If you're going to San Francisco...

...Be sure to wear a scarf, gloves, hoodie and any other items of clothing which can help stave off the bloody cold!

So, I write to you from the US of A. My connection in Phoenix was delayed by two hours so I didn't arrive in San Francisco until midnight, by which time the BART (public transport) system was closed. Great. And it was raining. Great. I managed to get to my hostel, "The Green Tortoise" without too much trouble though. I wasn't entirely sure I wanted to stay at a hostel which bills itself as a party-central type place, but in the end I thought that it was better than going somewhere lifeless. The hostel is cool but one, slightly paradoxical, drawback of being really big and having loads of guests is that it is actually harder to meet and get to know fellow travellers, because it is quite impersonal and seems like everyone has formed little cliques.

I went to my room and was surprised to find that everyone was in bed at 1am. I thought this was a 'party' hostel? I try to be as quiet as possible sorting my stuff out, and get pointed to my bed by the only room member still awake. I reach up to the top bunk and chuck my bag onto the heap of bedding, only to find that this 'heap' then stirs and grunts with understandable surprise. Wrong bed. Whoops. So much for trying not to wake anybody up...

The next morning I head down for breakfast at 10:30, only to be told that breakfast stops at 10. Again, I'm a little bit bemused at how a hostel that is so focused on being an epicentre for crazy nights out and parties thinks it's logical to expect guests to rise before 10 in the morning...

As you can tell the American enthusiasm has really rubbed off on me. 

My plan for the day was to head to Fisherman's Wharf, which was really cool. Literally as well... I only had a jumper on and quickly realised the blue sky had lulled me into a false sense of security. I went to the Aquarium but in truth it was disappointing. The Golden Gate Bridge was at least five miles in the distance, but undeterred by the chilly weather, I decided to walk along the front so that I can get a little closer for some good pictures. "Getting a little closer" quickly turned into "getting much closer" and eventually, three hours later "well I may as well cross it now". So I did, and it was awesome. I was ok with looking down into the sea below, but I've realised that looking up really messes with my head. Taking some pictures proved a bit of a challenge for me. I got a bit lost on my way home, and was wandering around suburbia in the dark at 5:30pm with my legs severly aching (I left the hostel at 12 and had been walking non-stop). However, despite only being here for a day, I was already impressed with San Francisco, and felt it was definitely the kind of place I could live. There was some free beer in the hostel that evening so I made the most of it. Two small plastic cuploads and I was bloated and ready to hit the sack, feeling like a true man.

Golden Gate Bridge. And me.

 

This shot took a lot of perseverance and courage

Thursday was Thanksgiving. In Puerto Vallarta I met Teague, who lives in Oakland, and she invited me to a small dinner/party to celebrate. It was a fun evening, highlights included Jed's vegan chocolate chip cookies, finding out that Scott knew the AFI drummer when he was younger, reading a book on the 'Enneagram' and deciding after chapter 1 that I didn't need to read anymore (traits of 'a Perfectionist' include "enjoys making lists" and "is annoyed by poor spelling and grammar". Case closed.) And then there was Brian, a friend of a friend who ended up at the party despite not knowing anyone. In the car on the way to the house, Scott and Teague told me that Brian was into his American Football, so I was looking forward to having a good old chat with him. Unfortunately, Brian turned out to be an appropriate name for him, as it seemed he just fell short of having a brain. Even when it came to his favourite topic, Football, you couldn't really engage in any conversations with him. I would like to meet some American Footballers, but maybe Brian gave me an insight to what they would be like. In which case, maybe it's better that I don't. Here are a few examples, in addition to the fact that he spent 90% of the evening texting or talking on the phone, of the standard 'conversations' we were exposed to:

- "Dolphins gonna win the Super Bowl this year!"
- "Who can throw a football 70 yards? No-one? Well I could when I was at college."
- "My brother is an All-American. My brother is an All-American."
- "I hate the Jets!"
- "Oh god, the Jets score!"
- "I'm gonna call my mom."
- "Do you know how many girls I've slept with in San Francisco?! San Diego?! Las Vegas?!"

He got a little tiring, but then he was also oblivious to the constant mocking from the other guests (I didn't overdo it, but sometimes it was hard not to get involved, especially as he was directing that last quote at me...), so it was also quite entertaining.
 

