Our Alternative Inca Trail!

With the fun of rafting behind us it was time to expose ourselves to the extremely high altitudes of the Inca trail. As we did not know exactly when we would be doing this trek we had not booked in advance. We knew that the classic Inca trail would probably be fully booked but thought that we would try anyway. We were not surprised to find that the earliest available trek was mid November. We were however surprised that the agent actually thought that we were going to say "Yeah no problem, we'll sit around in this small town and wait for 3 months." BLOODY IDIOT! Needless to say we found a different agent to help us. As the classic Inca trail was full we had several other choices, one of them being the Salkantay route. We were told that it was one day longer than the classic, a little further and at higher altitude. No problems we'll have that one please.

However we didn't realise the true error of our slap dash approach to booking the trek until we arrived at the start of the trek and casually asked the guide "so how many kilometres are we walking today?" Imagine our shock when he announced that it would be 24km, all up hill to an altitude of 3900m. All that Ellie could manage was a small "oh" when he added that it would probably take about 9 hours! It appears however that the other people on the trek were in the same, uninformed boat as us and we all had a good laugh as we wheezed and grunted our way through the thin air of the first day. Oh how we laughed!!! The general consensus in the group is that the agents are purposefully vague as to the distance as they know that no sane person would pay money to do this! The best was yet to come however, as the guide casually dropped in halfway through the first day that this is the easy day compared to tomorrow, oh how we all laughed again!! "WHAT, harder than this?" we all asked. Yeah tomorrow is 26km and we will be climbing the Salkantay pass. Which has an altitude of 4600m and takes you between two glaciers. MUCHO, MUCHO FREEO (very, very cold!) he laughed as he continued to taunt us.

Still the first day was amazing with the scenery changing from small farming towns with little pastures and rolling hills, to the huge mountains of the Andean range with imposing glaciers clinging to their craggy sides. Getting to the camp ground (oh yes a forgot to mention that we would be camping on this trip!) just before dark, we set up our tents at the base of the two huge mountains (one being Mt Salkantay) and were stunned by the amazing views we had of their peaks and glaciers.

This stunned joy however turned to bitter cold pain as the sun set and arctic like wind blew down from the glaciers! I have NEVER, NEVER been so cold in my life. We went to bed that night in as many clothes as we could fit on.

Ellie's crazy attire included, thermal bottoms, thermal top, 4 jumpers, 2 coats, 1 pair of trousers, 4 pairs of socks, 1 pair of gloves and a hat. I was not quite as well dressed but did put my hat and gloves on in the middle of the night. It was so cold that the condensation on the inside of the tent had frozen. Just the great nights sleep we needed after hiking for 9 hours and having the hardest day still to come!

Setting off the next morning we were not looking forward to the gruelling trek but definitely looking forward to amazing views of Mt Salkantay from the top of the pass. As you can see from the picture, the weather turned slightly and the amazing views were not quite what we were expecting. You can imagine our joy after slogging for 3 1/2 hours up a steep mountain pass in the thin air of the altitude to be able to see 3 feet in front of us. We've seen pictures of the view though and it does look amazing.

Eating lunch at the top of the pass in the bitter cold was not the best moment of our trip so far, but the 6 hours that followed were a lot worse.

The mist and cloud stayed with us until we got to our next camp and wandering through the unseen mountainous terrain reminded me of the start to American Werewolf in London. SPOOKY!

Descending through the clouds our camp appeared and we were pleased to find that were no glaciers in sight to freeze us and that some of the jungle scenery was actually visible. It was in a beautiful valley with a wild torrent of a river running through that sounded like an never ending freight train as we lay in bed and finally got some sleep.

