If you're going to San Francisco

We drive along the highway, blue skies, sun shining, towards San Francisco. We cross the very long Bay Bridge that halfway along goes through a tunnel on an island. In the distance we make out Golden Gate bridge, one of the most iconic images of America.


Driving into the centre of famous steep streets and great looking buildings is like being on a film set of many a high speed car chase, apart from the one way systems and traffic lights.
We stop in a Victorian building building with old style ornate metal doored lifts and views over the streets covered in sun and style. I like this place, a lot.
You can't forget it's still winter but when the sky is clear and the sun is out everything is better and this is what I always thought California was like.


There's clearly not as many homeless here as in Vancouver and the ones that are around don't hassle us. Around Union Square a couple hang around but there's not much there for us anyway. A few tourists are having there photo taken outside Macy's and other non-descript buildings.
Another city, another Chinatown. It's a big one too.

I suppose it's only a few thousand miles across the water to China from here. It's the first Chinatown I've seen that sells souvenirs and t-shirts rather than just food and Chinese trinkets.
Those no avoiding those steep streets. It can be a killer walking around all day, which is why so many tourists are on the trams stood on the outside. The trams look cool and add to the whole scene of San Francisco as they traverse the angled streets. Everywhere makes a good photograph here. It's like there was an agreement when all the building were put up that they all had to have a similar yet unique style and colour. There doesn't seem to be any gritty areas either, it all just flows into one beautiful city.
San Francisco is a peninsula so therefore it's surrounded by water on three sides and connecting bridges like the Golden Gate. This can be seen from up at the Coit Tower, which we climb up to for sunset across the bay. Oddly at night the Golden Gate bridge isn't lit up like the long Bay Bridge is and thus doesn't look as good at night. But from Coit Tower you not only can see the hilly streets of San Fran but the former prison island of Alcatraz.
We walk towards Little Italy with the smell of garlic wafting through the air and Italian looking blokes smoking on the street talking in, surprisingly, Italian. Nearby is a leafy green square and good looking white church.


We visit a famous book store, City Lights, that was famous for it's connection to the Beat poet movement of the 60's, of which San Fran was central to. Many a famous poet and musician have visited here as seen by the photos of Bob Dylan stood in the adjacent alleyway. It's a true bookshop full to bursting with scattered books and a floor dedicated to poetry upstairs. They even publish books here too. Practically next door is the bar Vesuvio. Owned and run by poets and drunks, possibly one in the same, this place is scattered with 60's throwback San Fran artefacts and pictures. It's a quintessential American bar. Well, in my mind anyway. The whole area looks good, a huge jazz mural adorns the building across the street and through the upstairs stained glass windows of the bar you can see the mural down the alley.

Across the street in the other direction is a 'flat iron' style building of triangular proportions with a much newer, but no less good looking, pointy skyscraper looming behind.
We eat curry and chat to a Nepalese guy who's missing England a lot, 'Even London is cheaper than here!'.
New Years Eve. We walk up to Lombard Street which is home to the 'crookedest street'. This street coming down Russian Hill has been featured in many films and car chases and has many tourists driving down it taking photos whilst hanging out of the window or running down in front of cars. I didn't realise people lived on this street but they do.
We stroll around an upscale shopping district and dive into a decent coffeeshop for a cuppa where a guy leaves a very expensive camera and a bit of equipment next to us, we go to hand it in of course, and he comes back in, 'I've done this a few times now!'. Crikey!
It reminded me of being in Peru and walking up to a cash machine as it asks if I would like another transaction, someone had left their card in and I could've easily wiped out their account. If I was that sort but I'm not so Laura chased the girl down the street and handed her card back. Turns out she'd also done it before but didn't seem to fussed.
New Years Eve was time for Les Claypool the bass genius from Primus. We arrive at the Filmore, one of the most famous music venues in the world and has been home to the biggest names in rock history for decades. From the outside it's unassuming and we walk past it unsure of where it is. Trying to find somewhere to get a drink is more difficult. It's not even that early, around half 7, but out of the 2 or 3 bars nearby only a pizzeria selling beer has anyone inside. It'll do.
Once inside the venue we realise how small the place is, my kind of place really. The walls inside are covered with concert posters from decades gone by including bands like Led Zeppelin, The doors and Jimi Hendrix. The theme is 'Mad hatters' and there's plenty of home made giant hats around. The gig was brilliant, funk-tastic and the band came dressed in various sea related themes, Les was the sailor, the saxophone player had a huge fish head and a a guest vocalist was wearing a giant shark suit. Balloons covered the place on the stroke of New Year as Les played funky bass to a load of American nutters and us. A guy kept walking through the crowd saying, 'mushrooms' in peoples ears. A couple of sea based numbers later and it was all over and we were outside waiting for the bus in the cold clutching our free posters and the t-shirts I'd bought. Definitely one of the best New Years ever.
And with that the next day we headed south, after driving down the crooked Lombard Street for full on tourist experience. We knew that we'd be back to San Fran soon enough.
We hit the beach south of San Fran on New Years day in the sunshine, now that was a pretty damn cool way to start 2008.
I say hit the beach but after about 10 minutes of being outside with my t-shirt on I had to run back to the car freezing! I don't know how those surfers put up with it sometimes.

