my memories of Guatemala would serve me as poorly. We would find out tomorrow.

Tulum and Chetumal. Adios Mexico

With the Isla having given us just the tonic we needed after a bit of a slog across Mexico it was inevitable that it was with heavy heart that we bade her adios. We almost stayed another day but we were savvy enough to know that 1 might become 2 and then who knows how long we'd have stayed there. It's definitely one of those places that can rope you in, a topographical siren, so it was either ship out, or move in. We were one of only 3 couples on the 0900 ferry back to Puerto Juarez and from there we took a taxi to Cancun bus station. As we retrieved our luggage from the boot and paid our driver his 40 pesos we heard the familiar words "taxi señor?". This I felt perfectly encapsulated the past 7 weeks. We have been perpetually asked if we want something when we almost exclusively did not, though this took things to a new level. Why, when leaving a taxi would I want a taxi? There is a big part of me that yearns to walk down an English street without being asked if I want something. Then remember it will be drizzling, grey and cold and the feeling soon dissipates. Our bus was due to leave in about 40 minutes so we sat in the sweltering waiting area and took on board some fluids. Because of the humid conditions I was my usual sodden self, Kerry, who has recently begun to demonstrate the same ability to sweat as your average rail road navvy's arse crack, was likewise and several Mexicans, albeit the slightly more portly ones, were displaying varying degrees of dampness. I'm very conscious of my profuse perspiring out here so have recently taken to wearing only black in an effort to disguise it; it's the only colour that does so. Our departure was at 1015 and we had seats right at the back of the bus, unfortunately with a window which was adorned with corporate branding meaning we had no view of the passing countryside. The obligatory Hollywood film, dubbed in Spanish, started the minute we pulled away though the guy in front found comfort in sitting with his arms bolt straight above his head so we didn't see much of it. I was glad really. I find myself attracted to the screen in the way that a moth is to a lamp but I find it intensely aggravating to only be able to pick up a couple of words per sentence.  We initially thought that watching these films would help us pick the language up a bit better, which it may well have done, but it's still painful. We so wish we had spent more time learning Spanish before we came, it would have made life so much easier, but it's surprising how many travellers we've spoken to who can only say "thank you" and "do you speak English?" so I suppose we're streets ahead of them. Once we'd accepted we couldn't see around the hairy appendages of our forward neighbour we settled down to read, only to be disturbed by the cacophonous snoring of a chap across the way. One presumes he'd slept last night so his ability to nod off at 1030 in the morning on a bus was commendable. Audible snoring is a dreadful affliction, though only for those within earshot. He who snores is blissfully unaware of the racket he makes and with one of my regular travel partners being known as "the wildebeest" for his ability to wake a whole Moscow youth hostel dorm I am no stranger to it. The journey to Tulum was only a couple of hours and we were soon standing at a crossroads at the edge of town deciding which way to walk to find a room. I'd read that there was a hostel nearby which was not only cheap but included breakfast and the use of a bicycle whilst there as a guest so we made for that and checked in. We only planned to stay for one night so we weren't too concerned about the standard of our accommodation but there's no denying that it was an almighty comedown after the tranquility and comfort of life on the Isla. Youth hostels are just that; hostels ostensibly aimed at youths. For youths read 'people who are more prepared to and whose agile and nimble bodies will allow them to rough it somewhat'. Once we'd negotiated the semi-clad artist painting the wall of the stairwell with a Mayan glyph we were shown to a room with an unmade bed and an aroma emanating from it that lent more towards colons than colonies. Kerry understandably baulked and requested we be shown to more satisfactory quarters which turned out to be a room across the hall with 4 poster bed made out of sticks, an old tin bucket for a sink and what can best be described as open plan lavatorial facilities. One would disappear behind saloon-type louvre swing doors to answer calls of nature of any denomination, uno or dos. For a couple who like to keep the romance in their relationship alive by ensuring 'unpleasantness' is kept to a minimum, a diet of beans and an open plan bog would surely test our mettle. Are you familiar with the feature length episode of "Are you being served?" where the staff of Grace Bros go on holiday abroad somewhere and the lock on the toilet is broken? There is much discussion about how to deal with this and they ultimately decide that they'll sing when in there so that no one else enters when they are. We made a play on that and brought it into the 21 st century by playing loud music on our iPad whilst abluting. Tulum ruins are situated right on the Caribbean coast and there are some beautifully intact buildings remaining from around 1000+ years ago. Whoever decided to build and populate this city had their head screwed on because what could be more wonderful than to have the warm waters on hand to plunge into whenever the raging heat got too much. It was apparently a city of priests and you can imagine the appeal to the tribal elders that preceded its construction: "The gods have spoken, we are instructed to build a priestly city by the sea. It will be for the sole use of the priesthood and Xi-Balba decrees that no one may enter without his expresss permission." "So be it" It was in fact a Mayan port and trading centre complete with lighthouse and was still visited, though not inhabited, at the time of the conquest. For its setting it's one of the most memorable archaeological sites we've visited but it is incredibly hot and packed chocka full of gringos on day excursions from Cancun so not our favourite. We scooted around the ruins and then made for a nearby beach on our bikes as we were desperate to get into the sea. Our bikes were in shockingly bad condition and it was only marginally less effort to ride them than it would have been to push them through treacle. They were the "pedal backwards to brake" variety, mine had a bent pedal meaning my right leg was ramrod and my left was reminiscent of a Charlie Chaplin walk as I pedalled and when they'd last seen oil was debatable but it probably preceded the OPEC crisis in the early 1970s. At the beach we had a dip but were put off by the pounding we got from the waves and the rumblings of an approaching storm from out at sea. We started to ride back but the heavens opened and a tropical storm was upon us in seconds, a not altogether unpleasant experience given how warm it remained. Back at the hostel and dripping wet we realised that we didn't quite have enough cash left to last us the remaining day and a half we had left in Mexico so we needed to go and visit a cash point. We opted to just go as we were, a pleasant enough first kilometre on the cycle path into town being followed by a hair-raising ride on pot-holed roads into oncoming traffic in the rain wearing nothing but swimming trunks. I was glad to get back to the hostel, if only to be able to hand my death trap of a bike back in and I vow never to cock my leg over anything like that again. Oh for my beautiful bike back home, what I wouldn't give to have that here from time to time. At the hostel we looked around and felt so completely out of place. It was full of young backpackers in their 20s and it suddenly hit us how incongruous we must have looked to them. They almost all looked filthy, bedraggled and as though they were living on a far more meagre daily budget than we were. We, meanwhile, have maintained our decorum whilst travelling. Kerry does her hair and generally scrubs up very nicely every day, we religiously wash our clothes and we absolutely shower every day. Add the fact that our packs are the wheeled variety and we could almost pass for regular holidaymakers. We just felt we didn't fit in here at all so after our evening meal, a dreadful affair where the miserable baggage serving us couldn't have looked or behaved any less interested, we retired to our depression inducing quarters and willed the clock to reach our departure time. Next morning we went down to breakfast in the communal court-yard and sat waiting for the staff to bring out the grub. Here our perception of our fellow travellers changed completely as I got talking to a guy from northern Mexico and Kerry spoke to a German couple. We also met an Aussie dive instructor who works in Belize and had taken a month out to visit the Yucatan, meeting and hooking up with a local señorita from the Isla Holbox en route. It was all fascinating stuff and a reminder that initial perceptions can be so misleading. Invigorated by our mornings exchanges we wheeled our cases over the road to the bus station at 1000 and waited for the 1030 to Chetumal, our last port of call in Mexico and the place from where we would take a boat to Ambergris Caye, Belize. I had enquired yesterday about our bus and was told 1030, Express service, $204 pesos. At 1012 this morning the same young chap arrived for work and opened up the ticket office and waiting room but was seemingly having trouble booting his