Mexico

These crazy, married backpackers are two of the nicest and most streetwise people that I've travelled with so far. Both of them have spent over 10 years travelling to the most remote and out-of-the-way places on Earth. Matthias, a Frenchman, is an expert in cutting costs and in proving his favourite saying: "you have a lot to learn about the French". Kanako, a Japanese girl, is much more adventurous than your average Tokyo girl.

These two British lads (both from the London area) are studying at the hotel here in Mérida with me. Karl's just a bit older than me, and is going around the world the opposite way to me: Mexico is also his first stop, though. James is a fair bit older, and is just hanging out in Mexico for a few weeks, while he's got some time off work. Being British and all, these guys were more than happy to go out for some beers, with me and various other people, at whatever pubs they could find.

The Mérida area is famous for being the best place in Mexico to buy hammocks. The good Mexican hammocks are the ones that hark back to an ancient Mayan tradition: hand-made; dyed with natural, local plant products; and woven from the sisal fibres that are easily obtained from the native cactus plants. A local pointed me to one of the top hammock outlets in Mérida, and I picked myself up a beauty of a genuine Yucatán hammock.

All the hostels here in Mexico give you coffee with your breakfast. I usually don't drink coffee at all, because I hate the taste, and because I don't like the idea of becoming a caffeine addict. But lately, I've started drinking the hostel coffee. Here's a few reasons why.

I know, I know: you told me not to go on them, and I should have listened to you (yes, that's you, wise Filson family!). But Noam asked me to come with him on the tour around Mérida, and I didn't have anything else to do today. So, 100 pesos later, I was on the double-decker tourist bus, listening to the sterile American voice coming through my headphones.

I met Noam when I checked in at Nomadas this morning. He's a laid-back, good Jewish boy (like myself) from Boston: he's from the same neighbourhood as my cousins, but he doesn't know them. He's been in Mexico for 2 months, and now he wants to go to the UK, and do a masters in anthropology at Oxford.

This wasn't the best hostel I've stayed at so far (in terms of comfort and value), but it is the one that I've most enjoyed staying at. This place has a rough, outdoor feel to it: people can choose to sleep in hammocks in the back yard; taking a shower involves getting cosy with several hundred sleeping mosquitoes; and the leafy abundance gives the place a resort / hippie-retreat feel. This hostel itself is, in my opinion, one of the top attractions of Mérida.

Saw this in a bookshop in Mérida. It wouldn't mean much to the non-geekified among thee, but to me, it looked pretty cool. Deitel's C++ How to Program is one of the more famous books on programming that's available on the market today. I never imagined that I'd see it in Spanish. But I guess that a book like this is available in pretty much any language.

Just finished about 17 hours' worth of bus rides, to get from Veracruz to Mérida. This trip was way too long: I should have gotten a plane instead. Ah well: at least I saved on a night's accommodation, by getting a night bus and sleeping all the way.

I had about an hour to spare for dinner while I was in the city of Villahermosa, in between bus trips. So I went across the road from the bus terminal, to grab a taco. The way the local kids there greeted me, you'd think I was a movie star or something! I guess they don't see many tourists round here. They all wanted to sit and chat while I ate my tacos, and then they all wanted a photo with me.