To Seattle and beyond

The longest part of the gloomy rain sodden four hour bus ride from Vancouver to Seattle was getting through customs. Everyone has to get off the bus with all their belongings and the driver has to get everyone's bags for checking by US officials. Thing is it's very slow. Every single day 3 buses from different companies arrive 4 times during that day at roughly the same time. You'd have thought there would be some kind of preparation for this influx of people but no. One guy on the customs desk and three guys behind standing around talking crap. I'm still not sure why we had to pay $6 to re-enter the US either but we did.
We arrive in Seattle, spotting the famous Space Needle from a distance like we were looking for Blackpool Tower. It was throwing it down, but luckily our bus dropped us only a couple of blocks from our intended hotel. We still got soaked. Seattle definitely lives up to it's reputation for being wet!
We needed to get down the coast fast so hiring a car turned out to be one of best ways to do it, that way we could see a bit on the way too. We didn't see anything of Seattle other than the car hire place because we knew we'd be back to drop the car off anyway. Unfortunately, the car hire contract we signed didn't allow us to go any further than Oregon state, in other words into California. On the second day we were driving through the snow covered rolling landscape of the California mountains. Excellent.
From Seattle it didn't take long to get into the hills and the snow. Even on the main interstate the snow is piled high at the roadside whilst we drive into thick flakes. Endless green hills covered in snow and a eerie mist. It looked like the opening credits of a film. Now this is America.


Further along the highway we pass endless signs telling me to buy any item you can imagine. The road signs here not only tell you what petrol stations are coming up ahead but also what motels and fast food joints are in town. I'm constantly feel the need to eat after being bombarded with KFC, Subway and Taco Bell signs.
Stopping in an no nothing town that mainly consists of one road of generic fast food places and petrol stations is a cheaper alternative to a tourist attraction town. When night comes round I'm quite glad to come across yet another strip of this glowing signs of the night.
Our aim is to get to San Francisco for the day before New Years Eve and stop for a couple of nights. We manage it in two days, not bad from Seattle. The stop outside San Francisco was a motel by the side of the highway, standard. A MacDonalds was next door and a guy is getting beaten by a group of blokes in the car park. Various shouting and noise continues for a while. There's nothing like a good beating to make you feel at home.
Driving in America is easy enough. It seemed a bit confusing in Seattle with the constant Stop signs and bad signs but once on the highway you see another side to American life. Huge trucks and absolutely massive bus size campervans are everywhere.
California looks good though even though I didn't quite expect there to be this much snow, I thought it was sunny and hot all year round. Damn you Hollywood!

Vancouver on the rocks

I knew it was going to be cold but still, cold is cold. And this is cold. It's that icy wind that gets right into your bones, yet still we see people in shorts and sat outside coffee shops like it's the middle of frickin summer! Are these people numb or what?!
The transport system doesn't leave us in the cold though and a simple couple of buses gets us right into town, and it's not only poverty stricken stumps that use them (unlike Dallas).
Vancouver has consistently been around the top of international polls and research of the best cities in the world to live in. Last year it came joint 3rd with Vienna behind Zurich and Geneva of best cities to live. I was keen to see why.
I'd heard about the pockets of homeless about but after 10 minutes on the streets around our hotel we realise that the pockets are overflowing. Every couple of minutes we're turning down change giving to various street living tramps. It's very odd to me that the homeless here, North America that is, seem to expect people to give them cash. I can only but imagine what would happen in China.
Mental health and drug addiction is also a problem and many mental health institutions have been closed down meaning random nutters walk the streets day and night shouting abuse at themselves, and sometimes us. Brilliant. Number 3 in the world!? You're having a laugh!
But saying that, good stuff is abound in Vancouver and once you've zig-zagged through the guys sticking out their hands the place is good looking. The sky is a very blue blue and and the waters edge location and snow covered mountain background make for scenic living.
Snow based action is big here in winter. Grouse Mountain being only an hour away from downtown means that you could finish work and go snowboarding in the evening with the slopes being lit up like giant Christmas trees.

