And she woke up and it was all a dream

I got back last night, was very pleased to see Reinaldo, unpacked, went into work today, came home, went for a very painful run, and now it's like I was never away. How can you fit so much into 3 weeks in Mexico but so little can happen in 3 weeks in London?

I've just uploaded all the photos I took to Flickr (click on the photos badge on the right). Some are good, some are bad, some need explaining. I'll go through and add comments to the wierder ones, and take the less than amazing photos down after a while. There are 400 or so of them and they're probably nowhere near as interesting to you as they are to me...

My last day in Mexico City was great. I went to the Anthropology Museum for it opening at 10, had the place to myself for a bit, had some lunch from one of the foodstalls in the Bosque de Chapultepec - I knew it was going to be my last bit of Mexican food for a while so I ate loads - went to a market and spent loads of money, went to the Alameda Central and ate mango with chile, sat about and watched the world go by over a coffee, then had to go back to the hostel before getting my taxi to the airport. I was actually almost on the verge of tears!

The hostel I was staying in had their own driver who takes people to the airport and the bus stations. I was the only passenger in the van, but Alan the driver had brought along his mum, her sister, his sister-in-law and her son for the ride as the airport was on their way home. I had a really funny chat with them all about not really leaving Mexico and (randomly enough) how much they'd all like to speak French. The little boy had just learnt the word 'pobrecita', so every time I mentioned not wanting to leave Mexico he piped up with an 'ay, pobrecita' from the back of the van. It was very cute from a 7 year old.

Airport was fine, suitably airport-esque with lots of shops. I don't ask for much, I like airports as they are. Flight also fine, slept 9 of the 10 hours, and chatted to a French-Mexican for the other hour. None of this seems particularly important though; all the important stuff happened before I arrived at the airport.

It's really hard to feign interest in work and get excited about things that I find wholly unexciting. I'm sure it'll wear off after a couple of days, and I think my dear colleagues completely understand as they've taken time off themselves and doubtless felt the same. It seems strange that I was so focussed about getting a Project Manager job in April. I probably will be in June too, but at the minute it all seems a bit irrelevant. Good job that there isn't a vacancy at the minute as I'd be way too horizontal in an interview to get the darned thing...

The Final Countdown

This post may be short as I actually wrote a huge post on arrival here in Mexico City last night detailing all the crazy things that happened and how sad I will be to leave Mexico, but blogger.com cleverly went down and lost the whole thing - hmph. The Isla Mujeres stories will have to wait.

I´m so glad I came to Mexico City: as soon as my taxi started getting nearer the city I felt like I was going home! I think I may just have to accept that I´m a city girl and won´t be happy if you take me away from noise, dirt, pollution and 25 million people for too long.

My flight leaves at 8.30pm so I have the whole of today to fit in as much as humanly possible: Anthropology Museum, Chapultepec, tequila purchases, having my last mango, last dose of tacos, a drink from a bag, hanging about in some more churches, going crazy with the photos...

I´m really happy and really sad at the same time; Ive had an amazing time and I almost can´t believe that it´s only been 3 weeks as I feel like I´ve packed so much in. I really don´t want to leave; I´ve loved meeting Mexicans, how colourful and busy and noisy everything is, how beautiful the cities and the ruins and the mountains and the coast are and how everyone smiles, all the time.´

I´ll write more if I can find an internet cafe at the airport, if not - see you when I get back!

Last night I dreamt of some petrol, just like I´d never gone I knew the song

I just changed my plane ticket, so will be leaving Isla Mujeres for Mexico City tomorrow morning and spending my last night in the big city. I think I´d regret it if I didn´t, as there´s so much I still have to do there. I barely saw any tourists in the 4 days I was there, and I could really do with a final dose of the real Mexico before leaving. I´ll be staying in a different hostel to last time that has been recommended by loads of people that I´ve met along the way.

Yesterday and today have been really chilled, as you would imagine a few days in the Caribbean would be. Apart from getting a bit more lively at night, there´s not much point in being anything other than tranquilo round these parts.

As predicted, I really don´t have that much to write about that will fascinate you. I´ve been eating great seafood, swimming a lot and drinking lots of piña coladas in the bar in our hostel whilst playing backgammon and talking to lots of different people. I really feel like I´m on holiday, rather than ´travelling´, but it´s been loads of fun. This would be a really great place to come for a week´s holiday with friends if you got a cheap charter flight to Cancun: the sun is hotter than the Mediterranean and there are less drunk English people being sick in the gutter. We have Americans to do that here.