The next 2 days of the trek were pretty uneventful (apart from both of Ellie`s little toes being replaced with huge blisters!) and the distances were only a mere 18km each day through mountains and jungle with only little "supermarkets" like this one to refresh us! The highlight was arriving at our third campsite to find a cow being tied up over the road. Withtypical morbid curiosity it was time to investigate. Just as I thought, it was the cows unlucky day as it's owners obviously fancied some steak for dinner. So for almost an hour we watched the local butcher teach his 7 year old son the tricks of the trade. It was bizarre to watch this small boy wielding a very sharp knife hack and chop off various parts of the cow. My personal favourite moment was when he attacked the horns on the skinned cows head with a hack saw and the cows eyes almost fell out. COOL. It was at this point however, I realised the difference between English and Spanish cuisine. We had become really good friends with a Spanish couple (Rafa and Natalia) during our trekking ordeal and Rafa started to explain all the Spanish dished that involve the parts of the cow that in England get carted off and end up in Pedigree Chum, Stomach, intestines and the tongue NICE! (when we visit you guys there had better be none of these little delicacies on my dinner plate!!).

Oh.. I almost forgot the river crossing. When we booked, our vague agent didn´t mention that anyone with a fear of heights should´t go. We were walking along on the third day when we came to very ferocious river about 100ft below us. It was a fantastic sight so we never though anything of it, until we went to continue walking and the guide called us back. "No, no we cross here" he informed us. To our surprise we noticed a piece of wire going across the river to the

other side with a small cage attached.

The realisation then sunk in to each member of the group that we were actually going to sit in this contraption and kind of zip line over the river. As Ellie and Rafa sat in it on the first run, Rafa´s concerns became vocal as he informed Ellie that "if the cable breaks we will definitely die!!" We all got over in one piece although Natalia and Ellie´s nerves were a little shook up!

Oh.. and I almost forgot the train tunnel incident! The last 10km Ellie and I walked alone as we were too tight to pay the $8 to get a train. We were given directions by the guide and we set off. However his directions were not great so we ended up having to walk (well kind of run) through 2 train tunnels where there was no way of knowing if the train was coming. We made it through safe and sound but, about 2 minutes later the tourist train came thundering along the track Just a bit of a close shave! So actually the last few days were no where near as uneventful as I thought, sorry.

The end of the forth day bought us to Aguas Calientes, the village at the base of the Machu Picchu (our final destination). So after over 86km we finally had the opportunity to sleep in bed and relax.

We had a great night with Rafa and Natalia, but unfortunately we had to wake up at 3:45 the following morning to begin the final climb up to Machu Picchu, the site of the most intact Inca Ruins in the world. After several hours of walking up the sometimes near shear track in torrential rain and climbing over 1200 steps the four of us arrived at the top to be greeted for the second time with a pitiful view. All we could see was mist . . not one Inca ruin was in sight!

We went on a guided tour around the ruins in the mist and it did add a certain air of mystery to the ancient buildings. Luckily the Inca weather gods were not totally against us and the cloud and mist cleared to give us stunning views of the huge site perched on the edge of the mountain. Unfortunately it also gave us no excuse not to climb the final higher mountain of Huayna Picchu.

Reaching the top and looking back at the famous city was worth every hard minute we had spent over the last few days and it really made us appreciate just how amazing the Inca people were (although I still think that they were bloody stupid building their most important city at the top of a mountain!) Sitting in a bar back in Cuzco with Rafa and Natalia we could finally all laugh properly about the experiences that we had shared and the blisters, hurt knees, twisted ankles and sore legs we suffered (over a few well earned beers of course!!!!!).

Deepest, darkest Peru . . . the home of Paddington Bear!

And so we found ourselves heading towards our final continent, South America. Having only learnt of the devastating earthquake the day before our flight we felt quite apprehensive as we boarded the plane, especially as about a quarter of the people on our flight were aid and rescue workers. We started to wonder if this was such a great holiday destination . . .

All fears were soon abandoned though when we landed in deepest, darkest Peru. We found ourselves in an amazing city, full of history and culture.

Flicking through the ever trusted guide book I discovered a Monastery in Lima that is famous for it's catacombs which are thought to be the final resting place for an estimated 70,000 humans. So off we set. After an interesting tour of the monastery itself we ventured underground. I was starting to feel a little claustrophobic at being underground in these spooky hollowed out rooms and also a little nervous at the thought of suddenly being faced with thousands of human skeletons. Now, being faced with all those skeletons underground would have been daunting enough but some bright spark had decided it would be a good idea to count the bodies so that they could have a more accurate figure of exactly how many people were buried here. Good idea, I hear you say, except for the fact that to count the bodies they took them apart and counted each type of bone separately. As you walk around you discover a pile of skulls, then a pile of femurs etc. . . . pretty weird. Even more bizarrely someone had decided to use some of the bones to make a circular design which seemed to follow the pattern of skull, skull, femur, femur, skull, skull . . you get the idea. I found the whole experience rather bizarre and felt quite relieved when we emerged into the fresh air once again.