Upon arrival at our hotel we get offered free tickets to an African music show that evening. Free, my kind of price. Not normally my thing but the show itself was tremendous. Some powerful drumming and extremely powerful dancing all telling the history of South Africa. Really good stuff. As we leave the theatre we see homeless guys waiting outside asking for money. That's enterprising! Normally there are guys selling posters and the like but to actually set up with your scraggy dog and bent cardboard sign is a sign of a true marketeer.
It's a shame because downtown Vancouver is a nice looking city that has many a modern building interspersed with green roofed classic European structures.
It's also got leafy areas such as Gastown and Yaletown that are good to stroll around even if I can't afford to buy a thing. Gastown is the original part of Vancouver that once was a bit rough but now is smartened up. It includes a well photographed steam clock that pours out steam and whistles every 15 minutes, just for show now as it's run on electric. Walk on a bit further and you enter a large Chinatown that seems to be branching out all over the place. This is the nearest to China we've been for a long time, and looking at the lizards on sticks for sale I remember why I'm not that bothered about going back. It's a bit scruffy in places and we keep on walking to what seems like the edge of town with battered old crumbling buildings and litter blowing all over the place. The characters become scruffier too and as we look around I notice we are the only people who don't live on the streets. Oddly we don't get asked for change here. We head back. On the way we stop off at a nice looking Chinese Garden that's happily hobo free.
Surviving on a low budget here is difficult. Luckily for us we're located next to a block of cheap pizza places that sell large slices for $1.25, bargain even when they add the tax. Tax is another gripe of mine. Most places in Canada and America don't include the tax in the price on the shelf so when you get to the till it's actually another 13% or 10% or 9% or 6.5% or 3% more depending on what the item is. It drives me right up the wall constantly. Even when you ask store clerks what the tax on certain items is they often don't know, so what's the point?
Visiting the large Stanley Park on the edge of town gives us a break from the homeless and a chance to walk in semi-wilderness. It also provides great views back onto Vancouver over the water whilst watching sea planes fly in and out. There's a few walks around the park that take in totem poles, the odd statue and large trees. A good break from the city and not too far from downtown. A storm last year ravaged the area and toppled many an ancient tree so a lot of work is still left to be done. We can still get down to one of the beaches, the dark sand kind, and walk around the windswept rocks.
We manage to catch a Winter solstice night that was taking place for free in the fashionable Yaletown area. This involved some wacky music, a bit of crappy religious music, some odd maze paper bag scenario and some hippy-esque themes.


We walk back along the harbour into town checking out the flash boats and waterfront apartments and can't help thinking of the amount of money that is floating around here.
Christmas approaches and after 6 months of travelling around we decide to stay put and do not a lot for a few days over the festive period. Christmas day itself is a bit of a nothing day for us, if there's ever a day when travelling the world doesn't seem to great it's this day. Everything is shut aswell. On Christmas Eve we manage to get out of town onto a suspension bridge in a canyon just out of town. An old tourist attraction that still gets em in. As a side note there is a guy who works at the bridge whose job it is to sit in a small box all day saying, 'Please do not rock the bridge or run on the bridge'. Bummer. But when we get back we realise everything is quickly shutting up shop for Christmas.....at 17:30!!

We struggle to get a booking in somewhere that's open on Christmas Day and would you believe it they don't even have turkey on the menu. What the hell is going on! I mean come on! At least it snowed.