pc up. By 1021 Kerry was getting a little agitated so I approached him and said I needed two tickets to Chetumal. He faffed about on his machine for a couple of minutes and by 1024 was showing me a seat plan of the bus and asking me which seats we wanted. Then he said "next bus 1300". I asked him what had happened to the 1030 and he said "ah, not from here, from main bus station in town". We leapt in a cab at 1027 and pulled up outside the main bus station at 1034 to discover that for the first time in living memory a Mexican bus had departed bang on time. The 1030 was an Express Service taking 3.5 hours, the next one, 1134, was 2nd class, had no air-con and would take 5 hours. When I broke this news to Kerry it triggered the first notable discord between us of the whole trip, pretty good going really considering it was day 96. As it turned out it wasn't too bad a journey, though it was uncomfortably hot on there and we arrived at Chetumal on Friday afternoon at about 1620. We have decided to always get a taxi to our hotel on arrival in new towns now as wandering aimlessly whilst pulling our cases has proved an unnecessary aggravation. Our driver in Chetumal looked a little surprised at the request to take us to the Hotel Juliette, an expression matched on our faces when he told us the fare would be 65p. We jumped in, set off, took a right, drove for 500 yards, did a u-turn, drove for 475 yards and pulled over. We were here, the Juliette was within spitting distance of the bus terminal and we had therefore travelled by taxi rather than cross the road. The hotel was stark but felt so clean after the hostel where walking barefoot in your room ran the risk of something crunching or squelching beneath you. Chetumal turned out to be a lovely, cosmopolitan place with very few hawkers and a very pleasant way in which to spend our final night in the country. The city was virtually destroyed by hurricane Hattie in 1961 and subsequently rebuilt so what it lacks in aesthetics it makes up for in order and efficiency. It sits on the coast although it's more of a massive estuary than anything and whilst the waterfront is quite pretty your nose will soon tell you if you get too close. Down near the promenade we came across a wide open space on which young children were driving battery operated cars. In 1999 my two were customers here and for some reason it is something that has always stuck in my mind, running around after them as they careered out of control time and time again. Looking at those kids I could see my two and it hit home again how far away they are. On Saturday we needed to tie up our loose ends before getting the boat to Belize. We needed to buy tickets for the boat, spend all our remaining Mexican currency as it is useless in Belize, find some US dollars, post a box of unwanted items home and do a bit of shopping. We achieved all of this with the exception of posting the package home as we needed to sign a customs form which wasn't possible on a weekend so we'd have to send that back from Belize. It might not sound much but a jumper, pair of shoes, our Mexico Lonely Planet book, Kerry's diary and one of the several bags Kerry has bought whilst travelling add up to a fair amount of weight and every ounce counts when you're lugging it about daily. Aside from lunch, a curious affair consisting of stringy chicken in liquidised grey beans with stinking cheese on top, that was us done in Mexico. It has been a truly fascinating 7 week journey and I really feel we have seen enough to understand its foibles and get under it's skin. From the madhouse that is Tijuana, down the tranquil and oh-so-American Baja, the Pacific resorts, the capital and down into the south and the Yucatan, Mexico has it all. The wonderful paradise of the Isla Mujeres aside I don't think Kerry has fallen for it the way I have and the way I thought she might, but that is mainly to do with her perception that the people were less than friendly towards us. That should change as we head south, beginning in Belize, our first stop in a 6-8 week whistle stop tour of Central America.

Cancun and the Isla

It was with a mixture of excitement and fear that we sped by taxi from Cancun bus station to our hotel right on the beach on Wednesday evening. Excitement because after some hard travelling we were going to enjoy the world class beach here and luxuriate in the warm waters of the Caribbean, as well as the fact that we'd splashed out on a well-appointed sea view suite; fear because the decrepit wreck we found ourselves in appeared to be being driven particularly recklessly on account of our having beaten the driver down in price from $150 to $80 (pesos). Shock absorbers, bearings and, in this case, doors which swing open as you career around corners, appear to be optional components on cars of a certain vintage in Mexico. We were dead beat after a hard day, what with the buses from Merida and the hike around Chichen Itza, so all we wanted to do was get in the room, eat and then crash out. The fun could begin tomorrow. We were treated a little suspiciously as we entered the compound of the Salvia Suites bang in the centre of the hip and happening Cancun Zona Hotelera. I guess we don't look like your average Cancun holidaymaker to be fair, especially after a day on the hoof, but give us a chance to fling some creases out of our kit and we can do a passable impression. "You have reservation señor?" came the inevitable opening gambit from our sceptical receptionist. "Si, si" came my overly smug reply. My name and booking details followed but after some fanning about on his computer and some good old perusing of a manual ledger he determined that our booking had not gone through via Booking.com so there was no record of it. Thankfully my email confirmation sufficed and so we were finally invited to inspect the room for approval, in exchange for a knee trembling amount of pesos, almost twice as much as we'd paid for any other room up to now. By this point I may well have accepted a flea infested hovel but the door opened into a truly palatial apartment with kitchenette, sofa, dining table, large bed and best of all, sliding doors onto a corner balcony affording views both up and down the umpteen miles of beach as well as back over the lagoon and marina where the sun sets. A more perfect place you could barely dream of. It felt as though we had donned millionaires shoes or won the pools and the lottery. Kerry was beside herself with impish excitement, lying on the bed, sitting on the sofa and running her hands over furniture and ornaments in elation at being parachuted into the nearest thing to a home we'd seen for 3 months. Without wishing to deny her her inherent needs I reminded her of our need to eat, it was now around 2030 and there was a very real possibility of my needing to use my next belt hole if food didn't soon pass my lips. We went outside and offered the first of several hundred "no gracias" to the guy on the gate selling jetskis, parasailing and tours to goodness knows where before opting to eat at the first place we came to, a steak house called Carlos & Charlie's. As we have seen before, selecting a dining experience at haste can often result in tears and this was to be in that vein. Remember we're tired out and have been used to a very different Mexico than the one that Cancun offers. Cancun isn't Mexico at all really, it's a manic assault on every one of your senses; alcohol, testosterone and micro-bikini fuelled. Carlos & Charlie's was a noisy mad-house in a noisy mad-house of a town  with the waiters scribbling their names on the paper table-cloths whilst sporting shirts with the legend "People having a good time serving people having a good time" and "I don't speak English but I promise not to laugh at your Spanish". Most of the clientele were sporting hats made of balloons reaching around 4 feet in height and drinking from similarly sized neon plastic glasses. Waiters would periodically gather at tables for rousing renditions of Mexican songs to which the inebriated guests would whoop and clap and when the theme from Benny Hill came on there was an "hilarious" stop-start routine by the staff which wouldn't have looked out of place in a lunatic asylum. People were by now queuing to get in here whilst I wanted to melt away, or at the very least become invisible. Before we did leave a photographer came over and placed an outsized sombrero on my head and wanted to know if I wanted to pay for a photograph. I was considering how best to tell him that of all the things on this earth that I might need, a photograph of myself in a sombrero is a way down the list, between cat riding lessons and an invitation to dinner with Hannibal Lecter before Kerry saw my pained look and hurriedly injected with a "no.....señor.....por favor". Next morning I awoke early and made my first use of the lounger on the balcony. How wonderful it was to watch the first hour of the morning from 3 floors up whilst listening to and watching the aquamarine Caribbean crash onto the talcum powder beach below. Once Kerry was up and we'd eaten our scrambled eggs in a dingy backstreet cafe on the de rigeur red plastic patio furniture it was time to get in that sea but first we needed to carry out a few domestics. We needed some cash so therefore a bank and as we had a fridge in our gaff we bought in some cereal and tuna and avocados in order to keep our eating out costs as low as possible. In the supermarket we saw a couple of cheap airbeds too and couldn't resist the thought of bobbing up and down on those so we had those too. We had been in the sea approximately 10 seconds before Kerry's burst, either by her putting