Torville and Dean

Didn´t you just love em? I did, I really did and Im reminded of them as i sit here in an internet cafe in La Ciudad de Mexico, city of Peter´s heart, centre of the universe (to the Aztecs anyway), because the guy flogging DVDs on the street outside is obviously also a fan of the wondrous T+D and a mean CD mixer to boot - Ravel´s Bolero mixed with La Bamba. Not sure if it works but it´s certainly special.
So what about this city? It was the place where the prophesised vision of the eagle was seen, standing on a cactus with a serpent in its beak, which became the symbol of the peoples of Mexico from that moment (a very very long time ago!); the centre of the universe to the Aztecs (and they had a big one, no less than 13 heavens and 9 hells - 13 heavens and 9 hells that were balancing on the back of a turtle, no less, I always thought Terry Pratchett was a bit unoriginal, I think it´s the hat that gives him away); Leon Trotsky fled here when the Russian Revolution (am I right students of history? you know which my chosen humanity is..) didn´t go his way and it was here that he was murdered with the ice pick, obviously providing the inspiration forBasic Instinct; Okay,I seem to have mined that vein plenty now, lets just say its a wicked cool city with lots of history and stuff, if you want to know more about all the monuments and stuff you can read a Lonely Planet. I have more personal things to impart such as... the state of my guts! Just a smidgen of gastroentiritis (sounds a bit severe but thats what the doctor wrote down, maybe it´s a generic term here though) . After spending the last five days in possession of the startling ability to sh** though the eye of a needle, my stools are now viable again, hurray!
Okay, back to Mexico DF, city of the stars etc etc. We´ve had a tremendous time here, as with many capital cities (okay, maybe not Dodoma) you could spend a year here and never run out of things to do and we did manage to tick a few things off the list of must-sees. The Anthropology Museum was astounding and we basically walked around slack jawed from start to finish; Diego Rivera´s mural of Mexican life were also wonderful, I especially liked their context in the Education Department. No song and dance, just an ordinary government building with a very small and dark entrance, that just so happens to hold many, many murals by one of the C20th´s most feted artists; Bosque de Chapultepec was beautiful and more than anywhere else reminded us of London; the ancient city of Teotihuacan was also unmissable with its Piramide del Sol (third biggest in the world I think) and Piramide de la Lune, built well over 1500 years ago.

However, by far the most amazing thing about this city has been wandering the streets around the historic heart of the city where national government rubs shoulders with Aztec ruins, devil stick twirlers with international church of christ food stalls. The streets are packed with stalls of a variety i´ve never seen anywhere for instance the order of stalls as you walk down one street may be as follows; massage balls, cheap books, tortillas, batteries, supports for injured knees, elbows, wrists etc, lottery tickets (this week including astrological signs. Though I didn´t go to see the draw, which is open to any old punter who wanders in, I fancy that the Mexican lottery would make Camelot´s look like a tombola at a cricket club fete), orthopaedic shoes, balloons, huge pieces (roughly 40cm x140cm) of roasted pig skin - a scratching lovers´dream - and everything else you could think of.

As you can probably tell from this rambling account, there´s a lot to get your head round in this city (some of it´s bad too, there´s a lot more poverty evident than elsewhere, unsurprisingly, the air is godawful, taxis aren´t too safe, and sometimes it smells of poo - sound familiar, londoners?) but we´ve loved it and are now eager to resume our southwards path. Tonight we are getting the overnight bus to Oaxaca City and may even be on the coast of Oaxaca state by tomorrow afternoon. We´ll probably spend a few days there hopefully helping out a few sea turtles by rescuing, counting, hatching or whatever else needs doing to their eggs (what more do they want, the moon on a stick?) , oh, and getting some sun, sea, snorkelling and sand aswell.

Adios amigos (I´m not leaving you out girls, it´s just that the mixed plural always takes the masculine form, bloody, macho... schnrllscnarl), hope all is happy in your lalalands

Lilbette.xxxxx

P.S. by the way ladies who advised me to get a henna rather than a real tatoo on my neck, look what happened!