On Boxing Day we head up to Grouse Mountain for views over the city and to eat at the very fancy restaurant up there. This enables to get up to the mountain top without paying the expensive cable car that everyone has to pay before they've even got onto the snow, then they have to pay further cash for sky lift passes and so on. Too pricey for the likes of us. Playing around in the powder-like snow is comic and eating at the restaurant is very good indeed.
We do wait for an hour down at the bottom for our taxi to not turn up. We then get the last bus and miss the connecting bus so then have to wait another half an hour in the freezing cold. I needed a stiff drink or three.
Overall I liked Vancouver. I'd go back. The endless Starbucks, Vancouver has more than anywhere else, and people sitting outside in the freezing cold still trying to look good is annoying but forgiveable. But to say it's even in the top 10 of cities to live in the world is a bit of an overstretch. It's not in my top 5 and I've not seen half of the what the world has to offer. The homeless is a massive problem and bothers me from day one. Not being able to relax doesn't make for a pleasant time. But it still has plenty to offer. Nearby mountains, boat-based action, nice wooded parks, swanky neighbourhoods and a diverse population. Crime was one factor that lost Vancouver points in the rankings and this must be related to the amount of addicts roaming the streets. The homeless are truly mental. I can think of at least 5 cities I'd rather live just off the top of my head and all of them are in South America. Now I wouldn't have thought I'd ever say that.


After 10 days it was time to get moving again. We had tickets for a New Years gig in San Francisco and had to get down there some how. A four hour bus ride to Seattle awaits.

Car trouble

After a free entry night at the very good, and huge, Dallas museum complete with live Jazz band we head to Fort Worth. This holds the old part of Dallas that has now been renovated, the Stockyards. A taste of the original cowboy, I read. We take the train and I can honestly say it's the slowest train I've ever been on, cars speed past with ease. This shouldn't be so. It appears that on the train we're surrounded by people who've just got out of prison and can't wait to get their drink 'on' before seeing their kids in the 'projects'. I can't help but think these are just whining idiots who want to sit on their arse and blame the government for all their wrong doings. The 'projects' they live in are fantasy lands in comparison to what we've seen. And People do talk like they're in films here, bad ones.
It's throwing it down and a gloom hangs over Fort Worth. It really shouldn't have taken over an hour on the train to get here. We walk the streets alone except for the odd guy hanging around one of the four courthouses we see. I didn't realise there would be this many black people in Texas, I thought the South was where they were hated.
The map we have is clearly aimed at the driver, unfortunately I only realise this after an hour and a half walking a very grim scenic trail along the dirty river and then beside a pavement free road. We almost give up on the Stockyards but when no buses show up we carry on to the Stockyards and eventually arrive and dive into a saloon bar sodden.
Luckily it's a decent bar and we take a stool and admire all the cowboy hats stuck to the ceiling and walls.
A rodeo would later be on in the Mexican looking building down the road but we'd have to wait 2 hours and return to the train station not totally sure if there would be a train for us.
We manage to catch the train back to Dallas with some loud-mouth kids rapping to themselves trying desperately for someone to take notice. I felt embarrassed for them.
We seem to have missed the last bus and have to resort to an overpriced taxi, not what you want to be doing on a backpackers budget. Even kids have cars here! Necessary is an understatement.
A return to the Old Monk, the great pub nearby, and an evening chatting to a few people of which one of them instantly guesses that we're from Preston. Spooky. We chat about the homeless and that a guy even asked us, 'Do you have anything in that bag for me?', that day. Of course I carry a plastic bag around all day with goodies for the homeless! Freaks. One of the women we talk to is from England but lives in Vancouver, our next destination, and remarks on the homeless problem there. We can only but see for ourselves.
It hadn't yet sunk in that we were in America, the land of a thousand films. The place we see everyday on TV. No sooner have we arrived we head North over the border to Canada.

'So, what brings you to Dallas?'