I´ve been starting to think about coming home and making mental lists of things that I can look forward to: the World Cup, the Race for Life, seeing Jaboc again, London in the summer, festivals, finding someone that I can speak Spanish with, running, Berlin for a weekend, planning more trips, sitting on a sofa, wine, cheese, curry, tea, gin and tonic, barbeques, illegally downloading lots of Latin American music, cracking open the passion fruit flavour mezcal I´ve been carrying since Oaxaca, going clothes shopping, not wearing the same clothes for 3 bloody weeks, being a few shades darker than alabaster this year...

Things that go bump in a cenote

Without meaning to make any of you spontaneously vomit up your Marks and Spencer prawn mayonnaise sandwiches that you are eating in front of your PC as the rain lashes by outside, the view from this internet cafe stretches all the way down to the spotless white sand and turquoise water of the Caribbean. I´ll nip down to the beach in a bit, but there´s no rush; I´ve got a couple of days of the same old beach to go, and I don´t want to over exert myself by doing too much. Already my plan to write a blog entry before going to the beach and reading seems like quite a demanding schedule...

Sorry, facetious paragraph over now. I got to Isla Mujeres from Tulum yesterday, to be greeted on my arrival in the hostel by almost everyone I´ve met on my trip so far, including most people from the hostel in Tulum who I knew were here, but also Fliss, Jo and Helen that I left in Palenque. How can the world be that small? Admittedly, there are only 2 hostels on Isla, and the Poc-Na where I am staying is really famous and sought after, but for me to be here at the same time as everyone else is still quite random.

This trip has been ´travelling alone´ only in the most technical sense: I haven´t spent a full day on my own since my birthday in Mexico City, and every time I´ve said goodbye to a group of people and been slightly apprehensive about being by myself I´ve found a new pal as soon as I get to the bus station or the hostel. I knew I´d meet people, but not this many. Wierdly enough I´ve met other people travelling alone that haven´t met anyone else the whole time apart from in passing, so I must have chosen my buses and hostels well.

I´m very happy with the world today, as yesterday was a bit of a freaky day. My snorkelling in the cenote that I did in the morning before leaving Tulum turned into an embarrassing and scary experience when I whacked my head against a stalactite after having breathed in underwater. We were supposed to put our hands up before coming out of the water to protect our heads, but I was so desperate to breathe (and let´s face it, so crap at snorkelling) that I forgot. I felt totally fine until I saw all the blood seeping into the water around me and freaked out. The instructor nearly had a heart attack and got us all out of the water, up the ladder and back to the car, whilst I dripped blood the whole way. Luckily enough for me, the only other person doing the snorkelling with me was Luke, the handsome Australian doctor from my hostel, so he cleaned me up, got rid of the blood, found the gaping wound which is actually only a graze, and doused my head in copious amounts of burning alcohol. If he hadn´t been there the instructor would have dragged me to a Mexican hospital because he was so paranoid about me suing him, which would have totally scuppered my last couple of days here. Anyway, I´ve now learnt that doctors travel with half a hospital in their backpacks; after a lie down and a shower to get the blood out of my hair I left Tulum on the bus I´d planned to get with antibiotics, disinfectant, bandages and a list of things to do if my head starts to hurt or go red. You´ll doubtless be relieved to know that I feel completely fine, I have a small bump on my head but it doesn´t hurt and I haven´t felt faint despite having lost about half a litre of blood. I´m geet hard me.

Mum, Dad, I contemplated not writing about this, but for the purposes of blogging integrity I don´t want to leave important things out, as this is a record of my trip for me as well as a way for you to find out what I´m doing. Sorry if you´re worried: don´t be - I´m fine. Anyway Pops, I seem to remember you saying that I should come back with lots of stories, and all my stories up to this point had been far too trouble-free.

Fliss, Jo and Helen are going snorkelling today but I think it may be tempting fate to join them, even though there are no stalactites in the sea. I´d probably hit a boat, so useless am I at this snorkelling business.

I am still to decide whether to change my flight or not. Today I´m so happy to be on Isla with a million people I know having a big backpacker party and watching sunsets that leaving here on Sunday seems like the likely option, but I may get bored by tomorrow, which is when I have to decide by.

Isla Mujeres is still great, Chloe: yes, it´s touristy, but in a young person backpacker type way, and there´s a lovely chilled atmosphere about the place. I don´t think there are many other Caribbean islands where the beach is so free of expensive hotels buying up the best bits of sand.