one of her talons through it or it coming into contact with one of the pieces of spiky seaweed that was floating about. We took it back to the shop an hour or so later and managed to blag a replacement out of them even though the centimetre long gash in the original had obviously occurred at the beach. The brass neck of some people! The next day was spent in much the same way. We tottered the 10 yards from our hotel to the sea and alternated between lying on the sand and floating in the sea on our airbeds. This time it was my turn to suffer a puncture and as there was no chance of a replacement more than 24 hours after purchase that was me done for. With a couple of our friends back home being relatively recent visitors to Cancun we were given a tip-off that we simply had to visit the Coco Bongo club here for the experience of a lifetime. We were a tad unsure whether to give it a go or not, after all, if Potters loved it then it probably wouldn't be for me. On top of that, an enquiry about how much it would cost caused me to exhale so completely that it's to the good fortune of the ticket seller that I don't suffer from halitosis. But then you get to thinking and you acknowledge that if you come away for nigh on a year and don't push the boat out once in a while then you might go home with regrets. Therefore, in an effort to be able to play Edith Piaf songs in our dotage we coughed up and began our preparation for the night ahead. The first thing to get our heads around was the fact that the club didn't open until 2230, a time that usually, if we weren't already asleep, we were at least safely tucked up in bed. Our evening routine generally consists of going for a meal before retiring to our room to write our diaries, uploading photos, planning our next move or just reading or relaxing in our own space. There's an element of minimising risk to our personal safety and of being bitten by mosquitoes by being in of an evening so these are also factors in our modus operandii. Obviously we would have to get in the party spirit so to help us we went to the supermarket and bought some loopy juice. It was lovely sitting on the balcony watching the sun set whilst listening to some music and before we knew it it was time to don our nearest thing to gladrags and walk two doors down to the club. Now you may have guessed, or already know, that I am not really a nightclub type of guy. Engaging conversation and/or footy on the telly over a few pints is more my thing, plus, I was very close to the back of the queue when dancing ability was being administered. However, the combination of pre-club lubrication and the amazing atmosphere inside saw me bustin' some crazy moves and having an absolute beano in there. It's a fabulous concept; dance music, or a discotheque to those fuddy duddy's among you, alternating with tribute acts or cirque du soleil type acts. One minute you're watching a Mexican Freddie Mercury miming expertly to Radio Ga Ga, then you're dancing to some thumping tune trying not to descend into epilepsy on account of the strobe lighting. This theme continued for hours and we saw Beyonce, Lady Ga Ga, Chicago, trapeze artists, the Beatles, Beeteljuice and several others.  It was a fabulous night out so thank you  Potters and Cha-Cha for the recommendation. The next day wasn't so good for me. I awoke at 1000 with a head so painful that the only option was to lie still as the slightest movement made it feel like I had an axe buried deep within it. I nodded off again and woke at midday but felt very fragile still. Luckily the beach was so close and it was all I could do to lie on my towel and take periodic dips to cool off. The day was largely a write-off but such are hangovers for the sporadic imbiber. On Saturday we moved on to a little known island called Isla Mujeres which lies about 5 miles off the coast. When I travelled around Mexico in 1999 we spent our final week here and I have always hankered after a return. I remembered the shoes I'd worn as we travelled had literally fallen off my feet here and I'd spent the last few days barefooted. I remember lying in my hammock between two palm trees whilst drinking a margarita and of India, my then 2 year old daughter, deciding to take a dump on the step of a shop to the understandable dismay of the proprietor. Most of all I recalled the crystalline waters of the Caribbean gently lapping at the most tranquil and palm lined beach that your mind can conjure up. It is heaven on earth and I wanted Kerry to see it. We caught a bus from the hotel zone up to the port of Puerto Juarez and invested £6 each in a return ticket to paradise. The hydrofoil was chock-a-block with day trippers from Cancun but we ignored them and enjoyed the wind in our hair as we sped over the turquoise waves. We'd done some research and were headed for an hotel with rooms backing onto the beach but on our way to it we happened across Sea Hawk Divers, a dive company who have a few rooms out back and with them being very comfortable and very cheap we opted to stay there. It was a good call as the owners turned out to be really friendly, English speaking and their business was a great place to meet people. We were only 50 or 60 yards from Playa Norte (North Beach), the aforementioned heaven, where we would spend the lion's share of our time. The first thing I did was buy a new air bed and, after lunch in a thatch-roofed beachfront restaurant, we assumed the positions that would characterise our stay. In the water that first day we met Nancy and Gina, two schoolteachers from Seattle, whose own propensity was to bob in the sea on their 'noodles', a 4 ft long tube of foam. They were the nicest people you could wish to meet and we had a long chat about our travels, their travels and how we'd all come to be floating around  in the Caribbean. After so many weeks travelling through Mexico where we felt we were personas non grata, or at least ignored, it was so lovely to have a conversation with someone. We would bump into each other a few times during our stay which contributed to our feeling of belonging and happiness here. Kerry was planning on taking advantage of our staying with divers to renew her acquaintance with the deep. Though PADI qualified, it had been nearly a year since her last dive so she tentatively set up a refresher for Monday. When Monday morning arrived though there'd been a change of plan and Sea Hawk were taking a boat out to snorkel with whale sharks. By the time we knew of this we had about 5 minutes to decide whether to go or not and in the spirit of acting in haste and repenting at leisure we elected to do so. It was exciting to head out to sea on our little boat with 11 people on board, especially knowing that we were about to snorkel miles from the coast and with monsters of the deep. Given that it is a "100% certainty" that you encounter the whale sharks too this would surely be one of the abiding memories of the whole trip. As we skipped across the water we saw lots of other boats doing likewise, our skipper on the radio to them as we all sought the pod. Three days ago they had encountered 200 of them so it was just a case of locating them. After 45 minutes I began to get a bit anxious about finding them but assured myself that it probably always takes an hour, maybe longer, so it was just a matter of time. After 2 hours I was getting worried, after 3 I was agitated and after 4 I was trying to work out which was best of my two options; continue to sit here pounding about on the waves in a lavatory free boat whilst listening to an attention seeking and tiny Speedo wearing Italian gabble incessantly or jump overboard. Our fellow prospective whale sharkers were a family of Italians headed by the questionably attired one. If the world cup of 1990 means anything to you then if I say he was reminiscent of a bloated and gone-to-seed Toto Schillaci then you can picture him. His son was another afflicted with an inability to sit still or shut up and his wife perpetually succumbed to the gravity generated by our forward propulsion to be constantly seeming to be invading my personal space. I say, don't you know we're English? We can't be having Johnny Foreigner in our personal space, what! It is fair to say they got right on my thruppeny's, and I'm still smarting from our pitiful showing against Italy in the Euros so that didn't help either. What did help was that we also met Sarah and Richard on that trip, an American couple so typical of their nation, friendly, genuine and open. We spent a lot of our time on the boat chatting and without them I think I may well have gone mad. To cut to the chase we never did see the whale sharks. For whatever reason they just were not about that day, probably down gorging on some delicious deep-lying plankton or something, which puts us in the unique category of having been on a dead cert only for it not to deliver. We are the aquatic "Devon Loch". To give Sea Hawk their dues they tried their best for us, but having failed gave us a couple of snorkels and a room discount in compensation. The rest of our time on the Isla we spent on our air beds and I think it was just what we needed to recharge the old batteries and prepare for our assault on Belize and the rest of Central America. I mentioned recently that we'd been a bit homesick but that's passed now and we're raring to go again. For all the wonders we've seen so far I don't think anything compares to this island paradise. At heart we are two beach bums and whilst we can suck up as much culture and embark on as many trans-continental bus journies as the next man a little piece of us will remain on the Isla Mujeres until we return. And we will.

