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View of the Avenida de los Muertes from the Pyramida de la Luna

The next day I fled north to Guanajuanto, a small university city built into ravines. This is a beautiful little place and, so I thought, great to relax in, wandering its cobbled streets, between its graceful architecture and up to the Panoramica road for a great view of town. I spent two days not doing much else but eating Super Noodles in an attempt to keep the cost of Mexico down (Its cheap, but not that cheap, trying to travel on $15 USD per day is hard, its the bus travel that kills it, but then its a big country, there's a long distance to go between places), I felt a sense of elation eating my noodles on the rooftop terrace of my hotel watching the sunset behind the town.

Slowly heading towards the coast my next stop was Guadalajara, Mexico's second largest city. With my restrictive budget the only hotel I could afford doubled as a brothel. But it wasn't too bad, it was a brothel in the Steinbeck sense, a community - one of the girls used to pinch my face every time I entered or left the hotel. Still, sleeping in a brothel, alone, on Valentines Day. That is pretty sad! Again there wasn't much to do in town other than wander around, sit in the various plazas and try more culinary delights. Despite its size the Centro is quite compact and kind-of reminded me of the town in Lowry's 'Under the Volcano'. One side trip I did take from Guadalajara was to Tequila. This little town is the epicentre of you-know-what industry and I took a tour of the Jose Cuervo distillery which produces 70,000 litres of the devils water per day. Luckily my tardiness ensured that I got there for the last our, after all the organised groups and my group consisted of me, two mexicans and their Japanese business partner. The tour was interesting and I got to eat some of the fermented agave (the plant from which the juice comes) and at the end got a free Marguerita before taking the bus back to Guadalajara, minus my hat which some Mexican bastardo stole on the way there!
 

Jose Cuervo distillery, Tequila

After an 8-hour night bus-ride to Lazaro Cardenas, a seedy port town on the Pacific, and a further 7 hour ride along the coast I was in Acapulco. As dirty and tacky as you imagine but as I had missed Puerto Vallerta I thought I had better drop in on one of the Pacific resorts. My main reason for going was to see the clavidistas (Cliff divers) which were cool.

I quickly shot down the coast on another night bus to Puerto Escondido, a much smaller beach town with a reputation for surfing. It seemed quite quiet when I was there, it made me think of the hotel in Tennessee Williams 'Night of the Iguana' and also reminded me a little (though not the sea) of Cherating in Malaysia.  I spent a couple of days not doing much but lying on the beach, relaxing in hammocks and treated myself to my old fave - muesli with fresh fruit and yoghurt, though it wasn't as good as those I have had in India and South-east Asia.

Fully rejuvenated I had yet another night bus, this time heading inland to Oaxaca City. This is a beautiful town and my favourite so far, great food, great people and great sights, it gave me a sense of enormous well-being (and then I was happy for the rest of the day, safe in the knowledge that a bit of my heart was devoted to it). Close by also are the ruins of Monte Alban. They are supposed to be free on Sundays but this has been changed so it is only Mexican nationals. However I quickly surveyed the area and spotting a gap in the perimeter on the north ridge I scrambled through the scrubs, under cover of the tree-line, (I did come out twice and if it had been the 'Nam and it was the Ashau valley I would of been plugged full of AK rounds!) and then I was in the ruins, for free. I was glad I hadn't paid because although they are in a great location on a hill, they are not nearly as spectacular as Teotihuacan. I spent the rest of my time in Oaxaca wandering it very colonial streets and chatting to people in my guesthouse, including a Polish guy called Tomec. We chatted for hours on all sorts of subjects and it reminded me of Dean Moriarty and Carlo Marx (I think it was) in On The Road where the talk incessantly for hours and Kerouac watches them and they are trying to find the real truth!

Needing to cool off my next stop was San Cristobal de Las Casas in the Chiapas highlands, similar to other hill stations I have visited but Spanish. There are also villages, San Juan Chamula and Zinacantan, surrounding and I walked out to these one day (11 km). These were interesting and I really enjoyed the walk, I also felt good to have seen them for free and not paid $10 for the privilege of visiting on a tour with all the other (mainly US/Canadian) tourists, a good earner, ten dollars to visit two villages, the bus can hold 40 people, do the math. They have a lot of history as they were central in the Catholic purge in the 20's and 30's and also the centre of the Zapatista uprising in the mid-90's. In fact there are still villages around that are off limits as they are Zapatista strongholds. I was saved the walk back as I accepted a lift with two friendly Mexicans, again the language barrier was insurmountable as I tried to tell him his car stereo (a flashy Kenwood) was cool, but he thought I meant turn the volume up, so we went crashing down through the hills with some Salsa beats blaring out!
 

After a final day wandering around San Cristobal I attempted to get a bus to Palenque, site of more ruins. This proved difficult, I bought a ticket for the 9:15 bus. At 9:45 I was told it had been cancelled and the next one was 11:00. What is it about Mexicans and leaving things so late. The buzz word here is manana (tomorrow) but it gets beyond a joke when it becomes "by manana I want to be 100 yards along the road"

Ruined Church, San Juan de Chomula

 I feel like one of those speed-walkers slaloming between the sloth-like Mexicans! At 11:45 I eventually left, in a rickety old bus with barely and windows or tire tread, careering 2200 metres down the mountainside. I don't know why but I feel more at home on these buses, my bag piled up with sacks of spuds and onions and planks of wood. Anyway I got to Ocosingo, less than halfway and was shepharded onto a dreaded Thai-style minibus, God I hate them, for the rest of the journey. I got into Palenque at 5:30 pm and after finding a bed on a rooftop dorm, which is pretty nice, treated myself to a cerveza with my enchiladas and a small slice of cake.

That was yesterday. Today I visited the ruins of Palenque. Again, free on Sundays but for Mexicans only. Again I found a way in, though being in the jungle it was more dense and damp (perhaps on patrol in the Delta as opposed to Ashau or Khe Sanh) but provided more cover and again I was in the ruins for free. The ruins themselves are probably the nicest yet, but again its the setting that does it, the ruins are surrounded all over by the jungle (think Ta Prohm or Preah Kahn at Angkor) and built on a hill there are also various waterfalls around the site. The town itself, some 7.5 km from the ruins (another peaceful walk) is probably the least appealing I have been to in Mexico, its not bad, it just doesn't have much going for it.

Ruins, Palenque

Right thats it. I am off to the Yucatan peninsular tomorrow for the next fortnight or so. I will leave you with a quote from Graham Greene's 'Lawless Roads' (a travel book he wrote whilst investigating the religious oppression here and the inspiration for his novel 'Power and the Glory') "(Mexican food) is all a hideous red and yellow, green and brown, like art needlework and the sort of cushions popular among gentlewomen in the Cotswold's." He's wrong of course. The food here is great, I never ate so many tortillas, chilies and beans before.