Tulum is much more touristy and already well on the way to becoming an exclusive 5 star resort. Jude Law and Sienna Miller have already stayed in one of the ´cabáñas´ on the beach that have 24 hour electricity, a spa, hot water and other luxuries that mean that they´re not cabañas at all. The beach is still beautiful but it´s not for people who can´t pay London hotel prices...

I don´t know how much I´ll have to write about over the next few days, but I´ll try to come along and bore you all with tales of tan lines and frozen margaritas as often as I can.

Retrouvailles

Good suggestions Matt and Chlo - thanks. I think the lake is called Lagos de Montebello and I´ve met some people here who´ve been and loved it. It´s a good 12 hours on a bus from here tho. I´ve decided to go to Isla Mujeres tomorrow after I´ve done some snorkelling in a cenote in the morning, and then decide when Í´m there whether to change my flight back to the D.F. to Saturday or leave it as Sunday. If I go back on Saturday I´ll get the evening there plus the whole of Sunday to go to museums for free, if I stay at the beach I may come back with a better tan...

I think I was having a little trouble chilling out and calming down when I wrote the last post; today was a really cool day and I´m pretty happy at the beach now. Most of the crazy drinking Magaluf people have left the hostel now, which is cool.

For the non-French speakers reading, the title of this post means ´reunions´. I have called it so as this morning I had a really unexpected reunion with one of the people that I was in Oaxaca and Mazunte with (who was also on the famous deserted beach). I was just emerging for breakfast this morning and she was just checking into the hostel after a night bus trip from Palenque. It´s amazing how close you become to people when you travel with them - it felt like I was meeting a long lost friend. It´s been brilliant today hanging out at the ruins and on the beach and catching up with what everyone that I met in Oaxaca has been up to. She´s called Andree-Anne from Montreal, has a really funny Quebecois accent and is damn cool.

My change of mood has also been helped by the sun coming out: it´s been overcast since I got to the beach but today the sun was shining like it should and it all looked so much more beautiful. I get the deal with the Caribbean now! We all got a little burned at the beach today (me less than the others as I´m so obsessive about sun cream) so sitting and moving is generally painful for all of us.

I´m using the free internet access in the hostel and only have 30 minutes, so my time is up. I´ll write more from Isla Mujeres m´dears; looking forward to seeing you all again, although I´d rather you all came here than me having to come home...

England and Israel by the sea

I ended up doing much more with my day in Merida than I had originally planned: instead of going to the cinema I went for some beers with an Israeli bloke that was in my hostel, then by the time we´d had a few it was 8pm and all the streets became closed to traffic in preparation for some open air concert type thing. We watched some cheesy Mariachis, some Yucatecan dancers (which looked just like Irish dancing to me) and most excitingly of all, 2 contestants from a Mexican reality tv show who are up for eviction tonight and played to try to get enough votes to save themselves. I wouldn´t have voted for them - they were short, fat, bald, out of tune and wearing gold costumes. Unfortunately for them they only had the chance to wow us with one and a half songs before there was a huge powercut across the whole city (which I later found out was across the whole of the Yucatan peninsula) and everything was plunged into darkness. It was quite fun trying to find the way back to the hostel in the pitch black, then trying to clean my teeth and get ready for bed with only the pathetic light from my alarm clock to help me. I cleverly managed to put my alarm on for 5.30 in the afternoon instead of 5.30 in the morning because it was too dark to see the screen, and slept until 8 and missed my 6.30 bus to Chichen Itza...

I ended up getting a 9.15 bus instead, with the Israeli who by this point was really getting on my nerves going on about how much he wanted to meet other Israelis and how everyone in the world is an Anti-Semite. I offered him one of the little cakes that I´d bought for breakfast and he took the whole packet and ate them all. I was too shocked to say anything, and have thus unintentionally perpetuated the myth that English people are endlessly polite.

Chichen Itza was actually a real disappointment: by the time I got there at 11 it was full of tour groups of Americans from Cancun and Playa del Carmen, and I couldn´t get anywhere near the ruins for fat people. The ruins themselves were quite disappointing after Palenque too, and the people that were selling stuff were quoting their prices in dollars, not pesos. It made me quite sad and I was really glad to leave - I felt like I´d actually left Mexico already when I was there.

I got on a bus to Tulum from Chichen Itza and arrived here yesterday at the end of the afternoon. I randomly followed some other backpackers to the hostel I am staying in now, which is in the town rather than a cabaña on the beach. It´s called the Weary Traveller, and is the filthiest stinking place I have ever been to, but it is also the most sociable, `fun` place I´ve been so far. It´s full of English people and Israelis that have been at the beach for months, between here and Isla Mujeres, and haven´t done anything of the people / culture / Mexico type things I´ve done. It´s kind of refreshing to hang about with them but I sense that I might lose my enthusiasm for it pretty soon... I didn´t do much today apart from going to the beach with the English/Israeli posse (I swam in the Caribbean! It was warm!).