'Umm, I've no idea really'. Oh, yes well the real reason was that there's no direct to Vancouver from Mexico so it means a few days stop over in Dallas is my first introduction to North America.
Before getting to our hotel a lot of messing around has to be done, and that doesn't include customs.
Stories of hours in U.S. customs have been heard throughout the trip but we flew through without a hitch.
As a backpacker in America there's many a problem, more so than just the cost. Getting around without a car isn't easy. Just getting the information desk to understand what we were saying was hard enough, it would've been easier in Spanish. After many a struggle with 6 tourist info staff we finally get the instructions to use the public transport system to get into Dallas. 'They want to get the bus!', one of the members of staff exclaimed, 'You can tell they're European.'
As soon as we hit the outdoors to wait for the bus we suddenly realise how cold it is. We'd almost forgotten about Winter, walking around in t-shirts and jumpers with the sun blazing. It turns out that there's snow even in Texas, the weather people seem surprised. Oh good.
To get into Dallas we first take 3 buses and 2 trains. Then we get another local train and then a bus and a 10 minute walk in the rain. After the worst flight yet, not for turbulence or a dodgy landing but for a sheer back in the past style plane and the co-pilot having to be recruited to hand out drinks. All through the trip we've had pretty good service and a decent standard of food, LAN who we used throughout South America are one of the best Airlines in the world by my reckoning. But this is America and you have to pay for food, a first for us, and it looked too dire to eat. As the American marketing tool is strong it really made out that they live the high life in all they do. If American Airlines is anything to go by we're in for a shock. Abysmal and, as we find out, expensive.
What of Dallas? Well, I know almost nothing about the place, other than it's in America's largest state, Texas, and there was a very successful TV show in the 80's that used it's name.
The shock of landing in Perth from a month and a half in Asia was much larger than landing here from Mexico. Mexico City is fairly Americanised so we were almost prepared. The prices may take some getting used to though, a lot of stuff is more expensive than England, not good on my budget. Our first taste of American life was in a pub within walking distance of our hotel. A very nice place too, although having waitress service in a pub where everyone sits down is somewhat odd. It's the American way apparently.
To get into the centre of the city the next day confused 4 members of our hotel staff. 'You have no car?', 'No' we reply 3 times. At least the sun is shining and the streets are leafy and good looking. A bus and a train into Downtown to have a day of looking around and we suddenly remember another thing Dallas is famous for, apart from the Cowboys. It's the place where President John F Kennedy was assassinated. The streets look clean but deserted, except for the tramps who wander like zombies in better clothing, so we decide to have a look round the Sixth Floor Museum set in the Book Depository where Lee Harvey Oswald fired the bullets killing the president. This is the most I've ever paid to get into a museum, another thing I'll have to get used to in the U.S. It's a good one though and gives you more information about the President and his assassination than you really need. The most important footage of the shooting is something nearly everyone misses. In a partly closed off booth the full uncensored home movie shows the full force of the bullets on the doomed President. Unsettling stuff. Outside the museum on the busy road is an 'x marks the spot' sticker placed in the spot where each bullet struck the president. Unsurprisingly there are Americans stood on the spots dodging traffic and having their photo taken. One guy is even stood on the spot whilst on his mobile phone, 'You'll never guess where I am', he was probably saying.
Coming from Mexico City I can't believe that hardly anybody is about on this weekday. I also have to get used to saying no to the many homeless people asking for change, they're fairly confrontational at times too. Some of them even look better dressed than us!
Strolling around taking in the large glass buildings and new looking brick churches and government structures I like the look of the place. It's just a bit sanitised and uneventful. The public transport is a problem however. Once off the train we wait in the freezing cold for the bus whilst watching bad skinned teenagers getting into their cars with mounds of fast food. After half an hour the bus arrives and we make sure it's the same number as the one we caught this morning, the 24. As we soon learn, there are two 24's. Obviously! Are they going out of their way to confuse everybody or what? How is it I can navigate my way around the Tokyo metro and not speak a word of Japanese yet not be able to use this piece of crap system!? This bus goes back into downtown before coming back to somewhere almost near to our hotel. After yet another 45 minutes we get back to base. Downtown, we find out, is only a 15 minute bus ride away! Seeing as the morning bus ride to the train station lasted about 2 minutes we decide to walk to the station the next morning. As if the public transport wasn't bad enough, walking to the station takes us an hour. At least the sky is blue and the housing estate gives us a glimpse into American life. It does look like the films from Hollywood, except no-one is about and absolutely nobody walks the streets. The pavement often just stops and is either covered in overgrown weeds or heavily cracked. People in large trucks and cars drive by us giving us suspicious looks. We have 6 months of this in front of us, we need a car.

Hasta luego Latin America

The third leg of this trip is over. Latin America. And what a place it is. Only one country didn't really impress, and that was only due to the people, Bolivia. But that's not saying I wouldn't go back there and give it another chance. Once the altitude has been overcome there's plenty of places to visit in Bolivia it's just my enthusiasm was taken away by the miserable Bolivians we meet. They can't all be like that, and besides they had a lot of civil unrest against the president after we left. I like to think my arrival there was the final straw.