The Yucatan - Merida and Chichen Itza

It was hot and sticky even at 0715 as we hurriedly downed huevos revueltos (scrambled eggs) and made our way to Palenque bus station for the 0800 departure to Merida. Once again we were the only whities to be seen causing us to ask ourselves again; just how is everyone else getting around? Private jet? Teleport? Osmosis? Though the journey ahead was just over 8 hours in length we weren't fazed at all. Our previous journey had been 15 hours of course so this would seem like a walk in the park in comparison, plus, after the rather gruelling and sweaty visit to the ruins yesterday we were appreciative of the opportunity to just sit and vegetate. In preparation for the journey I had downloaded a few podcasts, some episodes of Desert Island Discs no less, and to add to the picture I was painting of middle aged and middle class respectability I was wearing trousers courtesy of Marks & Sparks and my grey hair was framing a face on which were perched my recently acquired spectacles. Short of sporting a brown cardigan and sucking on a St Bernard stuffed pipe I couldn't have looked more 40 something. (note to self: invest in a black sports car when back in Blighty, it is after all a sure fire way to regain your youth and virility). Switching from my book to podcasts halfway through the journey I removed the bins and stashed them in the mesh bungey on the back of the seat in front. I remember looking at them on a couple of occasions and thinking how easy it would be to leave them there and how frustrating and idiotic it would be if I did so. We arrived at Merida at just after 1600 and walked a few blocks to the hotel Maria Del Carmen, a more Hispanic sounding accommodation, I'm sure you'd agree, you couldn't wish for. I wonder what the equivalent would be for visitors to our fair isle? The Ted Smith Hotel or perhaps the Marge Thompson Suites? English names just have no panache do they? I'd take a Xavier, a Pablo or maybe even a Diego at a push over a Bill, an 'Arold or an 'Enery any day. First impressions of the town, selected merely as a convenient way point en route to Cancun, were less than favourable. The few blocks we walked to our hotel were a bit grotty and down at heel, rubbish was strewn about, pavements were cracked and the putrid stench of Meridianos ablutions permeated the air via the drains. Her lady ship had a face on her so I figured our stay here would be a very short one. The rain pelted down at about 1700 and lasted for about an hour but it was still warm enough for us to make use of the rather murky looking pool before we went for dinner. After showering we collected ourselves and brought together a few things we'd need for the evening: iPhone to get online or maybe have a crafty game of scrabble, iPad ditto, money, our little pad on which Kerry religiously jots down every aspect of our expenditure so we can keep on budget, the Mexico Lonely Planet to see what might be worth a look-see in Merida and glasses so that I can read it. Glasses. Shit! I knew immediately that I'd left them on the bus in the bungey, that thing that I'd looked at and thought "hoo hoo, you don't want to be leaving your glasses in there Andy old son". After letting out a holler and briefly considering if there was anyone else to blame so that I could rant about them we set off for the bus station in the hope that some kind-hearted soul had found them and handed them in. Yes, they'd be in lost property and I'd gleefully hand over a few pesos before being reunited with them. At the bus station there was no sign of a lost property office so we went to "left luggage". Here I explained as best I could what had happened and asked where I should go to retrieve them. The chap rattled off some quick-fire indiscernibles and gestured me towards one of the sourest looking old boots I ever clapped eyes on. She had the look of someone who had just been told that she was being transferred to Damascus and would have to make her own way there by 2nd class bus. I repeated my question about lost property and explained which bus we'd been on and she immediately replied that nothing had been found. I showed her our tickets to ensure she knew exactly which bus I was talking about but it was to no avail, my specs were lost. Any other myopians will understand that this presented me with a serious situation to resolve. Though I'd not had the foresight to bring my spare pair of glasses with us I had at least brought my prescription. Next morning at 0900 we were looking for an optica and after a fruitless 10 minute search we went into a shop to ask the chap in there if he could point us in the direction of the nearest one. "Si señor, it's right there" pointing to a shop opposite. I needed glasses more than I realised! Inside, my first question of "do you speak English?" was met with an emphatic "no" so there then ensued a pained attempt on my part to explain what I wanted, something made exceptionally difficult by virtue of the fact that I didn't even know the Spanish for 'glasses'. We eventually made some progress and given that it would take 3 days to manufacture some bespoke specs she offered me some of those ready-made reading glasses that fold up and come in a little cylindrical case. It was hopeless. My prescription is 0.75 and these were 1.5 for starters and they also made me look like a cross between Harry Potter and my grandmother. Tempting though it was to resolve the eyewear issue by only parting with £10 I knew it would be folly so we thanked her for her time and sought another optica. The giggling young ladies in the next shop confirmed that I could have new glasses by 1800 that day and offered me a rather limited selection of frames to choose from. Unlike in the average optician in England where you are presented with a quite mesmerising array from which to choose here it was a case of do you want to look like Albert Einstein, Frank Carson or Dame Edna Everage. I opted for a pair of Franks, handed over an obscene amount of cash and thanked my lucky stars we'd taken out comprehensive travel insurance and paid the excess waiver. That left the rest of the day free to have a look at Merida and after initially thinking we had landed in a drab and grotty hovel we soon changed our opinion when we reached the old town centre. The town is the classic colonial grid with a large and quite beautiful square with laurel trees, topiary and being surrounded by various buildings of note, one of which has carvings of bearded conquistadors standing on the heads of natives. There was a lovely feel in Merida too, quite a few Caucasians so that we didn't feel too conspicuous and, joy of joys, the stall holders and shop keepers weren't on the verge of dragging you inside to see their wares like they are in many other places in Mexico. We took an open top bus tour of the city and the place went further up in our estimation when we saw the suburbs and the wonderfully ornate suburban mansions. This would have been where the spaniards lived 300-400 years ago with the indigenous population living in much much more basic accommodation in the town centre. After picking my specs up we ate and then sat in the square waiting for the nightly entertainment as promised by our guide book. 2000 hours, the specified time, came and went and then as I checked my watch to see what time it was a Mexican guy called Juan came and sat with us and had a chat for about 20 minutes, divulging during that time that live music is on every day except Tuesday! Yes, you read that correctly. After 5 weeks and more of being pointed at, roundly ignored, looked clean through and made to feel as welcome as a bacon sandwich at a Bar Mitzvah we were having a conversation with a Mexican, that he had instigated. Ok, he probably only wanted to practise the English that he was learning but this followed 3 or 4 other cheery exchanges we'd had today with people. Merida had not only won us over, it's people had shot in at number 1 in the 'Top of the Peeps' hit parade. (Oh dear! Pass me the brown cardy and the St Bernard, I just said "hit parade") The next day, Wednesday, was a bit of a mission, a grueller, though would ultimately result in squeals of delight when we were shown to our room that night. We caught a bus at 0915 which took us to Chichen Itza, one of the most famous archaeological sites in the Americas and also one of the most visited given its proximity to Cancun. We arrived at 1100 and bought our entry tickets, wondering why there was a queue approximately 50 yards long at a separate window across the way. I supposed it was probably something to do with the swathes of organised tours that come here daily from Cancun and thought no more of it until we got to the turnstile. "Tickets señor" said the lady and tore off a section leaving just the stub. We walked on 3 paces: "Tickets señor" said the man and I handed him our stubs. "No, other tickets" "I have no other tickets" "Tax" "Eh?" "You got to pay tax señor. Join other queue" The queue snaked around a hundred craft stalls outside in the blazing sun and took a full hour for us to reach its head. It was so frustrating that the dipstick at the first window hadn't mentioned tax, nor, more to the point why he couldn't have sold it to us in one simple transaction. When we did get to the tax payment window the guy looked at me enquiringly as though he was a purveyor of a myriad of wares and was waiting with bated breath about which of his goods I may be about to enquire after. All he needed to bark at me was 'how many?' and issue them pronto. For some reason, once I'd told him I wanted two, he made about 15 clicks on a mouse and then we had a slightly uncomfortable pause punctuated by uneasy smiles and a bit of nodding on both our parts before the printer kicked into life and slowly printed our tax receipts. Oh, it's enough to make you weep. I've seen some ineffectual practises in my time, I used to work for British Rail after all, but this took the biscuit. By now it was lunchtime so we ate before attempting reentry. There was a brief moment of unease when the person at the barrier saw our stubs and said "but you have used these" but I think my glower and body language told her not to pursue this any further and to let us pass. 2 hours after getting off that bus and we're finally inside the site and whilst it truly is a magnificent spectacle it is difficult to see beyond the hordes of people. In Palenque we sat on top of a pyramid and felt completely alone; here it was like the Victoria Line in rush hour, only with sweatier armpits. Another reason that it isn't so much fun is that you can no longer climb any of the buildings. This is perfectly understandable from a preservation perspective but it does prevent you getting that overview of the whole site. Oh, and the hawkers. "No, I do not want a bloody ceramic chac-mool. I'm not on holiday, I'm travelling, I'm looking to ditch things out of my pack not add to them". For those that are interested Chichen Itza is ostensibly Mayan but was subsequently populated by Toltecs from north of Mexico City in around 900. They added to the existing architecture to make it unique and the pyramid of Kukulkan was designed in such a way that when the sun set on the Spring and Autumn equinoxes the illusion of a serpent writhing down its steps was apparent. Pretty impressive for bloodthirsty savages. With this box ticked we were off again, by bus to Cancun, a 3 hour journey. Arriving at 1900 we hopped in a taxi to take us to the Salvia Suites, a room we'd booked online the previous day and one we hoped we'd like enough to stay in for a few days and relax.