I actually feel at a bit of a loose end: do I stay at the beach for the last week, drink lots of beer and not do that much, or do I change my plans and find my way back to proper Mexico? I´ve bought a flight from Cancun to Mexico City for next Sunday, but part of me wants to change it and go back to Mexico City early, because then I could go to Teotihuacan and all the other things I missed out on. Am feeling very indecisive - any suggestions? Perhaps the scumminess of the hostel is skewing my thoughts - I probably should go out and stay at a cabaña here for at least one night before I leave, but since the Lonely Planet Tulum section was written everything has tripled in price and it now costs $25USD a night.

I´m planning on going up to Isla Mujeres on Thursday or Friday (I want to go snorkelling in one of the cenotes, which are underground caves, before I leave Tulum), which will be another beach and beer drinking backpacker type place, where you can do lots of snorkelling. The trouble with Yucatan is that once you´re there there´s very little to do apart from swimming and sunbathing, and for some reason I don´t feel like spending a week doing just that. I was almost bored at the beach today! It would be so different with a big group of friends, or if you were here Ronaldinho, but on your own it´s pretty dull.

One thing I need to mention, although I know it will make certain French people want to vomit: I´ve lost count of the number of French people I´ve met, and every single one of them without exception has thought I was French until I told them otherwise. Similarly, loads of Mexicans have presumed that I was Spanish, so authentic are my Catalan vowels. I think my paleness confuses them though - they ask if I´m Spanish because that´s what my accent says I am, but my face has ´pasty Northern European´ written all over it.

Happy Birthday for tomorrow Louise!

Moving faster than a Japanese tourist with a day to see Europe...

here I am in Merida, very early in the morning.

I left San Cristobal on Thursday with my 3 Londoner pals after having bought the Zapatista dolls, getting on a 6am bus to Palenque.

We decided within about 30 seconds of arriving that Palenque town was a complete sh*thole, so we decided to stay in El Panchan, which is a traveller´s hangout with lots of basic cabanas in the middle of the jungle on the road to the ruins. We got a really good deal on a cabana as there were 4 of us; 75 pesos each for private bathrooms, towels, hot water, soap - we were very excited. I loved staying in the jungle - watching the glow bugs buzzing around as we were having dinner being woken up in the morning by the howler monkeys was fab. I haven´t been taking any malaria medication, so was a little paranoid about getting ill right in the middle of nowhere, but I didn´t get bitten once. There was a giant spider in the shower though that was looking at me very menacingly as I invaded its space - I faced him down.

I did all of the ´things you need to do in and around Palenque´ in a day yesterday, going to the ruins in the morning, followed by the waterfalls at Misol-Ha and Agua Azul in the afternoon.

The Palenque ruins are really amazing; I thought I was getting ruined-out but the setting in the middle of the jungle is so beautiful and it was really quiet apart from the crickets and the monkeys. I didn´t have enough cash to pay for a tour guide so I just looked at the pretty pyramids without knowing what it was all about, and read up on it when I got back. I said goodbye to Fliss, Jo and Helen (for that is their names) at the ruins, as they too have more time than me and were staying another night in the jungle, and headed off on my tour for the afternoon.

Misol-Ha was pretty much like a waterfall would be, and I was slightly underwhelmed because you couldn´t do much apart from look at it and take photos along with a million other people all trying to take the exact same snap.

Agua Azul was much better; we had 3 hours there and it was so hot and you can swim in them and the water was almost glowing blue and I ate mango and sunbathed with some Canadians and it was mint.

Agua Azul is right in the middle of Zapatista country, and we drove past lots of villages with `you are now entering a Zapatista town´ signs - I wanted to stop and take a look but the driver wouldn´t let us. I´m getting really fascinated with the old Zapatistas - I´m going to have to find a book on it because I have only the vaguest of ideas about it all (although I have been called on to tell at least 4 different people about it - shocking lack of general knowledge! Australians, I mean you)

Once again, I really felt how little time I have here; you can go on 2 day treks into the jungle and stay in Lacandon Maya villages, go horseback riding in the mountains, go to Tikal in Guatemala... Instead I got a night bus to Merida last night, arriving here at 6 am this morning.