The highlights include the immense Iguazu Falls and the mystical Macchu Picchu. These are both highlights of the whole trip so far. I loved most of Peru, crossing the Andes, seeing Mexico City and everything Argentinian. South America is a huge continent and as far as this trip goes it's similar to Asia. A different language, different culture and cheap. Thing is, as good as Asia is it can't compete with South America. Maybe it's not fair to compare continents really. It was a lot easier day to day in Latin America because I knew some of the language and learnt more as we went along.


Getting the language takes a bit of time but pays off all over the place, except Brazil damn it!

Rio was definitely the most dangerous feeling place on the continent, and the whole trip, but it did have it's extremely beautiful side that you just can't deny. There's poverty, there's money, there's everything. This is travelling, I'm not talking about deep Amazon vine hacking or mountain trekking in Peru but everyday life in Latin America in itself is enough to make me want to go back over and over. The whole place is enormous and massively diverse, it has nearly every climate on Earth. Everyday there's something going on and something to see. Amazing stuff and quality of living all within the reach of the backpacker. I'll come on holiday here as soon as I can afford the flight. No need to book ahead or plan as everything is possible once you're here and for a fraction of a package holiday price.
Argentina and Peru were my favourites. These are countries you could spend a lot of time in for very little money and have a very good time. I think next time I'll do some mountain bike wine tours, white water rafting, sandboarding, surfing, kayaking, visit a desert, a rainforest and a jungle. Easy.
Life is good, the people are good and the places are amazing. The whole continent is alive with life and colour. And to think I was apprehensive about coming here. Turns outs there was no need.
Only question left is, when can I go back?

Mexico City es muy bueno. Me gusta.

On top a hill overlooking the city you begin to realise it's expanse. Huge doesn't even cover it. It goes on and on into the brown haze covering the skyline. This is most likely pollution from the very heavy traffic that doesn't really clear in the heat of the day. The roads are wide and packed and everyone seems to give it death all the time, crossing in the busiest sections can take some time. There's also sky scrapers and large monuments littered with the green, white and red of the Mexican flag.
On the hill I'm looking over the city from is a large castle/palace, the Castillo de Chapultepec. It's been used for both over the years but mainly dignitaries and royalty have resided here. It's a huge place. We take a good few hours to look round the many sprawling rooms containing works of art, panels with bits of history on and rooms returned to their original state. Lavish is an understatement, not my taste but fair impressive.
What really is impressive is the mural downstairs. This has to be one of the best works of art I've ever seen. Murals are a Mexican speciality and boy do they know what they're doing. These paintings are massive and many buildings within the city have a mural or two. This castle now is the museum of history so includes a seriously huge mural detailing the history of Mexico. It's tremendous no doubt. If you know Rage Against the Machine's music or have seen their DVD cover then it suddenly appears where they took it from.

Right here in Mexico City. Another name drop would be the fact that the 1996 Romeo and Juliet was partly shot in this castle and it's no surprise.


