BecandChris

Breakfast at Santa Rosa is lovely. We interrupt the Monday team meeting as we arrive. Seems to me that there are about 5 staff per guest assuming we are the only guests which seems likely as we haven’t seen anyone else since we’ve been here. With Wilko navigating we head off for Uxmal. The roads we have experienced in Mexico have generally been very good and the drivers are also easy to deal with. There are a lot of motorcyclists and also a lot of 3 wheeled motorcycle things that usually contain a whole family or just your mate who you can talk to as you cruise along. The only issue is that they do about 5kph. We arrive at Uxmal and as per usual there are very few people here. Again you require two tickets ... read more

We have been told that it is best to arrive at Chichen Itza early to avoid the crowds and the heat. Our driver Alberto picks us up at 7 and we are at Chichen Itza by 8.30. There is hardly anyone here we buy our tickets. Our guide, Omar, checks that we have both tickets. In fact you need to buy a ticket at each window and then give one ticket to one ticket collector and the other to the other ticket collector (follow?). Chichen Itza is the archeological site in Mexico. Catherine is relieved because you can’t climb anything and the site is close to sea level also there are no tunnels. As we arrive the souvenir sellers are setting up. It must take them hours carefully laying out everything. I’m thinking 2 hour set ... read more

Today our driver who is Elmundo and is Erik the boss's, not Erik the viking's, brother and Plina and Rupret's brother drove us to Mont Albon a historic site outside Oaxaca. On the way there was a noise from the back of the car. Elmundo assured us it was just the back wheel, which is clearly nowhere near as important as say steering failure. Monte Alban is an impressive archeological site built by the Zapotecs an others, however it fell into decay and largely disappeared around 700AD. These Zapotecs were clever little buggers. They had devised a game which was kind of like Quiddich in Harry Potter. Elmundo was also our guide and he did an excellent job, although I did notice that he left most of the stair climbing to us. Monte Alban was discovered ... read more

I have been trying to get some interest up about the Nacional Railway Museum in Puebla which sounds amazing with a gallery of photos of derailments and other Mexican rail disasters of which I'm pretty confident there would have been a lot. Wilko had promised to come with me first thing as for some reason Catherine, Louise and Becs weren't interested. Wilko pulled a sickie which was very disappointing, however Becs stepped into the void. We started out early for the museum stopping at a café in the main square to yell Viva la Mejico and have a coffee which tasted like a mix of coffee and ash. On the way to the rail museum we stopped by the Iglesia de Santo Domingo to check out the church. I have to admit that we've seen a ... read more

Unfortunately today we say goodbye to Benjamin and Wilko stays with us. After the usual 1/2 hour of arguing we finally agreed to do a walk from Roma up to near Centro. Mexicans are not only short, but there are more dogs than Mexicans (and they aren’t for eating). Any walk in the city is like an encyclopaedic excursion through different dog breeds. Today we even saw a blue cattle dog! We walked through the redlight district (pretty tame) checked out some lovely plazas and Art Deco and colonial style buildings. At the Plaza de la Independencia they had a publicdance thing which was fun and most of the streets are blocked off for the independence celebrations. The winged statue of liberty has been defaced by feminist protestors, I'm pretty sure they been deal with appropriately. ... read more