To recover from our spooky experiences we decided to hit one of the local outdoor bars and decided to warm ourselves up with a glass of the famous Peruvian national drink, Pisco Sour. Watching closely we discovered that the drink was a combination of Pisco, sugar, lemon juice and ice. It looked rather good until the raw white of an egg was added! Tasty! Adam thinks it resembles alcoholic, uncooked pancake mix in a glass!

And so it was onto our next city, Cuzco. Fearing that our bums wouldn't be able to withstand the 18 hour bus journey on a partly unpaved road we jumped on a plane and arrived in Cuzco very early one morning. Now, for those of you who don't already know, the city of Cuzco is at an altitude of 3326m, which is pretty high! As we'd flown in from sea level the altitude was a real shock to our systems and so we spent the next couple of days feeling kind of rough, very out of breath and trying to overcome these symptoms by devouring as many coca sweets and as much coca tea as is humanly possible!

To try to jolly ourselves out of this sluggish state of mind we decided some action was needed. We jumped in a bus and headed to the Urubamba River, we were going white water rafting. Now, I think at this point you should know that we had only been white water rafting once before and this experience had ended when our boat deflated mid journey and our guide tried to blow it up manually. Not the best experience . . . with this in mind, off we set.

The rapids were awesome, really spectacular and lots of fun, however, our guide was a bit of a madman. He decided that a great idea would be to paddle back to a set of rapids, all lie with our heads at the back of the boat and 'surf' the rapids in our raft. So, on his signal we all began to paddle furiously back towards the rapids. It was pretty hard going, we weren`t moving very quickly but we eventually managed it and with that our guide shouted 'back' at which point the 5 of us all leapt to the back of the boat. Well, the four boys did, I managed to leap over the side into the freezing cold, turbulent water! Whoops!

´gator spotting!

After our action packed days at KSC and Universal Studios we decided that it was time to take a reality check and see what natural wonders the state of Florida has to offer. The reality check was definitely needed for Adam who actually thought he might get spotted at KSC and asked to be an astronaut on their next mission! I do worry about him. So, we set off south (on a road that had way more toll booths per mile than it´s fair share) towards the Everglades.

Talking about the Everglades used to conjure up images of murky, swampy waters and those river boats with the fans on the back for me. The picture couldn´t be more wrong. For a start those crazy little boats aren´t allowed in the National Park and the scenery instead of being swampy and grimy is pretty spectacular. Beautiful clear water, giant insects and birds of all varieties (including one that could dive and swim underwater to catch it´s fish! pretty cool!). However, there was one preconception that I´d got spot on and that was the reason we were visiting the Everglades in the first place. The alligators!

Now, bearing in mind that these creatures are kind of dangerous, can be hard to spot and that there are thousands of them in the park I was surprised that you could get out of your car and just wander around on your own. It seemed like asking for trouble but never ones to shy away from danger we set off on a short walk. I was kind of nervous (these animals can kill after all!) as we set off, eyes peeled ready to ´gator spot. We didn´t have to wait long, there was movement in the water and an enormous ´gator was swimming our way! Pretty exciting. We saw loads of alligators, all within about 10m of us which was absolutely amazing but quite scary! Ad reassured me with some of his ´Discovery Channel´ knowledge that alligators can´t run very fast on land so I was perfectly safe as long as I didn´t stand too close to the waters edge!

After an awesome day getting very close to nature we headed even further South, past Miami to Florida´s famous Keys. The journey was even more spectacular than the destination, driving along huge bridges with clear blue water stretching out as far as we could see in both directions was phenomenal. So, it was back to the tent, camp fires, marshmallow toasting and relaxing in the sunshine for a couple of days before we set off on the final leg of our journey, South America!

Spaced Out!