There were quite a few other mochiladores (what the Mexicans call backpackers - I have also heard ´backpackeros´ a few times) on the bus, and we all got accosted by people trying to get us to go to their hostel as soon as we stepped off the bus. It´s low season and we have all the power; it´s positively rude not to negotiate on hostel prices. We got a free taxi ride to the hostel that I´m in and it seems decent enough and very clean although the bloke that runs it seems a bit anally retentive - no more than 2 beers per person per night for heaven´s sake.

Merida is a big city that for some reason really reminds me of Montpellier. I´m only planning on spending one night here before getting a bus to Tulum on the Caribbean coast tomorrow morning, where I am going to base myself for a fair few days. I fear I may be the whitest person in all of Mexico and am scaring small children, so I need some beach time. With my one day in Merida I´m going to the Anthropology Museum, and given that it´s so godamn hot here I may go to an air conditioned cinema this afternoon to watch The Da Vinci Code in v.o.

I do feel like a Japanese tourist trying to fit everything into a small amount of time, but I also really enjoy the travelling aspect of, er, travelling. I think I´d have been so bored in the same place and it`s really fun waking up in a new place every couple of days.

Everything about the trip so far has been great - I´ve met different sets of really cool people, spoken lots of Spanish and seen lots of very beautiful things, but the best thing about it all has without doubt been the Mexicans and the Mexicanidad of it all. I´m looking forward to the Caribbean but I´m pretty sure I´ll meet hundreds of European backpackers and no Mexicans, which is a little bit sad.

Also, some pre-travelling myths dispelled: I am hard and can carry my backpack for miles, even now that it´s full of tat that Í´ve bought, I prefer 2nd class buses to the freezing air conditioning of the 1st class ones, I haven´t caught any parasitic evil diseases from having ice cubes in my drinks and brushing my teeth with tap water, nor have I caught Montezuma´s Revenge from eating in roadside taquerias. Mexico is such an easy place to travel in - bring on Guatemala and Nicaragua next time!

The story of the Tzotzil people and the Coca-Cola

After spending yesterday hanging about in San Cristobal, and going for Thai food with the 3 Londoners last night (I know, but it was so nice and I´ve had so many quesadillas), I got up really early this morning and went on a trip to two of the indigenous villages about 15 minutes from here. I was really glad I went on a tour rather than getting a colectivo bus up there on my own, because our guide was really cool and explained loads of things that we could never have understood. There were a couple of English girls and an Australian on the bus too, as well as a German couple that I saw in a museum in Oaxaca. San Cristobal is really small and you see the same travellers everywhere.

We went to two Tzotzil villages, Zinacantan and San Juan Chamula, and it was really super touristy but fun. We went into someone´s house in Zinacantan and saw an old woman sewing rugs and a younger woman made us tortillas that we could try. All I could think about was how wierd they must think we are, sitting watching them do what they do every single day and taking lots of photos of really basic things like their fire and the mud hut they cook in.

It was when we went to San Juan Chamula that I was glad I was on a tour; the people there are really religious and have had bad experiences of tourists taking photos in their church and generally being disrespectful, so they were quite suspicious of us.

San Juan Chamula is famous for it´s church. You´re allowed in if you´re on a tour and have asked at the tourist office first. Our guide very usefully told us about a German tourist who got hit by a policeman´s truncheon for taking photos inside after having been asked to stop, and said that we shouldn´t look at the people praying inside too much, just at the walls. The church had no seats, just grass on the floor that women were sitting on, and about 15 shrines to different saints with candles in front of them. The women were all drinking fizzy drinks and burping heartily every few minutes as they think that burping is removing the devil from your body. It was fascinating and really funny but very hard not to look or laugh. Everyone here will tell you that the man that owns the Coca-Cola franchise has the biggest house in San Juan Chamula because they drink so much of the stuff there - I don´t know whether that´s actually true...

The little girls that try to sell you woven bracelets on your way out of church say ´maybe later´ in English because that´s what lots of tourists say. They think that white people lie because they come to their village and say they might buy something later, but get back on their bus without ever buying anything. It´s sad that people probably say it to be nice but actually are being more hurtful than if they´d just said no. I bought some stuff but felt so guilty about having to barter with them for what is essentially a couple of pence difference that I didn´t last long.

Matt, you´re as ever completely right about the Zapatistas - there are villages you can´t go to but that´s because the Mexican army have check points outside them and won´t let outsiders in, not because the Zapatistas themselves will kill you.

I have the rest of today left in San Cristobal before I catch another bus to Palenque tomorrow morning, so I´ll have time to buy your bloody Zapatista dolls!