Welcome to the Jungle - Palenque

Our next port of call, Palenque, is a gruelling 15 hours bus journey from Oaxaca and with there only being 1 service per day, at 1700 hours, this was our chariot of both choice and necessity. With Kerry still feeling a little dicky, though the Egyptian Antanal she had taken was beginning to weave its magic, we took a taxi to the bus station and waited to board what we hoped would be a super luxurious coach. We speculated on how many gringos we might count among our fellow passengers, after all, both Oaxaca and Palenque are very much on the tourist trail so with only one bus per day I figured we might expect half the bus to be backpackers and therefore we'd have an opportunity to swap some travellers tales. We were surprised therefore that we were 2 of only 4 non-Mexicans aboard and by coincidence we were sat in 3 consecutive rows of seats towards the rear. In front of us was a Chinese-American with around 50 festering mozzie bites around his ankles and behind was a bearded Italian who had body odour powerful enough to tranquillise a rhinoceros at 50 paces. As he walked up the aisle with both hands feeling along the luggage rack for stability people were visibly recoiling and if only there were a toilet seat handy to put round peoples necks we could have staged an impromptu gurning championship. Paradoxically, I felt an overwhelming surge of excitement as we drove through the outskirts of Oaxaca and began to climb up twisting roads into a mountain range. The feeling of freedom  as we set out on each new leg of this journey is exactly what I was looking for in this trip. It's hard to explain but I think it might be because it's a great unknown; you don't know what will happen, who you'll meet, what you'll see or eat or where you'll stay. I know for some that's quite intimidating and just the opposite of what they like but for Kerry and me it gives us such a thrill. This delirium was tempered somewhat by our bus not quite being the standard that we may have expected on such a mammoth journey. The seats did recline and were reasonably comfortable but it was quite cramped and there was little legroom and no footrest, the latter being quite important as you seek to find comfort at 3am. In addition our seats were just outside the toilet which on the one hand was convenient for Kerry and her lingering propensity to squit through the eye of a needle but a little too close for comfort from an aromatic perspective. Nevertheless, we settled down and enjoyed the journey as best we could, Kerry engrossing herself in the second part of the Fifty Shades trilogy and me playing my 14 millionth game of scrabble since we left Blighty. Praise the lord for iPhones, all the available apps and particularly scrabble. I don't know what I'd do without it. There are no autopistas (motorways) in this part of Mexico, nor indeed a truly direct route between our origin and destination so our route was somewhat meandering. We headed towards all cardinal points at one stage or another, despite our goal being due west, and also suffered a couple of "all lights on and everybody off" type stops in the small hours, a particular irritation when you've finally grown accustomed to the armrest digging into your ribs and nodded off. At an undetermined hour we traversed a section of road that was so potholed and littered with speed bumps that we were jiggled to the bounds of sanity but we then slept through until 0745, just 15 minutes before our arrival at Palenque. A packet of biscuits aside, we hadn't eaten since the previous lunchtime so our first priority was to eat breakfast. We found an eatery a few doors down and sat and watched the locals go about their business as we waited for scrambled eggs on toast. Most people here are engaged in the tourism business one way or another, be it driving vans to the Mayan ruins, working in restaurants, selling crafts, taxi driving or working in hotels. Whereas in the UK a prospective patron consciously seeks what it is he wants to spend his filthy lucre on, here you are made aware of all opportunities open to you by business owners and their representatives. This means that a 20 yard walk down the street will see you offered many things, none of which you probably want and it can get very wearisome when straight off an overnight bus. With one of us having eaten heartily and the other having toyed with half a dozen corn flakes we set out to find a room and an hotel with pool so that we could laze the whole day away doing nothing but reading and swimming. The Best Western had an offer on for about £40 per night and with its 3 pools and beautifully landscaped gardens to lounge in it ticked all of our boxes. Since arriving in Mexico the standard of our accommodations has risen dramatically. Whereas we were constantly scrabbling around the bottom end of the market in the USA in an attempt to stay on budget, here we're able to take a room in the best hotel in town. It somehow seems a bit fraudulent; surely a gap year is spent in youth hostels and the cheap hotels and pensions, not Best Westerns? Well no, as it turns out it doesn't have to be and it's a very pleasant realisation. We had a lovely relaxing day on Saturday sitting in that garden. It is swelteringly hot in this part of Mexico at this time of year with humidity off the scale. Even the Mexicans are visibly perspiring so it was lovely to lie in the shade and take a dip every half hour or so to cool off. Whilst the flora in the garden created a pleasant and relaxing atmosphere the fauna did its bit to keep us entertained too. We saw a few lizards shimmying up trees before two of them got braver and approached us to investigate. There was a great big green one, probably 2 and a half feet in length including its tail, which took an extreme interest in my flip flops. It amused us to watch it nibble them and even when I moved them onto a sun lounger it found them and continued its oral fixation with them. It was a bit unnerving when it got under my lounger and then tried to climb up to where I was so I ended up shooing it away. Then there were the mozzies that unbeknownst to Kerry had nibbled her back leaving 5 angry looking welts, later to itch like hell like they always do. We watched "Forrest Gump" that evening in our room, a rare chance to see an English language film and slept like logs afterwards to make up for the night on the bus. This saw us refreshed and ready to tackle the reason for being here in the first place, the spectacular jungle ruins of the old Mayan city nearby. We hailed a minibus and paid our 50p fare for the 6 mile journey and then feasted our senses on one of the most amazing of all the archaeological sites in Mexico. Palenque (not its real name, this just means 'Palisades' in Spanish) was first populated around 100BC and by 600 ish was one of the most important cities of the Maya. Through the 600s the city was ruled by Pakal, considered a living deity due to his royal lineage and subsequent passage into old age. He lived to be 80 when your average Mayan was lucky to get beyond 40. When he did eventually succumb to old age he was buried deep inside a towering ziggurat in a massive stone sarcophagus which was elaborately carved, along with some priceless items including a jade death mask. His tomb was discovered in 1952 by a Mexican archaeologist who himself is now buried at the foot of the great pyramid. The death mask was stolen in the 1980s and if all that isn't Indiana Jones enough for you, an eccentric Count lived atop one of the other pyramids in the 1850s, 20 years after its discovery by self-financing New York adventurer John Stephens in 1837. It is a lost city in every sense, albeit very much found now, and you can't fail to gape in awe at the magnificence of the buildings and the setting. To complete the exotic feel we were treated to the hideous screech of howler monkeys in the distance whilst we sat atop one of the pyramids. As it happened we had found ourselves completely alone with no other people in sight when this happened to add to the sense of excitement and mystery. If I thought I'd been hot at Puerto Escondido or in Palenque town then that was nothing compared to how we felt at the ruins. Not only was my shirt sodden but my trousers got saturated too. Unfortunately I'd elected to wear a green pair of trousers so it was painfully obvious that first my nether regions and then my thighs and even my shins were perspiring at an alarming rate. It's a horrible feeling but I did at least console myself that I didn't appear to be the only one suffering, there were plenty of other sweaty arse cracks in evidence and even Kerry, or "She who will only glow" to give her her Mayan moniker, was moister than your average Devonian weekend. On the way back to town the heavens opened in a spectacular demonstration of tropical weather. The poor windscreen wipers on our battered Toyota van couldn't contend with the volume of water and when we leapt out to get back to the hotel we landed in an inch deep river and were soaked to the skin though we were only out in it for seconds. All that remained for us to do next was to plot our way out of here. We very nearly took a 6am departure to the Guatemalan border for a connecting boat up the Usumacinta river to Flores in El Peten in Guatemala. Something though told us not to and to opt for the 0800 bus to Merida in the north west corner of the Yucatan peninsula instead. This we did, though it would prove to be a fateful journey for those of us with continued aspirations to see throughout this trip.