Leaving Mexico late one afternoon we headed for Florida. Once again we had not booked anywhere to stay when we got to Miami. To make matters worse we were not planning to stay in a hotel or motel, we were going to camp. As you may have guessed we didn´t have a tent! So first job was to find a tent and then somewhere to sleep. As we had planned to visit the Kenedy Space Centre (KSC!) we headed north out of Miami and drove until it had been dark for several hours. Then by luck (actually it had more to do with my excellent map reading skills than luck!) we managed to find a national park to camp in. So we lit the fire and enjoyed an evening of BBQ and beer, I LOVE camping in America!
After a very hot and uncomfortable night (this is Miami in summer) we headed for the KSC and it was amazing! We spent the day looking at shuttles, rockets, launch pads, parts of the international space station and being thrown around in the take off simulator! I couldn´t believe how large the place was or how big the rockets were. This is a picture of the shuttle preparation building, the flag that you see is the size of a football field!! Yes, it´s HUGE!

Fact of the day: If you were closer than 1km to the launch pad at launch the sound of the take off would kill you! WOW! Not sure if that would actually happen or if they were trying to make it sound cool!

After the real world of space travel we headed to the very unreal world of Orlando and Universal studios. Now considering that I was not a fan of the whole American theme park thing prior to meeting Mary Poppins in California I was surprised to be going to another one so soon(especially as the memory of meeting Miss Poppins had faded by now!). I can say however that once again I was blown away and had an amazing day, meeting spider man, the Xmen, Betty Boo (she was hot!), all the characters from Scooby doo (hey SCOOB!), Bart Simpson and the Grinch. The weather was amazing and rides out of this world. Although I was very, very disappointed to find that the back to the future ride had been shut and was being replaced by the Simpson's ride. RUBBISH! I was looking forward to hitting 88 mph and all that, however the car was still there so at least I got to see that.
Over all a fantastic couple of days in Florida topped off with amazing weather!

Chichen Itza

After spending a great few days on the coast (luckily before the hurricane came!) we had to begin the mammoth journey back to Mexico City. The direct bus from Playa Del Carmen back to Mexico City takes over 30 hours so we decided that we should split it up with a stop off at the site of the famous Chichen Itza ruins. We spent the whole day following a tour group around so that we could get explanations about all of the different pyramids and sites (we are so tight!). The tour was really interesting and my personal favourite fact from the extremely camp guide was, "As you can see in the carving there is a Viking man. We think that Vikings may has sailed to Mexico by accident and were treated as gods because they had blonde hair and pale skin!" I was shocked to find that the Vikings had sailed thousands of miles across the Atlantic by "ACCIDENT" over a thousand years before any sailing ships capable of this existed. WOW! After this amazing fact we took some of his other special facts with a pinch of salt.

We did however get to see the sacrifice platform that is decorated with carved skulls and when in use would have been surrounded with hundreds of heads on poles. Even cooler is the most intact ball court in the world is at Chichen. The hoops that were used as goals are still present along with thousands of carvings depicting games. Another interesting fact from the guide, "even though the carvings show losing teams being massacred, I don't think that this happened, I think that it is symbolic" (we would have asked for our money back if we had paid!).

In the evening we attended the........ drum role..... "light and sound show!" We were slightly dubious of attending this as it sounded like Dave's fantastic wedding disco (but in Spanish!). However, we glad to find that translation earphones were available as we were given an acted out audio history of the ancient sight. It also included the different buildings being lit up in an array of colours to make them look pretty and to demonstrate the shadow of the snake that appears every summer solstice. The highlight was the acted audio execution of a rival tribal chief, complete with gargling scream!

So after an interesting day of culture we set off back to Mexico City for our final night before we headed to America. Fancying a few quite drinks we walked into the small cantina that was attached to our hostel. As soon as we entered we realised that sunday night must be the night to go out and get drunk with your guitar! The quite drink ended in lots of drinks and an interesting sing along with the locals. What a great end to Mexico!

Driving and Diving!

Imagine our relief when after two consecutive nights on a bus (our journey broken only by a few hours exploring Palenque in some of the worst humidity I have ever experienced) we eventually arrived on the island of Cozumal and were greeted by white sands and clear aqua sea, just what we needed after our mammoth journey!