I´ve done a fair bit of shopping up here; yesterday I bought a hammock!

Dolphins - yay! Mosquitoes - boo!

So our little 3 day jaunt to the Pacific was interesting, in lots of ways: the ´deserted beach´ was literally that - no water, no toilets, no shade, nowhere to sleep, no food. The Mexicans that were running the trip were so completely unprepared that we ended up eating at a local family´s house and sleeping in a half constructed tent on the beach, in the rain. In retrospect it´s quite funny but at the time I was having a major sense of humour failure. It made our group really pull together though; there´s nothing like hardship and a couple of good bitching sessions to form friendships. Oh, and we didn´t get to Hierve el Agua because we didn´t have time.

The second day was much better; we had freshly caught barbequed fish for breakfast at this tiny palapa on an almost deserted beach (the almost counts for so much) then went off and climbed some sand dunes that had a great view out to sea. I couldn´t take any photos because the only way to get to the sand dunes was to swim, but if I had they would have been fab.

The tour then drove us to Mazunte, which is a really chilled fishing port that is near Puerto Escondido but nowhere near as touristy. We had a go at the tour guides, negotiated a great discount (we paid 500 pesos, which is about 30 quid, for food and transport. They wanted 750 from us - ho ho), who then drove off and left us happily in Mazunte.

We stayed in this great place overlooking the beach for only 40 pesos a night (2 pounds) then went out on a boat trip with some fishermen in the morning and saw turtles, and went snorkelling, and swam with dolphins right in the middle of the Pacific! It was literally one of the best things I have done in my life up to this point. The fishermen couldn´t guarantee that we´d see dolphins, but we ended up being right in the middle of a huge shoal of them, and were able to snorkel with them and see them looking at us curiously and hear the sonar. Once the boat started moving again they followed us for a bit, jumping and diving around the boat and generally being dolphin-esque. We had a bit of a ´Jaws´ moment when 2 of the people got bitten by jellyfish and we all started screaming like little kids and swimming for the boat, and nearly capsizing it by all trying to get on the same side at the same time. It turned out that they weren´t poisonous stings though, they just hurt lots.

I spent the afternoon in a hammock overlooking the sea, then caught a bus to San Cristobal de las Casas overnight last night. I was sad to leave Mazunte and my new friends, but they all had a lot more time than me and were going to stay there for another couple of days. And in any case, I was getting eaten alive by mosquitoes, sand flies and all manner of beasties.

The bus trip was 12 hours, and was absolutely *freezing* cold. I slept pretty much all the way, and am sharing a very cheap but impeccably clean room with 3 girls from London that I met at the bus station who are travelling around too.

San Cristobal is really high up in the mountains, and is really cold compared to Oaxaca and the coast. It´s in Chiapas, and has a much more noticable indigenous population than anywhere I´ve been so far. I´m planning on staying here until Thursday, taking a trip to some of the villages that you can visit as a white person without being kidnapped by the Zapatistas, then going onto Palenque. I don´t think there´s that much to do here, there just seems to be lots of travellers with dreadlocks hanging around being at one with themselves.

I´m really loving being in Mexico; it´s the most friendly place I´ve ever been, I feel really happy and content here and really wish that my trip was for longer. There´s so much I´m not going to be able to see and do! Ron, me and you - we´re coming back.

I´ve done so much and met so many people over the past few days that this post feels like it´s really skimming the surface, but it´s already too long so it´ll just have to do.

If you don´t hear from me for a while...

that would be because I´m off to a deserted beach on the Oaxaca Coast tomorrow with people from my hostel. I have gone from being alone to being surrounded by millions of really cool people and we´re all off to Hierve El Agua (Matt! me too!) tomorrow and are then spending the night camping on the beach at a place called Bamba which is apparently really tiny and not on the map. The people that run our hostel (2 Oaxacan brothers who are musicians) are starting up a tour company and we are their guinea pigs. Basically, we get 2 days food and accomodation in Bamba then Puerto Escondido for the price of a regular bus ticket to Puerto. So even though I was going to San Cristobal de las Casas tomorrow, I really couldn´t turn it down. And we get to have a beach party on our own little beach!

Also, our hostel has gone from being Frenchified to being Australian; there are 12 of us going tomorrow - me, 5 Australians, 2 Americans, a French Canadian girl, an Argentinian, another English bloke (who incidentally is 35 and is travelling the world for 3 years after having made a killing on the sale of his house) and a Swedish girl.

I´ll let you know how it was when I get to Puerto Escondido...

