Fellow travellers

Matthias and Kanako found these two girls in Mérida, and convinced them to come with us on the Uxmal road trip. Julie and Kimiko are both Americans, who have spent over 2 years in Honduras, and who both speak very good Spanish. They were willing to squash into the back seat of Matthias's rental car, and to climb the pyramid of Mayapán and Uxmal.

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.

Steve and I arrived and checked in to Hostal de la Niebla at the same time this evening, with me coming from Mexico City (to the west), and with Steve coming from Tampico (to the north). Since there weren't many other people at the hostel, and since we got on really well, we ended up doing pretty much everything in Xalapa together.