Oaxaca

I touched on our mode of transport to Oaxaca in the previous blog but it's deserving of a more detailed description as it turned out to be one of our most memorable journies thus far. I must admit to having been quite excited at the prospect: alright, 8 hours in a minibus doesn't sound that enamouring but crossing a mountain range and climbing 5000 ft along terrifically twisting roads in air-conditioned bliss sounded like a hoot. The first sign that this may not be a pleasant joyride came when our driver insisted we could take no luggage into the seating area whatsoever, it was too small. As we took our seats we understood because even the diminutive Kerry took on the appearance of being crow-barred into position; I had no option but to splay my legs down the aisle otherwise, with knees wedged into the back of the seat in front, my backside was an inch off the cushion. Despite this there were quite a few empty seats so I thought there'd be an opportunity to move about a little bit in order to find a degree of comfort. Less than a mile down the road though we slowed to a crawl and, looking to the left, I saw a family with 2 young children waving and hurrying in our direction. This elicited one of the biggest groans of recent times from me. I could cope with the journey with a bit of space around and most importantly some peace and quiet. Anyone who travels by public transport will know that your journey can be made hell by those around you and it's almost a given that other people's children will aggravate you to the point of insanity. I buried myself into the last blog and tried to block them out. So off we set proper and once out of Puerto Escondido town we began to climb and the road began to twist. For the first 5 minutes it was quite amusing to negotiate hairpin after hairpin, to drive over bone-jarring potholes and to look out of the windows at the landslides that this road is obviously susceptible to but after an hour or more we were exhausted and nauseous. After 3 and a half hours of this I was close to meltdown. Kerry timed a section and we never went more than 5 seconds between violent lurches one way or the other. As I said, we were nauseous but the 2 year old girl in the seats behind took it to the next level and periodically vomited, first over her mothers clothes and then into a bag. There is little more vomit inducing than the sound and smell of someone being sick 2 feet away from you in a combined space whilst on the equivalent of a 3.5 hour long version of the Pepsi Max Big One. How neither of us flung our guts up I'll never know. At the half way point we stopped for lunch in a cafe in a dusty and down-at-heel nothing town. Our fellow travellers all tucked into hearty fayre but we felt much too fragile to eat anything more than a little cereal bar. Besides, the fact that flies outnumbered the clientele by about 5:1 helped suppress whatever appetite the morning's horrors may have left unscathed. I positively dreaded the "time to go" call from the driver but as it turned out we had done with all the twisting and turning and the second half was a much more pleasant experience. Even the smell of vomit had dissipated from the van. To give credit to the aforementioned dreaded whipper snappers we barely heard a peep out of them for the entire journey. Travel sickness aside they either slept or just sat quietly looking out of the window. It's definitely been a theme here, the children are very well behaved compared to a lot of those in the UK. I dread to think what an 8 hour journey in a minibus would be like with the average British 6 year old boy. And so to Oaxaca, capital of the state of the same name and, in pre-Hispanic times, heartland of the Zapotecs, a tribe with a similar clout to the Mayans and Aztecs in a slightly less ostentatious way. Their capital was Monte Alban, a hillside city just 6km from Oaxaca and the main reason we were here. Our first job was to find our hotel, booked because of its pool. After 2 days in Sweaty-Bettyville there was no way I could consider a pool-less or air-con free zone so we hailed a cab and told him where we were headed. Cabs out here are so cheap. I rail against taxis back home but with the average fare here being about £1.50 it's not worth the hassle of looking for alternatives. Our taxi driver had never heard of our hotel and stopped to ask for directions twice before I got out to show him on my map and ended up directing him! He was also seemingly unaware that the shock absorbers had gone on his taxi, or that he needed his exhaust replacing. The hotel was a little way out of the centre of town and didn't look much from outside but was an absolutely lovely place, probably the nicest we've stayed in. Beautiful wood everywhere, terracotta tiling, leafy courtyard and lovely garden area with pool. Our room (inexplicably called "Aisoles" - we were next door to "Jazmines") had queen sized bed, double shower and balcony overlooking the garden. Kerry was very happy and it was just as well considering how much time she would be spending here. Starving, we headed straight out for food and made the calamitous mistake of electing to eat at the very first place we came to without considering what may come of it. It didn't look too bad from 30 paces and that's when we made our minds up to eat there. I suggested we leave when we saw the rudimentary cooking area and again when on asking for the menu we were handed a handwritten scrap of paper. Both times Kerry said "nay, let's just eat, I'm Hank Marvin", words she rues still 5 days later. We both had 'menu of the day' though I was fortunate enough to choose 'beef' to Kerry's chicken. 3 courses for £2 was probably asking for trouble in hindsight but when you're hungry, you're hungry. After a short walk into town we went back to the hotel and went to bed pretty early. I'm not very good at responding to much that might be going on in the wee small hours. When my girls were tiny dots I would never hear their pained wails in the night, thunderclaps and lightning have occurred unbeknownst to me whilst I slumber and all manner of step-daughter based shenanigans have taken place a few feet from me whilst I remained undisturbed. Short of a plane landing on the house, or needing a pee since I hit 40, little is going to raise me. However, this night I did hear poor old Kerry, dealing with the liquid aftermath of our £2 dinner and moaning accordingly. (not the usual sort of moaning: you don't pay me enough attention, you're not going out again are you? When are you going to clean that toilet?) Next morning I left her in bed and went out for a little wander but it felt peculiar without the old girl by my side. We have been inseparable for 3 whole months now and have hardly gone anywhere without the other. As I walked around and saw things I wanted to say "look at that" but there was no one there to say it to. Something was missing, like I'd gone out with only one sock on or something. By lunchtime she'd regained a bit of strength so we had a short walk across town and caught a local bus out to the Zona Archaeologica of Monte Alban. This is the very well preserved capital of the Zapotecs, though that's not surprising as it sits another 1200 ft up on the top of a great big hill overlooking Oaxaca. We met 2 Israeli guys on the bus who had just started a 2 month tour of Mexico and Guatemala. It was nice to speak English to someone and I was especially delighted when they asked me if I liked football. They were avid premiership watchers, supporting Arsenal because of Yossi Benayoun and they'd even heard of Leicester City! Things were going swimmingly until we began a conversation about our respective travels and I said that they would probably meet with more friendliness than we had as they looked Mexican. The smiles immediately drained from their faces and one said "ah, now you have insulted me". Had I? Bloody hell! I wouldn't get the hump if they'd told me I was a grey-haired, jowly, nocturnally incontinent responsibility avoider. Some people are so touchy. To be fair to them though if they'd said I looked French I may have taken umbrage. Monte Alban was fantastic. There's something so fascinating about the fact that all the while our ancestors were grovelling about in swill doing nothing of much note for centuries, "heathen savages" a world away were building empires and great cities, all without inventing the wheel. I climbed the temples and pyramids alone whilst Kerry rested between short walks at the bottom of each. She was exhausted and was about to lay down on the grass at one point before noticing ants the size of your thumb nail crawling about. With this ticked