Having spent a few days recently on the beach we thought that it was time to do something a little different, so we found a small, back street hire company and hired the most clapped out, creaky, loud and totally cool VW beetle on the island (there are lots of Americans on the island who would only hire the newest, most fantastic car, so we got a real bargain and were quite unique!). It was a bright yellow (although a little sun faded), convertible beetle that didn´t have any windows apart from the windscreen (luckily it didn´t rain as I don´t think the roof would have worked if we had tried to put it up) and people could hear us coming from a few miles away as the exhaust was so loud. All in all a perfect car to drive around a little island. We spent the day cruising around, stopping at deserted beaches for a swim and generally having a great time.

However, the real reason for venturing this far south was to explore the beautiful waters that surround this little island. So, we once again donned our wetsuits and ventured into the underwater world. Our first dive was amazing, 28m underwater we swam through narrow rock tunnels and explored tiny underwater caves made out of coral. However, the highlight of our day was definitely during dive number two. Not only did we once again get to swim with a turtle but while drifting along, minding our own business, we suddenly noticed two sharks swimming towards us! Rest assured, they were Nurse sharks and so our lives were not in immanent danger! Although a little scary it was an awesome experience.

More than just a game . . .

After Amatlan we headed back to the town of Oaxaca. Now, we thought that the town was not that safe when we left a couple of days previously, however, the sight of demonstrations in the streets when we returned..........well, we decided that it might be a good idea to leave. This forced us to undertake something that we always try to avoid... the NIGHT BUS! (I said that in a kind of thriller voice, with a definate hint of menace!). Ellie can sleep for England on a bus, unlike myself, who definitely can not. This may have something to do with the fact that Mexicans are smaller than me and therefore the leg room I get is not exactly spacious. But with the risk of being shot and kidknapped in Oaxaca as an alternative we boarded the dreaded bus and headed towards the town of Palenque (oh.. the night bus is also notorios for being stopped by bandits and people being shot and kidknapped. Ha.. damned if you do and damned if you don´t!). Anyway we didn´t get held up by the bandits and we arrived in Palenque safe and sound, apart from the worst case of stiff neck in history!

Palenque is famous for some of the most intact remains of pre hispanic setlements in Mexico. The pyramids and palaces there date back to 100ad an at it´s height the ancient city was home to 10,000 people. Most interesting for me was evidence of an early form of football that had a gruesome ending for the loosers. The losing team, usualy some captured enemy soldiers, would be beheaded by the winning team at the end of the game (I did think that this could have been appropriate for the times we beat Germany and Argentina!!).

We had an amazing and very hot day exporing the ruins, at the end of which we decided that the actual town of Palenque was a humid den of filth, so we caught another night bus... arrgggggghhhh! Including the day that we left Amatlan at 4 in the morning this would be the third night that we would get hardly any sleep, the second on a bus and another day of not having a wash or a shower. Ohhhh we were smelling sweeeeeeeeet! but that´s the joys of travelling for you.

Oaxaca

After a few days of relaxing in the sunshine we decided to head inland to explore the Mexican countryside. We caught a ridiculously early bus that spent the next seven and a half hours covering the approximate 200km! We literally stopped for every waif and stray that fancied a lift, I seriously reckon it would have been quicker to walk!

We eventually arrived in Oaxaca (pronounced Wahaka, I have no idea why!) and were surprised to find the city almost deserted of tourists. We later discovered that there had been serious rioting [all started by teachers demanding more pay, they have my support!] earlier in the week that had escalated into street shootings, the 'disappearance' of rioters and the burning down of hotels! Glad we discovered this once safely out of the city though and not while we were still there. Realising that something wasn't quite right we caught another early morning bus out of the city into the beautiful surrounding countryside.