Today (Saturday) I went to Japan Town (not sure if that's the official name, or if the girl at the reception just mutated the more familiar sounding 'Chinatown'). There wasn't a great deal of character in the area itself, but the Japan Centre was really cool, with traditional shops and loads of restaurants. I sat myself down at one and, unable to break the habit of a lifetime, had Chicken Katsu Curry. Well if it's good at Wasabi and Wagamama, I knew I wouldn't be disappointed in 'Japan Town'. Incidentally, my hostel is close to Chinatown and I have noticed that I haven't seen many 35-year old looking ones.

I was intending to go to the Golden Gate Park afterwards but it was getting late and I didn't really have time, so went back to Union Square for a bit of shopping. Macy's and Westfield were hectic and I didn't like them. The US has an awesome selection of chocolates and sweets (sorry, "candy") though, credit where credit's due. I was like a kid in a... well, in a sweet shop, stood in front of the shelves.

Before I left Mexico I finished another book, Nick Hornby's 'Juliet, Naked', and am nearing the end of 'Emperor: Gates of Rome' at the moment, so went to Borders to see if I could pick up volume two in the series. When I was browsing, I came across a new book in the '501' series, this one being '501 Must-See Cities'. I flicked to the England section to see which ones were recommended and was a bit surprised that Liverpool warranted a double spread. I mean, I know there are a few cool connections there, but generally... from there, I also thought that Manchester, Newcastle and Leeds were quite boring selections. I started to wonder if maybe Southampton, or heaven forbid, Portsmouth might even get a mention. I turned to the final page in the England section and was greeted with this:

Eat your heart out, San Francisco

Yes, I took a picture. It made my bloody day.

Hope that has been an interesting-enough read. When I was in Mexico I used to look forward to posting updates, but I haven't really had the same urge here. Not exactly sure why, perhaps because writing about a big city like this doesn't really seem that different to what many people have experienced quite a lot. San Francisco is a lovely city, but I miss Mexico. When I was there I never really wanted to move on to new places, whereas here, as much as I like San Francisco, I end up thinking about, and looking forward to being in England again. Perhaps because of the language, the weather and the culture, it all seems so similar to back home. Anyway, I'm still enjoying myself, so that's the main thing.

Twig

I was bitten by a tiger...

No word of a lie. Not many people have survived such horrific ordeals, but luckily I am something of a warrior, a gladiator you might say, so I have lived to fight another day. More on this later though.

As promised, here is an update from Puerto Vallarta, on the coast of Mexico directly west of Guadalajara. The bus took longer than expected and I finally arrived at 12:30 on Saturday night. I decided to come to Vallarta on Saturday because Guadalajara, as mentioned in the previous post, hadn't lived up to expectations, and at least this way I knew I could spend Sunday on the beach. There was still time on Saturday however, to meet up with Kelsey and Jenny, who I had met at the Tequila Hostel, for a drink at La Cantina. There were a couple of other girls with them, and two Mexican guys who they didn't know at all. The men in Mexico generally live up to their unpologetically sleazy stereotype, and it should also be noted that they are on the whole, quite short. It makes a welcome change to look around and recognise that I am one of the taller people around.

On Monday I met Kelsey and Jenny again, we had an awesome seafood lunch at Las Ocho Tostadas (a place with Suha had recommended) and then went to their hotel which was right on the beach. Unfortunately the weather was cloudy. Unbelievable. I've been in Mexico for 6 weeks and seen about 30 minutes of rain and no more than two or three overcast days during that time, and now my first day of proper sunbathing is met by a permanent grey roof. I wanted to have a tantrum, but in the end thought better of it. Instead, we sat in the hotel jacuzzi for about 3 hours, which was nice. Hopefully the staff there will be able to fix the 'bubble jet' appliance which I somehow managed to kick off the bottom of the pool. To be fair, I was under the influence; It was 2-for-1 cocktails, so I ordered two, but promptly received four. And had to pay for them. So really any damage done to the jacuzzi is a result of poor waiter skills rather than my own incompetence.

At 6:30pm, we went back out onto the beach because they were releasing the baby turtles. I got to hold one, before eventually letting him go at the seafront. He seemed to reflect my own traits of being cool but rude, so naturally I named him Raphael. As I started giving him my motivational talk about getting to the sea before any of the other 30 turtles (or "rivals"), I wondered if I should have perhaps christened him "Usain" instead. Nevertheless, Raphael did a good job and although the initial waves lapping the shore hindered his progress, he eventually found his feet, and made it to the sea in (joint) first place. I was very proud and was tempted to do a parade lap of the beach shouting "cowabunga!"