off the list we needed to think about moving on. What should we do though? Hole up here and wait for the trots to pass? Fly and minimise the travel time? Source as late a departure as possible to give Kerry the best chance of recovery? It was a tricky one but ultimately our mind was made up by the fact that there really was only one way out of here in the direction we wanted to go, by overnight bus at 1700 the next day. Oh joy of joys! Kerry remained pretty unwell throughout the next night and all of the day we had to kill before catching that bus but the hotel were great and let us sit by their pool rather than turf us out at the allotted hour. In an effort to break the monotony we wrote some postcards to our non-electronic-savvy family members and walked downtown to the post office to post them. There was a long and slow-moving queue and everybody else seemed to be brandishing slips of paper but, after about 20 minutes, it was finally my turn. "6 stamps to send these to England please" I asked in my best prepared Espanol. "You need the post office next door, this is the office where you pay your phone bill you silly gringo tit" came the reply from the laughing wench behind the counter. So what did we make of Oaxaca overall? Well, it was obviously tainted somewhat by Kerry having the squits but that aside and despite there being a healthy smattering of gringos around it wasn't really my cup of tea. You've seen one inland colonial city with a regimented grid street layout and a few impressive churches dotted about and you've seen them all. Perhaps that's too simplistic but it didn't grab either of us and we've worked out that a place has got to have water, preferably a fantastic beach, to really float our boat. Another thing that may be influencing us at the moment is that we're both a bit homesick. 5 weeks struggling with the language and perceived indifference of the locals to us have taken their toll, plus of course we're starting to miss people back home. We had a chat about it to acknowledge it and both gave the 5 things we are missing most. In no particular order Kerry's were: family and friends, vegetating on the sofa watching tv, a cup of tea, her clothes and stuff being available and out around her where she knows where they are, Connor and Jordan. Mine are: my bike, male company, watching football down the pub, being able to go and see my mum, speaking in English to officials/waiters/shopkeepers etc Having said that we also know that the minute we get home we'll probably be planning our next holiday! (Jasmine and India would be top of this list had they not been taken away already) We feel like we're really cracking on now. On leaving Oaxaca we're done with both northern and now central Mexico. We're very much in the south now, heading towards Mayan territory and the jungle.

Fun in Acapulco

With the long range weather forecast predicting a 70% chance of rain for the next 10 days we were in two minds whether to bother going to Acapulco at all. However, with a similar forecast not coming to pass in Mexico city we decided to chance our arm in the hope that it would be similarly wide of the mark in the "Jewel of the Pacific". The omens weren't great for the first 5 hours of our 6 hour journey through spectacular mountain scenery but as we descended down towards the coast the sky cleared and the sun shone down on another of John Wayne's old haunts. Having started the day at 7500 ft and in heavy cloud and then spent 6 hours on an air-conditioned bus we hadn't spared a thought for our disembarkation. Clad in long trousers, socks and trainers it was enough to broil us as we wrestled our packs into the bus terminal proper and Kerry soon assumed her overheated look, a cross between a beef tomato and a slapped arse. We'd elected not to book a room as I was pretty sure that we wanted to be based in the old town whereas all those available to book online were in the swanky gold zone. We were pounced on by a ferrity faced man as soon as our taxi pulled up in the old town who promised to find us a room for a good price so we let him lead us a couple but they were pretty grotty. They were also up a steep hill which did little to make us feel much better in the stifling heat. Away from the glitzy tourist area Acapulco is surprisingly down at heel with massive potholes and open manholes just waiting to be fallen into by unsuspecting, case-wielding, gringos. We didn't, but it was close on a couple of occasions and this, the heat, our packs and the jibbering of our new friend all added up to make our introduction to the town unfavourable enough to get another taxi up to the gold zone and a semblance of acceptability. Most taxis in Acapulco are VW Beetles but much as I love them they're not really up to the job of transporting 2 people, 2 large packs and 2 small rucksacks in a great degree of comfort. Poor Kerry was squashed in the back with the packs whilst I nursed the day packs in the front and tried not to knock the car out of gear with my left knee. (having said this I did see 7 people emerge from a beetle a couple of days later so perhaps I'm making a mountain out of a molehill) We checked into the Sands hotel but for various reasons it wasn't to her ladyships taste so we checked out next morning and into the Camaima which, online, looked far better. We walked out with our infernal packs and trundled them about a half mile up the road before accepting we'd gone wrong somewhere. You can imagine our ire when we eventually found the Camaina literally next door to where we'd set out from half an hour earlier. Still, no matter, a mile long walk pulling a case on cracked pavements in 35 degree heat whilst being asked 400 times if you want a meal / a taxi / a handbag / to go on a boat trip is how every day should start I feel. And how we laughed when we were shown to our room and it made the one we'd left look like Buckingham Palace! The bright spot was that the hotel was just over the road from the beach, and not just any beach of course, this is Acapulco. A beautiful strip of palm lined heaven which we made full use of for the remainder of the day, playing in the surf and snorkelling around some rocks where we saw a multitude of brightly coloured fish. Bringing our snorkelling masks has proved an inspired piece of packing as we've already had great use out of them which is more than can be said for some of our other choices. I brought a jacket which I lugged around the USA before posting it home from San Diego and quite why I've got 3 pairs of trousers and 2 jumpers with me is anyone's guess. Meanwhile I didn't bring my flip flops, travel hat, sunglasses, spare pair of swim shorts or beach shoes. For her part Kerry spent the first month shedding items of clothing as her pack wouldn't close, then she bought a new and much bigger pack in LA when a wheel came off her original. On Friday evening we took a local bus along the costera (coast road) to La Quebrada to watch the famous cliff divers. The costera is a mad stretch of road, 3 lanes in each direction and seemingly no rules apply. It is a sea of VW Beetles, local buses and other cars in various states of battery and disrepair. To try to cross the road and get to the beach is to invite an early demise, if not at least serious psychological damage. Riding the local buses is no less fraught an endeavour for they are nearly all driven by adolescent males who spend 70% of each journey sounding the horn, 25% leaning out of their window shouting at their mates and 5% in control of the vehicle. There is seemingly a competition among them to see who can play the loudest music for their clientele to "enjoy" and who can apply their brakes at the latest possible juncture. It is altogether a terrifying experience and one which we didn't seek to repeat. By the way, it's interesting to see just how many VW Beetles there are here, specifically in Acapulco and generally in Mexico. That Hitler's vision of simple and affordable personal transport for the masses reached fruition in a country populated by non-whites is a fabulous irony. It's also heaven on earth for this VW nut and I may just be investing in another one when I get home. The La Quebrada divers didn't disappoint, they were as amazing as I remember from 13 years ago and perhaps even more incredible is that they scale the cliffs they dive off in bare feet and speedos. I found it more heart stopping to watch them climb than to dive off. On the way up to the cliff I felt a familiar griping in my guts and began a frantic search for a loo to negate the rapidly increasing probability of inconveniencing myself in a way that only inmates of The Maze prison might