We arrived in the tiny village of Cuajimoloyas (your guess on pronunciation is probably as good as mine) and were met by our guide for the morning, a pleasant little man who spoke even less English than we speak Spanish. Our guided walk was err interesting to say the least. We would be walking along when he would suddenly point at something, say it in Spanish and encourage us to repeat it in English, a kind of mutual lesson which was quite amusing, especially when Ad tried to work out the name of a cow by pointing at a bull and saying senorita! Our guide didn't have a clue what Ad was going on about so just laughed and smiled. Our morning hike was only about 7km but it covered a really hilly route, we were kind of high up (over 3000m), oh, and our guide got us lost three times! He would stop and say 'uno momento', look around him whilst maintaining a thoughtful look on his face and then point back the way we had just walked as if that was obviously the route we should be following! So, all in all we had a very tiring morning. We were shattered by the time we arrived in the even smaller village of Benito Juares where we were faced with the ordeal of ordering lunch without even the aid of a Spanish menu. A lot of smiling and nodding occurred on our part and we were thankful when a fairly tasty meal appeared in front of us!

Feeling revitalised we headed outside to meet our second guide of the day. A man named Jose (how Mexican!) who was leading us to our final destination by bike. Now, Jose promised that the entire 12km ride was flat or downhill so imagine my horror when we headed off up the hill. We rounded the corner and the hill just kept going, up and up and up. I was starting to feel more than a little anxious (maybe his English wasn't as good as I'd though and he'd mixed up the words up and down!) but luckily we reached the brow of the hill and it was more or less all downhill from there. To my surprise I loved the ride and all too soon we found ourselves in the quaint village of Lorita where we spent the night.

Our second day of exploring involved a 15km hike (again through pretty hilly terrain) but luckily we were walking with a lovely French couple (promised you'd get a mention Ben and Lauren!) who were able to not only speak French and English fluently but also Spanish and therefor made the whole experience a lot easier for us! During our walk our guide pointed at a whole in the side of the rock face and said something we didn't understand. Ben turned and told us there was an old gold mine there and we could go in if we wanted to. Mexicans don't have health and safety laws like we do so on our hands and knees we crawled in and sure enough there were tiny flecks of gold in the walls, pretty neat!

By the time we arrived in Amatlan we were pretty exhausted however the views and our gorgeous rooms with open fires (imagine Ad´s excitement!) more than made up for it. We watched the sun set in the distance and sipped Cervesa, life could definitely be worse!

Death in the Pipeline!

So after a few surprisingly good days in Acapulco we headed for another beach destination, Puerto Escondido. Unlike last time there were no problems getting out of our hotel to go and catch the bus and we were soon on our way. Once again it felt great to be travelling with the locals on public transport and not driving, however, this feeling diminished slightly when 1 hour into our 8 hour journey the air con packed up. No problem, I thought, we were speeding along and although it was 32c we could just open the roof vents and all would be fine. This was not what the driver and his mate decided should be done though. They suddenly became air con repair men and with their professional tool kit (a very large hammer!) they managed to also break the air circulation and simultaneously blow all of the electrics on the bus. We heard one of them shouting fire as we dragged our belongings off the bus and onto the side of the road! We then had to wait for several hours on the roadside in the baking heat until a replacement bus came to pick us up. Luckily though refreshments were on hand in the form of some blokes harvesting mangoes from trees on the side of the road. They took pity on the bus load of people and started throwing fresh mangoes down to us, nice!

The rest of the journey went with out any problems, apart from the fact it ended a lot later then we had planned and we again had nowhere to sleep! We managed to find a beach shack that was on top of a bar that only had 3 solid walls and deciding this would do set out for a night on the town.

The main reason for our visit to Puerto Escondido was for the beach, well actually, it was for what happens at the beach. This place is famous for the MEXICAN PIPELINE (as usual no sound, so I said that in a kind of boxing master of ceremonies voice. You know like.... and in the red corner weighing in at several thousand tonnes of water and over 20ft tall, please show your appreciation for the one, the only....... MEXICAN PIPELINE!!!!!!!!) Sorry, errr, anyway, the Mexican pipeline is what they call the huge breaking waves that crash along the shore in a kind of pipe, which means that you can surf for longer and faster across the wave as it breaks. When I say huge, they regularly get over 20ft high and several days before we got there some guy got killed when his surf board smashed into his face and made a very nasty mess. In addition to this the rip in the water is so strong that you are not allowed to swim in the water, you can only surf and bodyboard (i.e. if you are not attached to something that floats you WILL die!). So with this in mind and the waves only being a meagre 10ft high what else was there to do but hire a surf board and go surfing (I did check my health insurance before entering the water, don´t worry).