When I first met my little turtle (just hatched)





Raphael, post-motivatonal 'teamtalk'





It was an awesome way to finish the afternoon, and later we headed to a couple of bars. When we reached the second, the doorman first asked us where we were from before letting us in. Unsurprisingly, there weren't many Mexican people in this club. Vallarta is a lot more touristy than I had imagined (although I knew it would be to an extent). Some places remind me of bars in the Costa del Sol, with the main difference being that middle-aged Brits are middle-aged Yanks over here.

On Monday I had a fairly relaxed day, just spent a few hours on the beach. My hostel, Vallarta Sun, initially hadn't impressed me, but the people who run the hostel were really friendly and I decided to stay a bit longer to see how it worked out. I think in terms of room comfort etc, I may have been spoilt at Tequila and Hostel 333. When I was with Whitney in Guadalajara, she told me about her stay in the same Vallarta hostel a week earlier, and mentioned an old guy who is always on the computer, and who paces back and forth when you are using it. George, from the US, is still here even as I write this, and it is a bit annoying. I think he makes all the guests feel a little bit on edge. If it wasn't so irritating, it would probably be amusing. Here are some of the high- (or low-) lights:

- I get back from a club at 5am only to find that George is still up using the internet.

- He traps various guests into conversations they're not really interested in, but equally can't escape from. Over the past couple of days, I think I may have emerged as his favourite victim.

- On hearing that there is going to be a gay parade (Vallarta is the Mexican gay capital apparently. Obviously why I decided to come here, ha ha), George pipes up with "I tend to tell them that I'm trisexual, let them figure that one out". Ummmmmmmmm......... animals?

- He 'trapped' me the other day looking at a map (Elliot can testify that I can spend long periods of the evening staring at maps of the world), and when I mentioned going to the Caribbean, he started singing some old American folk song about Barbados. After the first two lines, he asked me if I knew it. Thinking that "No I don't" would suffice to shut him up was clearly an error, as he then proceeded to sing about three verses of the damn thing. I stood silently staring at the map, cursing myself for not scurrying into my room straight away, rather than pausing en-route to examine which countries lay on the equator (because that's the sort of crazy shit I think about).

Anyway, the following day I headed to Mismaloya. I got the bus with Sebastien, a PhD student from Dortmund, although he got off at a previous stop. I was going to the Zoo! As I have written lots about my previous Zoo trips, I will try and keep the generic descriptions down, but I have to attach some photos because... well, you'll see:

Ahhhh little Jaguar!

Ahhhh little Tiger!

As you may have cottoned on by now, the tiger that bit me was only 1 month old and its teeth weren't big or sharp enough to actually cause any flesh wounds. Both cubs (the Jaguar was three months old, so a little stronger) were still quite playful-verging on-aggressive though, at one point I thought the baby tiger might tear my shorts to pieces. On my walk around I also had a bag of food, which the Zoo provide. There are strict instructions on what food you can feed to which animals. It certainly made them more interested in me though. Recipients included the Brown Bear, Hippo, Giraffe, Parrot and Guinea Pigs. I got some cool shots of these too.



It got pretty close at one point, I was a little bit scared



Not really sure what to say about this one...



On Thursday a few of us (Greg & Hugo from France, Sebastien, Justine from Canada and Ollie from Australia) from the hostel hired a boat and we went to a beach called Yelapa. Even though Puerto Vallarta has its own beaches which I have been to, some of the nicest ones are a little further south (a 15 minute bus ride, or 30 minutes by boat). As well as Yelapa, I have been to Las Gemelas and Las Animas. On this boat trip we also stopped along the way to do some fishing. We each caught a fish and took them back to the hostel for dinner that evening, was pretty cool to be able to do that. The boat captain also caught a jellyfish and we passed it around. It didn't feel overly slimey until I passed it on and realised my hands were covered in gunk. On the way back from Yelapa I saw a Dolphin in the distance (maybe 100 yards away), but unfortunately we weren't able to get any closer sightings. I've realised that I don't like swimming in the sea... I think it's because the unknown waters, big fish, and jellyfish panic me somewhat. Even snorkelling in Greece unnerved me a bit and the fish there were tiny. I guess I'm a total pussy and should just get over it.