Otherwise, I´ve just been hanging about in Oaxaca, which is now officially one of my favourite cities. I went up to Monte Alban yesterday right at the end of the day and it was soooo beautiful - the light was really amazing and hopefully the photos I took will manage to convey quite how beautiful it was.

Had a couple of cold beers with my new friends last night (still hot - need rain) and today I´ve just been doing a bit of shopping in the Market, going into millions of churches and hanging about in the Zocalo drinking cold drinks.

I had mole poblano (A Oaxacan speciality - a sauce that´s kind of chilli / chocolate / lime that they use with chicken) for lunch in the market today and a little girl who must have been about 8 and was sitting next to me patiently explained how I should eat it by using the tortilla to mop up the sauce and the refried beans. Eating in a market is a bit of a food poisoning risk generally, but Oaxaca´s market is so busy and full of amazing cheap food that it´s worth it, and as yet I haven´t had any nasty toilet incidents. Sorry if that´s an information overload kids. I spent ages in the Market afterwards talking to people and trying various things. I ate a grasshopper that had been cooked in garlic - yum.

Sorry for not explaining what all of the places I mention are; if you´re confused, www.wikipedia.org is your friend!

Thanks for the offers of usb help - I haven´t brought it with me because I know it doesn´t work here, but I will keep trying. Matt, it cost a fiver, doesn´t have a brand, and worked sin problema on my Mac and Reinaldo´s laptop at home.

Thanks also for the comments and email and stuff. I´ve bought some of the chilli that they dip the limes in (along with salt) before having them with beer, so we can have a Mexican barbeque when I get back!

Hammocks, and more French people

I got to Oaxaca yesterday after a 6 hour bus ride from Mexico City on a really posh air conditioned bus. I feel slightly naive for wondering how Mexico can be a Third World country when they have Starbucks after having seen the miles and miles of shanty town that you have to go through to get out of the city. It´s quite alarming how long it goes on for; millions and millions of people must live like that...

Oaxaca is everything everyone says it is - really beautiful and chilled and safe. And incredibly hot - 36ª in the middle of the day. My hostel is really basic but lovely, all the rooms are round a courtyard with hammocks round the side, and there are about 6 really nice dogs that live there. I´m in a 6 bed dorm with 5 other French girls. Is there anyone left in France?

I went out with 2 of them last night and had a really funny time. We met a Oaxacan called Juan (who studies politics here, is from a village 5 hours away in the mountains and speaks an indigenous language called Mazateca at home) and went to a bar for a quick drink. A few too many later it was 9pm and one of the French girls was joining the live band on stage singing Cuban and Brazilian songs. She had a really great voice and know them all off by heart as her Colombian grandmother taught her. It was all very random and we ended up eating tacos al pastor (like a Mexican kebab) at 2am in some bar somewhere or other with the band, who were Oaxacan, Cuban, Argentinian and Colombian. You get a real feeling for there being such a thing as a 'Latin America' here - every knows Brazilian and Argentinian songs and talks about ´mi pueblo´ and ´ser Latino´ all the time.

I hadn´t been particularly hungry since I got here, but all of a sudden my appetite has returned and I´m eating like a horse. I just had chilaquiles for breakfast, which are like nachos with spicy tomato sauce, cream and cheese on top; Mexicans eat great breakfasts, huge plates of meat and eggs and amazing coffee. The food here is loads better than in Mexico City.

I´m staying here until Saturday and there are internet cafes all over the shop, so I´ll try to write something every day. Still no darned photos but will keep trying.

Chloe, I can read the comments that you leave here!

Happy Birthday to me...

So today I am 27, and I have to say it´s been quite a wierd birthday; I don´t expect many people spend their 27th birthday completely on their own!

Since Sunday when I last wrote, I´ve changed hostels as the one I was in had accidentally double booked a load of people. It was a shame to leave, but the one that the girl that ran the old hostel recommended is really nice. They´ve even given me my own private room for the price of a dorm bed, which is very sweet but made sense when I realised that *there is no one there*! Which makes meeting people a bit of a chore.

I tried to go to the Anthropology musuem yesterday but it was shut (everything is shut on Mondays, but all open on Sundays, wierdly enough). Happily I met some other people on the steps that thought it was open too, a Mexican photographer who was showing his Swedish friend around the city, his sister and her little girl. I ended up going for some jars with them (the little girl got taken home obviously) in Condesa, which is a bit like the Mexico City equivalent of Islington. We had lots of random conversations about autism, philosophy and (predictably) how much everyone hates America. They invited me to a house party but it was miles away in their part of town so I turned them down, and cleverly retraced my way back to the hostel.