appreciate. I saw a sign saying "Servicios" and followed it into a shop where a wheelchair bound chap relieved me of 5 pesos and a lady handed me 4 sheets of tracing paper and directed me to "el negro cortana" (the black curtain) behind which I found a seat-less toilet. If mattered not. 2 seconds later I was around a pound lighter and a disaster had been averted. On Saturday we went to a water park and acted like big kids on the slides and in the waves with our tubes. Surprisingly we were the only whities there and we suffered again at the hands of the mexicans refusal to talk at anything less than light speed. There was an utterly incomprehensible exchange regarding a locker where the sign seemed to imply that in exchange for a key you must hand over some official ID or 200 pesos. As we had travelled as light as possible I had no ID on me so gave the wench a 200 peso bill but this didn't seem to wash and she jibber jabbered about ID. I said I had none, only my hotel room key which she took as collateral and returned my 200 pesos in 10 peso coins. I do know it's our problem. We're in a Spanish speaking country and unless we are asking what time the bus departs, telling a hotel receptionist that we have a reservation or asking if that comes with carrots we are left in apologetic mute-dom but we are trying. I wish they'd give us a break and speak a bit slower. Sunday was another scorcher which we spent in the pool in the morning and then at the beach in the afternoon where we snorkelled again. I swam out to a large crab-infested rock that looked like Jabba the Hut and climbed on to it and then realised I was stuck. I did eventually shimmy my way off it and it gave the locals some free entertainment. A little later on I saw a Dad helping his teenagers up onto the rock which they were then jumping off into the sea. I fancied a go so swam out there and gestured for him to get out of the way so I could climb up but he in turn gestured that he'd give me a shimmy up. Against my better judgment, and certainly against his, I accepted and placed my full weight onto his thigh via my knee and hauled myself up. His pained expression and yelp of discomfort suggested he had calculated I might weigh a little less than I do and on top of that the force I exerted on my final push sent him sprawling into the sea for additional comedy value. Beautiful as the beaches are at Acapulco it's not as relaxing as it might be on account of the aforementioned traffic, the volume of hawkers and the general ambience created by a city of 1 million inhabitants. In many ways it's the classic trophy destination, it sounds better than it really is and those of a certain vintage recall it's 1950s Hollywood heyday, Elvis Presley films and the cliff divers on World of Sport with Dickie Davies. There is also a significant drug situation which the government is combatting by deploying balaclava wearing and gun-toting troops by way of visible deterrent. Whilst it makes for Peace of mind on one level it is slightly disconcerting to look up from your omelette at a pick up truck driving past with masked gunmen standing sentinel in the back. As such on Sunday we plotted our next move, to Puerto Escondido about 8 hours down the coast. This is a much smaller place with a laid back vibe and good surf, the Newquay of Mexico if you will. This sounded right up our avenida so on Sunday morning we went to a travel agent to book our tickets for the next days bus at 0930. Unfortunately they couldn't take plastic and we didn't have enough cash on us so we asked what time they were open until and said we'd be back later. We left it a bit later than we hoped but nevertheless it was only 1920, 40 minutes before the office closed when we returned armed with oodles of pesos to exchange for our bus tickets. Cue more quick-fire Spanish with the upshot being that it was too late, the system had shut down and it was now too late to buy them. We could buy them in the morning, though not at the bus station we wanted to travel from and no, the tickets did not come with carrots. So next morning we're up early and at the bus station for 0900 and confidently asking for 2 tickets to Puerto Escondido. "0930 es cancellado señor" "Bugger! When is the next one then?" "....................1715" "1715? You're having a laugh Pedro. We've checked out of the gaff, it's nearly 40 degrees, we've got these sodding cases and there's no bus for 8 hours?" (or words to that effect) After a brief discussion regarding our options: Wait 8 hours Stay in Acapulco another day and go tomorrow Spend £240 on a taxi We elected to go to the other bus station in town for a second opinion. At first it looked like a wise move: "what time us the next bus to Puerto Escondido?" "1145 señor" "result! 2 tickets please" So we sat and waited for 2 hours in the boiling heat and at 1144 I enquired as to where our bus was, a precursor to much discussion among the bus station staff and then the bombshell: "1145 es cancellado señor. Next bus, 1315". We finally got going at about 1330, 4 hours and more after first arriving there and what was our first port of call on the 1315? Yes, the bus station we'd made our initial enquiry at that morning. But at least we were on the move and one of the first things I had to do was to take a leak. I made my way to the back of the bus which was bouncing around all over the road and tugged at the door. It wouldn't open so I asked the lady sitting nearby if anyone was in there. She didn't think so so I gave the door a right heave-ho just as we took a sharp bend and hit a pothole, the combination of which flung me backwards to end up lying across the lap of the woman I'd questioned and her travelling companion, looking up at their horrified faces. I hauled myself up, apologised and made for the loo, desperate to escape the several pairs of eyes that were burning into the gringo with the apparent penchant for lying prostrate on strangers laps. With the door shut it was pitch black in there and after a quick fumble I found the light switch which was broken. The road had not improved any so there I was being flung about a cramped and sweaty toilet with little hope of accurately discerning where to aim the old chap. Even if I could locate the pan I guessed that my aim would last for half a second before the next lurch would have me peeing down my trousers. Then I remembered I have the iTorch app! The remainder of the journey was pretty grim; a packed bus travelling along a terribly winding coast road with speed bumps approximately every half mile or so. Darkness fell and we were treated to a spectacular lightning storm away to the west and then finally, mercifully, we arrived in Puerto Escondido at about 2300 and went straight to bed. On waking up next morning we both had the right arse with life, each other and everything inbetween. We were frazzled from the long delays and travel of yesterday, we couldn't get wi-fi in our room, our room had no air-con, I got bitten by mozzies in the night and again over breakfast and the town just didn't appeal to either of us. We decided to just stay one full day and crack on and took the opportunity to stock up on some toiletries, buy a new diary each and eat a roast chicken in a corrugated iron shed that our proprietor fished out of a cool box. In the afternoon we went and took a look at the impressive surf, had a drink in a hammock on the beach where Kerry fell asleep and I got bitten by sand flies and had a little play on a safer bit of beach which was still producing waves powerful enough to knock you off your feet. After one of the hottest and sweatiest nights of my life, imagine being under an electric blanket in a sauna and you're about there, we're away and are currently en route to Oaxaca. (Pronounced "Wa-haka", though nothing to do with Emperor Hirohito nor the All Blacks) We're on an 18 seat minibus travelling through the Sierra Madre Occidental. It's pretty unpleasant and we're both feeling a bit sick, more so since the child sitting behind us honked her guts up. The scenery is spectacular though and we're seeing an incredibly isolated and underprivileged part of the country. Before I sign off thanks to those of you who have been in touch regarding this blog. It's very gratifying to know that it is providing some entertainment as well as leaving a written legacy for Kerry and I to enjoy for years to come. According to the stats on google the readership stretches from the UK, to Australia (hello girls, hello girls' friends and hello Tom ) to a couple of hits in each of Germany, Russia and China. If anyone wants to get in touch to say hello then drop us a line, it'll be great to hear from you.