Puerto Vallarta Beach at 6:30pm



Most of my time in Vallarta has been made up of going to the beach for a few hours in the afternoons, sometimes going out in the evenings with people from the hostel, and trying to avoid George whenever possible. As I'm approaching my last few days in Mexico, I think I am adopting the Karl Pilkington approach of doing very little with my time so that the days don't go as fast. An excellent mindset to have when you're travelling, I'm sure you'll agree.

The next time I write it will probably be from San Francisco (I fly Monday afternoon). I will be sad to leave Mexico, which is a good sign I guess. Despite being here for almost 2 months, I feel that there is still so much in the area of the country I have been to that I haven't seen, nevermind the areas (e.g. Yucatan) that I haven't been to. I expect I'll be back one day.



The sun is finally setting on my Mexican adventure!

Twig

Guadalajara

I arrived quite early at the 'Hostel Centro Guadalajara', and having read that it had won awards in consecutive years, my first instinct was one of disappointment. It didn't feel particularly clean, and certainly not as welcoming and friendly as the website would have you believe. In some ways I guess this depends on the guests more than anything else, but I still think the way the hostel is run and set up influences this. Whitney (Atlanta) was already staying here however, and when she emerged later in the morning it was good to have a familiar face around. I also met Eric, a Dutch guy, and we chatted about watching the football (Chivas Guadalajara vs Cruz Azul) at a bar somewhere in town. We ended up, thanks to a recommendation from the girl on the hostel reception, in Tlaquepaque. It was a nice part of town, but also quite far (we arrived at half time), and the bar in question was fairly empty and there wasn't much atmosphere. The game also ended 0-0, seems like I can't even see a Mexican goal on the TV...

Back at the hostel I also met Nick, an Australian guy, and Robert. Robert was nice enough but also had his own little ways... He trapped me into a 'follow-up' conversation, even though we hadn't had an original one. When I pointed out this fact, however, he wasn't deterred and soon I was being shown all the comic strips he was working on. He seemed pretty convinced that "a lot of people would be interested in these stories", but they looked pretty dreadful to me. I didn't tell him that obviously, but rather made my excuses and escaped left.

To be honest, I already had a feeling that I wanted to move on to a different hostel, but stuck around at least for a night out with Eric, Nick and Whitney. The bar was ok, but having only slept for a few hours the previous night, I wasn't really in the mood, and as Nick put it, the beer was "going down like a fence post". Having arrived that night, Nick was also feeling like heading back so we got directions from Eric. The map we were given by the hostel was nothing short of pathetic, so we needed sound advice from the Dutchman in order to ensure a safe return to the hostel.

"Go down this street until you reach the big road. Cross it, and then once you get to Madero, go another couple of blocks and you'll reach the road the hostel is on".

Simple enough. Except we didn't encounter the 'big road' on the way to the bar, so problem one was figuring out exactly what constituted "big road". Once that had been established, we ended up wandering the streets for about an hour. Some of which I was glad I had company for (not because I am a romantic homosexual, but because they were a bit scary...) Finally we discovered that the road we wanted was actually before the turning to Madero, not after it as instructed, hence why we had been ambling aimlessly for so long. Cheers for that, "Eric"!

The following morning, I hear from Nick about some shenanigans that had occurred at the hostel the previous night (in the room next door to mine). He woke up in the middle of the night to find the woman from the hostel 'supervising' another random girl hacking his padlock off his locker. Somewhat understandably puzzled, he told the girl that that was his lock. She shrugged and moved onto another locker. The reason this happened was apparently that a guest from the hostel had broken his leg and was in hospital and needed his stuff. Perhaps a decent reason, but not really the best way to go about it from the hostel staff point of view... Added to a number of other factors, this story convinced me to spend my afternoon checking out another hostel. The 'Tequila Hostel' in fact. Not quite the party centre you'd expect from the name, it was clean and homely. Sky TV, a small pool and a guitar! I moved in the afternoon, and kicked up a bit of a fuss when Centro Hostel tried to charge me 60 pesos for 'use of the facilities after 11am'. Eventually they told me not to worry about it. Good.