Yesterday was also the day when I successfully negotiated the metro, the metro bus *and* the complicated pesero buses, that are private and just have a little hand written sign in the window saying where they´re going - I´m quite proud of myself!

Today I was up super early (I´m waking up early from time zone changing I think) and went to Coyoacan where Frida Kahlo lived with Diego Rivera. It´s a really cute middle class part of town that used to be a village with a really lovely market and lots of school kids running around in uniforms. Frida Kahlo´s old house has been made into a museum, which has more personal objects and furniture in than pictures, but is still really worth visiting as it´s a really tranquil place to hang out for a bit. I took loads of great photos but once again the usb key that I´m using to upload photos to Flickr isn´t being recognized by this PC. Help!

Just round the corner from Frida´s hoose is that of Trotsky, who was exiled in Mexico and had an affair with Frida Kahlo until he was killed with an ice pick to the head by a Stalinist Catalan. You can go round his old house, which is pretty much unchanged since the ice pick incident, and see loads of old Communist memorabilia. I learnt loads about the Revolution and why Stalin and Trotsky fell out, but the place did freak me out a bit; you can almost still see the blood splattered on the walls.

One thing that I´ve found strange since I´ve arrived here is how few Americans and British people there are around the place. There are millions of French people, though, which is comforting (bizarrely more so than if everyone was British but I can´t explain why). Another thing I´ve noticed is how suit wearing middle class Mexicans look at me with a sort of 'take care of yourself, gringa' type look, but apart from that I really don´t get that much attention or hassle.

Mexico City´s been brilliant but I´m happy to be leaving tomorrow; I haven´t come all this way to be in a city where it takes 45 minutes to get anywhere, London´s bad enough already, and Oaxaca, where I´m off to early tomorrow morning, is a sixth of the size (yet still has a population of 5 million people - argh). Every single person I´ve met has said that Oaxaca is really beautiful. I´ll let you know whether I agree when I get there!

I´m missing people quite a lot today, the combination of birthday and solitude I suppose, so I just wanted to say hi. Reinaldo, check your emails - gmail.

Proper wide awake post alert

First things first: hangover + jet lag = bleurgh. Now that the bad stuff is out of the way, I can concentrate on all the good stuff...

Last night we went to a bar run by French people near our hostel which was full of trendy and attractive Mexicans and was lots of fun. I got drunk on $2.50 caipirinhas, and suddenly remembered how to speak Spanish. I was so happy to be able to communicate that I don´t think I shut up once. Chloe, I have no idea how you managed here without speaking Spanish - so brave!

Although last night´s fun has resulted in today´s hangover, I´ve done a surprising amount of things. Bosque de Chapultepec first, which is a massive forest Central Park type place in the middle of the city. It was full of Mexican families on Sunday outings and was really cool. I climbed up the hill there to the old Presidential Palace at the top and took some pretty photos of the views (photos pending - this PC isn´t recognizing my usb key). Then I went on a massive walk across town and ended up in the touristy old town bit where all the museums and monuments are. Went up the Torre LatinoAmerica and took more high-up photos from the viewing terrace, then walked back to the hostel. Mum and Dad, you would be so proud - the distance I have walked today really is miles by anyone´s standards.

I had my first proper meal in a chain called VIP´s - they have them in Spain too I think - and it was fine. I had enchiladas with lots of greasy cheese on them and am not dead!

Cool things I have noticed about Mexico City and Mexicans:
- Everyone was wearing red t-shirts and jeans today. Like, about 70% of the people I saw. Why?
- Everyone smiles, all the time
- Even though this is an enormous city, today I saw massive butterflies and humming birds aplenty
- Aren´t I supposed to be in the Third World? There´s a sushi bar and a Starbucks round the corner from the hostel for heaven´s sake
- I was expecting lots of hassle in the street but in fact it´s nowhere near as bad as Paris can be - yay!

It´s still early now but I´m having an early night to get rid of the jet lag and will be up with the larks tomorrow to do loads more cool Mexican stuff!

Mexico!

And all of a sudden here I am on the other side of the world!

I´m slightly overwhelmed but totally happy - so much to tell but so little time as I´m about to go out for a drink with the other people in my super cool hostel. 4 French blokes, 2 Danish girls and a Uruguayan girl - all sat round talking a random French/Spanish/English mix. It´s so much fun!

There´s free internet access here so I will write what will hopefully be a proper post and not a postcard....