What followed was several days of being smashed about, getting chewed up, being half drowned, swallowing more sea water then possible, losing several sets of contact lenses a day and most of all lots of great surfing! Oh.. I did manage to break 2 of my toes in the process, but they seem fine now!

In addition to the great surfing we also found some time to chill out in the beach bars, swing in the hammocks and enjoy lots and lots of very, very cheap cervesa. I think that this need for relaxing may have been because we were so exhausted from our sea based activities during the day (that´s our excuse anyway!).

Going loco on our way to Acapulco!

Leaving Mexico City by a combination of walking, train, bus and coach was fantastic. While in Oz, New Zealand and the USA we had been driving ourselves around and to be once again back travelling properly was amazing (well I thought so, not sure if Ellie thought the same after carrying her bag for 50 minutes it started to cut into her shoulders and stopped the circulation to her arms!).

So we headed away from Mexico City and the crazed sprawl and towards a small town called Taxco. Arriving and being dumped by the coach in the middle of its tiny backstreets we immediately realised what an amazing place it was. It reminded me of a mixture of Venice (tiny labyrinth of back streets. No canals though) and Prague (Gothic style architecture and imposing churches) and finding a hotel was a challenge. When we finally set off to peruse the town we found hundreds of little, cobbled streets with fantastic little bars, quaint shops and a magical zocolo (town square) with restaurants, traditional Mexican singers and one of the most amazing Churches I have ever seen (and believe me I have seen quite a few while we have been travelling). However the thing that was the most interesting about this town was the locals use of retro style VWs. Every taxi (and there were hundreds buzzing about) was an old white VW beetle and every bus was a converted VW camper van. Seeing the little white beetles bouncing around the steep and narrow streets bought back memories of Herby goes.......... something or another (it should be Taxco I suppose!).

After a couple of days wandering around the streets and people watching from little bars we decided that it was time to head to the coast. It shouldn´t be that hard; we get up, pack, get on a bus and arrive 8 hours later in Acapulco. This however was not the case! The getting up and packing bit went fine and for once we were in plenty of time. When we came to leave our little hotel we realised for the first time that Mexicans don´t get up very early. It was almost 8:00 and the front gates were well and truly locked with no sign of the owners. 15 minutes of banging, shouting and cursing managed to wake the sleepy amigos and we just made our bus.

We had heard that Acapulco was a little shabby and we were not expecting much. In fact the only reason we were going there was to see the famous "Cliff divers" (again no sound, I shouted that in a kind of ring master, roll up, roll up style!) and so that I could sing "Going Loco down in Acapulco" over and over again, annoying Ellie. However we really enjoyed Acapulco. We stayed in the old town that is built around the harbour (i.e. not the beach fronted neon signed new part of town with night clubs and strip joints. I wanted to stay there but Ells insisted that the old town would be better) where we watched the locals hauling in their catches and selling them on the dock, ate in small restaurants with the locals and listened to the Mexican singers in the local bars. When we wanted to go to the beach though we headed up to the new part of town with its perfect white sandy beaches (unfortunately this was always during the day and there were no strippers!).

What we had come for though was still the highlight of our stay in Acapulco. On our last night we walked up a hill for several kilometres (no point in getting a taxi, we´re on a budget. Again don´t think Ells thought the budget was so important when we arrived at the top hot and sweaty) to the edge of town and a view point to see these speedo clad lunatics. Now as you may have guessed from their name, the "Cliff Divers" dive off the cliffs, into a small deep gully that is about 10 feet wide. Oh I forgot to say that they dive from about 100ft. Just getting to their dive platforms is an ordeal as they have to jump into the gully from the viewing area, swim across the stupidly turbulent water and then climb up the cliff to their spots. We were transfixed with the spectacle of the whole thing, from the climbing, to the praying at the shrine at the top (and I don´t blame them!), to the final magnificent death defying dive (again in my ring masters voice). In fact we loved it so much we were there for over 3 hours and watched 3 shows.

Overall Acapulco was a fantastic place and we were glad that we had made the journey.