Because my camera wasn't going to be fixed until Wednesday, I avoided doing too much in the way of sightseeing for the first few days. On Tuesday I went to Wal Mart to buy a pair of trainers. Not the best brand I don't think ('Sky') but not they're not too shabby and were less than 20 quid. Bargain. Not sure they'd go down too well with the girls of Guadalajara though, who are apparently known to be quite "Fresa". When Jenny (see later) asked me if I knew what this meant, I thought my guess of "Strawberry?" was a good one, but apparently the connotations are more along the lines of 'stuck up', 'rah', 'pretentious' etc. Perhaps this is the reason why there are so many hair-extension/wig shops throughout the city. The fact that this stood out to me should tell you how prevalent they are, it's crazy.

Other people I met here were Juan Carlos, Rojina, Arturo and Oscar, who all worked at Tequila Hostel and were really cool. Sean from America was really into his boxing, and despite merely doing it as a pasttime, on one of his trips to the local boxing gym, he managed to end up sparring with Saúl Alvarez, who is touted as the new Mexican boxing sensation! Stef & Hannah from England were a month or so into their Toronto to Rio trip, and joined me for several beers throughout the week, a meal at a restaurant (where they made the salsa in front of us) and inspired me to do some home cooking for the first time during my trip! Daniela from Germany and her fiancé Sal from Mexico. Sal was a cool guy who clearly wasn't a big fan of the Americans. It seemed like any conspiracy theory going, he bought, and every treaty ever written between his country and the US Government was to the detriment of Mexicans. He was also a historian by hobby, which was really interesting for one or two conversations, but when every topic seemed to come back to the corruption of the church, even if I didn't disagree with his thoughts, I felt like suggesting we got hammered instead.

[L to R:] Sal, Daniella, Stef, Hannah, Sean.

Then there was Michael, who I recognised from my time at the Centro Guadalajara hostel, and who only stayed a day or two because he didn't like the fact that people didn't wash their dishes up. Now, as Dan and Edgy will testify, I'm no slouch when it comes to keeping the kitchen clean, but I think when you're staying at a hostel, and the reason no-one washes up is because the cleaner does it all every morning, I think that's taking analness a bit far. Before he left Michael was telling me about a guy he met at the previous hostel who was covered in LA gang tattoos, and 'confided' in Michael that although he was now 'reformed', he had been in prison when he was younger, had robbed people all over the US and if he returns to the States he will probably be locked up again. In addition to these lovely facts, he also trained as part of the Ayrian Nation. Given that Michael is black, I don't blame him for feeling a bit uncomfortable with this guy! It also made me think back to the incident with Nick's locker with a bit more suspicion. Juan Carlos, to his eternal credit, actually told this guy in question earlier in the week that the Tequila Hostel was full. Not sure if my stay would have been quite so cosy otherwise.

On Thursday I finally headed out, camera in hand, to see the city. I found it amazing that I could just keep walking in the same direction and keep coming across new buildings, squares, monuments etc. I bumped into two fellow hostel guests, Kelsey and Jenny (from California and New York respectively) whilst I was out and we headed to the Mercado San Juan de Dios, apparently the largest market in Latin America. And it was indeed pretty massive. Almost a whole floor dedicated to selling electronics and trainers. I wasn't sure how any of the sellers could make money when competition was so fierce.



View across some of Guadalajara's main squares



Mercado San Juan de Dios

In the evening I finally settled down in front of Baltimore Ravens vs. Atlanta Falcons. I had been looking forward to it all week, and hence had brought it up many times with the other guests so they knew not to even think about watching a film or playing XBox. Hardly anyone reading this really cares, so I'll just outline the details... Falcons were winning by a fairly narrow margin the entire game. Ravens scored a Touchdown with 1 minute remaining. I was crestfallen. But then the Falcons found enough time to score a Touchdown themselves and reclaim victory from the jaws of defeat and I was ecstatic. Also emotionally drained, so my plans to head out that night quickly faded, especially as no-one else in the hostel really seemed up for it.

Generally my feelings of Guadalajara were that of a little disappointment. Lots of people had told me that it was an amazing city, better in fact than Mexico City. However, whilst I can't knock it in terms of being a lovely place, and probably a really cool city to live in, I get the impression that these comments are much like someone from Manchester saying that "Manchester is so much better than London". It's really not, so get over it. In addition, my stay at Tequila was really cool and I met lots of great people, but no-one really seemed up for partying, and after hearing that Guadalajara is Mexico's number 1 party city, I couldn't help but feel that when I left on the Saturday, I still had unfinished business there.