All the above photos are from the same mural and are outstanding. It also shows the side to Mexican life that is most evident on the streets. Colour. Everything about the place is colourful and alive. It's hard to believe that just one city has over 150 museums and in the 6 days we were here we only glimpsed at a few of what the whole place has to offer.
Typically, to prove something is always going on here we go straight from the castle to a Human Rights festival going on in the huge Plaza in the centre. This seems like another excuse to cram tacos into your face and listen to live music. A Mexican all girl grunge band were on first and later we saw a more typical Mexican band playing great tunes with a bit of foot stamping thrown in. This was all held against the backdrop of the huge Cathedral and government buildings along with the first outdoor ice rink, all free, built for Christmas, and many a food stand.
We walk past other sunken buildings, Mexico City is slowly sinking into the ground and taking and twisting buildings along with it. We're heading to a wrestling stadium. One of the Kiwi's had wanted to go to see some Mexican wrestling and I originally thought this would be crap but came round to the idea and went along. It turned out we'd gone to the wrong stadium but another one was a metro ride away. We arrived at the even bigger stadium with an hour gone of the wrestling already. I haggled with a tout outside for £3 tickets each for 3 rows from the front.
What we see is not only comedy it's actually quite impressive. The Mexicans love a good wrestling farce and this is a cracker. Fake wrestling it maybe but agile these masked guys really are. The crowd really get into it and I'm surprised they abuse the wrestlers with things like, 'Puto'(a bit like poofter) in front of kids. The wrestlers fly all over the place and all over the crowd at some points. A camera crew film the action and the crowd and it's also shown on a big screen. Obviously we got on camera and my obligatory rock and roll tongue out face was plastered in front of the few thousand in attendance, you've got to haven't you?
Gabrielle and Braden, the two Kiwi's we'd spent the last few days with, moved on from Mexico City to explore the rest of the country for 6 weeks. I was jealous. I know we were off to North America for 6 months soon but Mexico was soo cool. Not literally though because it was pretty damn warm, and this is December! I didn't want to let go of Latin America. We still had a couple of days left before leaving though.
First, my Birthday present had to be bought, clearly. We go to a part of town that is absolutely rammed with music shops, mainly guitar. I wanted a classical Spanish guitar from Mexico. After a day of looking in various shops and asking questions that I pretty much couldn't understand the answer to we find a guitar. My Spanish ain't bad by this point but asking technical guitar questions is a bit of a stretch!
The day after was my birthday. A weird scenario. The 11th of December and it's boiling hot and I'm in Mexico City. It was strange not being home. This was also our last day in Mexico City so we check out a few things before leaving. A dire modern art museum in the morning and a fantastic arts building in the afternoon. Before all that the owner of our hostel sings Happy Birthday to me in Spanish and Israeli and gets out the special birthday cereal for breakfast. In other words, the multi-coloured Cheerios!
The Palacio Bellas Artes, the Palace of Fine Arts. was a tremendous building with a cracking Diego Rivera exhibition inside. This guy was one of the best Mexican Muralists of all time and was commissioned by to do Murals in important Mexican buildings as well as moving to America to do the famous Rockefeller Center in New York, as well as the Museum of Modern Art there, Detroit motor industry murals, one in San Francisco among others throughout the continent both North and South. Diego was also husband of Mexican favourite Frida Kahlo. Anyway, the fabulous building in Mexico City shows off his work as well as the building itself. It's total art deco stuff and it feels like walking back in time into an American 20's gangster movie. It's actually the opera house and must be a grand place to watch one, if you like that kind of thing.
After a cash injection, thanks Karen, for my birthday we go out to a recommended restaurant in yet another upscale area. A busy place serves us up great food and drink but I do make a mistake in the wine ordering. For once I didn't bother asking the price of the wine, the waiter brought a few bottles to the table and I chose one. I figured that it'd be cheap either way, as Mexico is on the whole very cheap. It turned out that the wine cost us £20. Not over the top really but for Mexico this was a film star style blow out. No wonder the waiter looked soo happy, he'd get a very decent tip. It turned out we didn't have enough cash to pay, thanks credit card. Either way it was a great way to end a great visit to one of the greatest cities in the world.


Mexico City didn't once feel dangerous. There's an unbelievable amount to see and do. Atmosphere, colour, food, art, history, music, booze and life. This is a real city. Somewhere like Sydney or Beijing can't even come close. This is somewhere Sydney wishes it could be but is too wrapped up in thinking it's brilliant to realise what really makes a true city. Mexico City is no pretender, it's the real deal.