There has also been a rather big development in my life since coming to Guadalajara. Most of you know that I have long been a fan of the browns, and have been known to find yellows tempting from time to time. But this all changed in Guadalajara when I came across these beautiful specimens in one of the shopping centres:

New favourites

Now I can add reds and purples to the list. I was obviously talking about M&Ms, what else did you think I meant?

I am writing this from Puerto Vallarta and I have already done a couple of really cool things here, so I intend to post again shortly!

Twig



Fixed camera & Hallowe'en

My camera is now fixed, so I have been able to load a few pictures onto the latest post.

One thing I forgot to mention was that on Saturday 30 October, a few of us were going to a Hallowe'en party. I hadn't managed to get myself a costume, but to be honest when I turned up I thought it was probably better to have no costume than a poor one. The whole place was full of goths and punks and people really going for it with Hallowe'en style outfits. The club was awesome, and seeing goths dancing around to electronic and industrial music was exactly how you would imagine it to be in some sort of vampire movie. Suha had been looking forward to this party for ages, and I was starting to see why. However, I had half a beer and it wasn't going down too well. I said to Veronica that I was feeling tired, and rightly so she wasn't impressed. I was also a bit frustrated by this, but suddenly it seemed apparent that this tiredness wasn't normal. I mentioned to Suha that I felt so tired that I was on the verging of fainting, and sure enough, a couple of minutes later, everything started going a kind of black and purple haze (that wasn't just the goths, and Jimi Hendrix wasn't playing at the time), then the voices and music turned into a big mixture of fuzz and before I knew it I had collapsed. Next thing I remember was ice being put over my head and slowly waking up. It must have been the heat in the club, because ten minutes later I was well enough to get up and walk around, but it still seemed like a good idea to head back (well, Suha took me back) to the hostel. Quite embarrassing really, don't think I've ever fainted before, must be getting old... Also felt bad for Suha, as the party she had been looking forward to for weeks had lasted all of 1 drink and 30 minutes before some unacclimatised foreigner decided to nearly die in her company. Sorry about that...

I have left Mexico City!

Yes, I finally found the courage to pack my bags and head west. The decision was made easier by the fact that Beatriz was interested in going, Suha said she felt like a break from the city having quit both her job at the hostel and her university course within a few days of each other, and James had returned after a couple of weeks in New York and expressed a desire to join the fun, complete with a recommendation from his guidebook about a small town called Patzcuaro, which was well known for its 'Dia de Muertos' (day of the dead) festival. Hallowe'en is fairly big in Mexico, but apparently 'Day of the Dead' is more important, and occurs on the 1st and 2nd of November.

The next morning, I was up first, and as we had agreed to try and leave by about 10am, I made sure that there was enough clunking around to wake James, who was sleeping next door. I texted Suha to make sure she was up, but didn't hear anything for a while. I haven't been able to shift my organisational tendencies since I've been here unfortunately. Well, I say unfortunately, but I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing that when I agree a time of 10am with people, I am usually ready by at the latest 10:15... (even though I must concede, I am also often the last one out the door as I always remember something at the very last minute). Beatriz wasn't up until 9:45, and then said she wasn't sure if she was going to come anymore because she was having problems with her bank card and needed to sort it out. We decided to hang around for a while, but eventually decided to press on (at midday!) without her. The bus we took was pretty awesome, first-class style seats (3 to a row, to give you an idea of the size and space), and the 5 hour journey went quite quickly. The views on the way were pretty spectacular (I took some photos and will post when I get chance, more on this later...), and I had a craving to go horseback riding across the plains and over the mountains. My imagination may also have had me plucking arrows from my quiver, and accurately dispatching them at any unfortunate beast that dared to cross my path.

On arriving in Patzcuaro, James checked his guidebook again and informed us that he hadn't seen the sentence which read something along the lines of "Because the Day of the Dead festival in Patzcuaro is so well known, many visitors throughout Mexico come to stay at this small town, so if you want somewhere to stay it is advisable that you book months in advance." And here we were, rocking up on the evening of the event, with no reservations to our name. Beatriz phoned to say she was on her way, and would be with us around midnight. She was also bringing a tent, and after one or two luckless enquiries, we were beginning to think we might need it. Even though the festivities began at 10pm, we decided to wait until she arrived.

As James and I poorly navigated the crowds, we lost Suha, who has a habit of wandering off without a moment's notice. When we found her again, she brought news of an available hotel room, which was a little bit pricey, but also quite comfortable. There was much rejoicing, partly because it was starting to get pretty cold and the thought of pitching up a tent in the middle of nowhere was getting less appealing by the minute.

The festival itself was held on the island of Janitzio, and we had to take a boat to reach it. The journey out was fun, and the mist falling across the lake added to the eerieness of the occasion. The boat back at 5:30am was less fun as the icy air clung onto our tired bodies without much retaliation. Up to this point, I have been referring to a 'festival', because this is what I fully expected it to be, a bit like Hallowe'en. However, when we reached the main hotspot for activity, it was clearly a lot more sombre than anything we imagined. Many Mexicans (for the most part indigenous older women) sit quietly by decorative arrangements scattered throughout a hillside graveyard, and mourn loved ones who have (recently, presumably) passed away. The huge line of tourists weaves in and out of these displays and even though it was fascinating, there was definitely a sense of intruding, and Beatriz (or maybe James) described the occasion as rather voyeuristic. I suppose this has been a tradition for many years, and so I don't think these women would have been offended as such, but I still felt it important to be quiet and respectful. We saw a couple of guys acting rather drunkenly and it didn't seem right. Then there was an American 'dude' who felt it important to share with James that there was "a lot of spiritual shit going on" and that he "really felt part of this". We came to the conclusion that he really felt nothing of the sort and that he was in actual fact, a complete tosser.

Dia de Muertos, Patzcúaro

We returned back to the hotel at about 6:30am, when Beatriz announced she was leaving to get a bus to a beach on the coast. It was a bit of a surprise, the three 'remainders' all felt far too tired to comtemplate anything of the sort, but it was fair enough as she wanted to get to the beach by the afternoon.

The next day we wandered round the main plaza in Patzcuaro for a bit and went to a 'Michoacana' for an ice cream. The state of Patzcuaro (and Morelia) is Michoacan, and is famous for its ice cream. I went for 'Choco Crispies' because a) I still have the mental age of a 5 year old and b) I thought it would be done really well. I was disappointed to learn that it was essentially frozen breakfast cereal, once you've left it in the bowl for several minutes. There was indeed the 'chocolate milk' ice cream supporting cast, but the stars of the show, the 'crispies' themselves, amounted to nothing more than soggy coco pops... most disappointing. I would like to say I learnt my lesson, but the next time I had such an opportunity, I went for 'choco cookie' which failed to yield significantly better results...

Chloe and Donna (mentioned several posts ago) had been in contact to say they were near Cancun and that their current island (Isla de Holbox) was amazing. James decided that he was going to brave the 30-hour coach journey and join them. He sent them a facebook message to tell them he was on his way, and at some point during his mammoth voyage, Donna wrote back to tell him that unfortunately they had already moved on. If you're reading this James, I hope that wasn't too annoying, but I get the impression you were happy lounging on an awesome beach regardless of whether the girls were there too!

This left Suha and I to spend to a couple of days in Morelia. I had read that it was one of the most beautiful colonial cities in Mexico. At first I was unimpressed, as it didn't seem out of the ordinary, but the more we explored the more I realised that it was actually a cool city and had a good mix of tradition style and modern practicality.

We hadn't booked any hotels, and wandering up and down the streets that I had checked out earlier in the internet cafe was to no avail. It rarely is to be honest; I always think that making a note of the road names and rough location will be sufficient to find a place, but the infamous lack of signposts, maps and advertising often come back to bite me. I don't know how hostels make money when their main objective seems to be to keep themselves as well hidden as possible. We reached 'Hotel Colonial' and decided to have a look. It seemed nice enough but we had also had another hostel recommended to us which was about a 20 minute walk from our current location. I felt we needed to check out the actual rooms of both places before parting with our money. My bag was killing me, and rather than dragging it all through the hotel, I told Suha to quickly go and check the room whilst I waited in reception and I'd trust her judgement. She said ok and then wandered outside; I assumed she was taking a phone call. After twenty minutes I went to see why this call was taking so long. Suha was nowhere in sight. I peered down the sideroads, but nothing. I found this a bit strange, but went back inside and waited a bit longer, having to try to explain to the hotel manager in Spanish that I was waiting for my friend to return but at the moment I didn't have a clue where she was or when she would be back... Eventually, about an hour later, Suha shows up and, I think understandably, I was bemused and a little bit angry. When I asked what had happened, Suha wore a puzzled look and replied, "I went to check out the room at the other hostel like you asked me to...." A bit of a misunderstanding then. Not sure what to make of the fact she thought I would ask her to walk half way across the city and report back like some sort of field agent. Chivalry is dead when I am involved, clearly. Thankfully, the 'report' was that the other hotel wasn't that nice, so we stayed at the Colonial. Having been sat in the reception for so long, I would have felt a bit awkward getting up and leaving for somewhere else.