Hecho en Mexico

Staying up all night is the small price you have to pay sometimes for catching flights. It doesn't make it any less tiring. We arrive at Mexico City at 9am after a 12:30am flight. Check in at most hostels is around 2pm so we hang around the airport for a while, mainly to find the British Airways office to change some flight dates but to no avail. After the incredibly long customs queue and slow check we arrive in a food hall that offers more varieties of fast food I've ever seen anywhere. Is this the first sign that we're a lot closer to America?
We'd heard many a thing about how unsafe Mexico City is, one that stuck in my head was the taxi drivers. The scam goes that if you get in a dodgy taxi they take you round the corner where a friend gets in, with a gun. They then drive you to an ATM and force you to take all your cash out for that day. Then they hold you over night and do the same the following day. Then shoot you. Nice. Apparently, most of the dodgy taxis are the green and white VW Beetles that are all over the place. The truth is that these incidents probably do happen. But I saw no evidence of anything near it in the week I was there. Besides, if there was a chance that this would happen to us it would've surely been the ideal opportunity when we both fell asleep in the taxi on the way to the hostel.
Mexico City is the biggest city in the world. Things of the underhand nature clearly must happen here but I didn't see a jot. The outskirts are supposed to be sketchy but of all the areas that tourists go nothing untoward happens too often......probably. I wasn't entirely looking forward to visiting Mexico City due to how big it was and how supposedly dangerous it is. Huge sprawling cities aren't always the best places to be.
Our hostel was located on an upmarket neighbourhood street. This is one of the best hostels we've stayed in on the trip. Not because of the room or location, it took a fair while to get into the centre, but because of the general relaxed nature of the place and incredibly friendly owners.
We slept most of the day due to the all night travelling. We thought we'd check out a traditional Cantina that evening. A Cantina is basically a bar where mainly men go and drink and eat tacos and watch sport on TV and the such. It was pretty good, although it did seem full of Mexican guys trying to chat up the ageing short skirted waitress. Great tacos though.
At breakfast we got chatting to a New Zealand couple who we end up spending the next couple of days with. Right, let's go and see some pyramids. Like ya do.
Not only is Mexico City the biggest city in the world but it also has a fair amount of history going on all over the shop. Just out of town, an hour or so, is a collection of large pyramids in an ancient city. It takes a couple of trips on the extensive metro system(the cheapest in the world I'll have you know) and a bus ride to get there and it's definitely worth it. These pyramids are huge and in the middle of a dusky landscape surrounded by far off mountains. It's also full of salesman trying to hawk you polished Aztec masks and jewellery. I've never said, 'No, gracias' so much in my life.
Unlike the Incas these guys, the Teotihuacanos civilisation, sacrificed people from other tribes and enemies. This city dates back to 500AD and is pretty big still to this day, granted one of the pyramids is thought to have been reconstructed too high. But still, it's all very impressive.
The bus ride back isn't. Traffic in Mexico City is some of the worst I've seen. 1 hour on the bus to get there, 2 and a half to get back. All this with a constant repeat of Shrek at Christmas, or similar, on TV screens. It's slow and painful.
The main touristy area is the Zona Rosa, the Pink Zone. It's fairly crappy and full of dire bars and crummy shops. But at least there's a better Cantina, that serves up the largest tequilas I've ever seen! Loud music beer and more excellent Mexican food. Cracking.
Walking through on of the cities large parks the next day we stop to watch a bunch of guys dressed like Morris dancers climb a very high pole, tie rope around their legs and dangle themselves head first whilst swinging round back towards the ground. I have no idea what's going on.
We visit Frida Kahlo's house in another flash district. Frida is one of Mexico's most famous artists and a film was made of her lfe fairly recently starring Salma Hiyak. Not bad as it goes. A sprawling house in a cool area of town that has a great market nearby. This now feels like the real Mexico to me. The Mexico I'd seen on TV. Vibrant, colourful, music everywhere and people dressed like Aztecs wafting smoke over people. Okay I hadn't seen that before but it was an interesting sight. A large church had projections of religious scenes on it whilst loud music played, not my thing but it all adds to the flavour of things. More great food helps too. I've gone taco mental. Taco stands are everywhere and people from all walks of life eat at them. One stand near our hostel is a bit more upmarket and is constantly rammed with suited individuals. They all look like they should be fine dining rather than stood on street corners trying to ram quality meat-based tacos into their cake holes while not trying to spill hot hot chilli sauce all over their fine tailoring. Unbelievable good.
Walking around at night feels safe and a far cry from the things we'd heard. The metro is notorious but the only pest we encountered were the hawkers. People get on the train with a portable dvd player showing movies, copied obviously, for sale. There's also guys who have speakers in their bags playing copied Mexican cds very loudly, all also for sale. The woman playing guitar and singing at full pelt whilst a baby slept on her back was the best.

Deepest darkest Peru

So, that was it. And as we look back it dawns on us that we'd just spent a month in Peru. A month! I never thought that would ever happen. But it was a great month and I'd happily go back. Peru is incredibly diverse and still has plenty left to see. Deserts, surf, huge mountains, the deepest canyons, rainforests, jungle and varying villages and colonial towns with their own charm. The people are friendly and the living is good. The ancient Macchu Picchu is already a highlight of the whole trip and has recently been voted onto the new 7 wonders of the world list. History is falling out of this place and they're still finding more ancient ruins from civilisations gone by. Let's just hope that the country stays stable enough not to become too Western for it's own good or to descend into terrorism and unrest.
What was once the capital of the Spanish conquest of Latin America, Lima, was a disappointing place. But the old Inca capital of Cusco lived up to expectation and more. A true capital if ever there was one.
I don't know where the hell Paddington bear got his mack from because I didn't see any of them for sale when I was there, Peruvians mainly sold hats and jumpers!