There wasn't much to report in particular in Morelia, but I will try and put some photos up, particularly of the cathedral which was awesome. We went to see "Paranormal Activity 2" at the cinema before we left town. I was expecting something pretty dreadful, but it was actually not too bad. On my last night in Mexico City I went to see "Saw: The Final Game", which was less scary but far more gruesome. Some bits were a bit sick, some bits quite comical (but not for the squeamish).

Me, James and Beatriz preparing for Saw 3D.

The plan was to head to the south coast of Michoacan and find a beach, preferably the same beach as Beatriz, who by now had met up with San Diego Whitney. I make it sound like we would go to one of the several beaches along the coast and hope they happened to show up, but we tried to be a bit more coordinated than that. Unfortunately any texts from the others were a bit vague and uncommited, so we ended up having to make a decision without them. As it transpired, at 4am in Lazaro (a beach resort, but from the brief glimpse I got of it, also something of an urban eyesore) there was only one bus leaving in the next few hours, which was for Caleta. We knew Beatriz and Whitney weren't there, because that was their first destination and now they were on the move, but it didn't matter. We got on the bus.

We turned up in Caleta at about 6am. It did not appear to be a very nice place. Clearly a very small, very poor village, we wandered along the road hoping to see some sort of hostel or hotel. We found one eventually and went in to get a room. In hindsight, we could have ventured further down the road and checked out a few other hotels, but when it's pitch black, you're really tired, and you're in a relatively uninhabited place, you don't think too much about the options. No-one looks at the menu in a greasy spoon life. Nevertheless, the hotel room was decent enough, and overlooked the Pacific Ocean and the town's lighthouse. It was a nice view, and waking up to it in the morning (well, afternoon) was also rather pleasant.

View from the hotel in Caleta

We wandered down to the beach in the afternoon, and again I was surprised at how little there was there. A few beachside restaurants with no customers, and a couple of men working on a fishing boat. The first stretch of beach was a bit stoney and I was keen to walk further onto the next section. This was actually pretty breathtaking. It was like something from a film set. As the waves crashed in against the shore, a towering terracotta cliff face climbed above us, with palm trees gathered at the back of the beach. Walking further still, we found a small cave and rockpools, which sat below some larger rocks. The sand was perfect, no stones to avoid or suffer, but sand with consistency solid enough to run on, or lie on, without getting covered in the stuff. A few minutes after we had picked our spot, some local boys conviently decided to set up a football pitch close by, whereby any goal scored or any near misses would have almost certainly meant the ball rolling and hitting us. The overriding feeling was, however, that of desperately wanting to join in with the game. Once the boys had left, we were virtually the only people on the entire stretch of beach, save for the odd swimmer or photographer. It was amazing, and I will definitely be attaching a photo here soon so you can all be ridiculously jealous of me.





Beach at Caleta











The following evening we went back to Lazaro for a connection. Whilst we were waiting for the busses, we saw a news bulletin about the recent drug baron vs police war. There were roadblocks, car fires, possibly shootings, and it was all taking place in.... Patzcuaro and Morelia. We contemplated waiting until the morning, as our routes, particularly Suha's, would take us in that direction, but in the end decided we would probably be ok. Suha headed back to Mexico City and fifteen minutes later my bus was ready to take me to Guadalajara. It was 1:30am and took 8 hours. I managed to get a bit of sleep but not a great deal. Before we left Lazaro however, there was still enough time for me to realise my camera was broken. This was a slightly annoying development in my trip and I hope that it is fixable. Hence why there aren't any photo uploads at the moment. Sorry about that, but you know what they say, a word tells a thousand pictures. If the word is 'collage'.

Twig