Just for fun, why not print this off and put it in your bag. On the way home from the office tonight, drop into Threshers, pick up a six pack of Corona, a fresh lime and a big bag or nachos.... Right then, all sorted? Great. Select Jonny Cash, Ring of Fire (it at least sounds Mexican) and stream the sounds through your house. Ok, lets talk travel. Shying away from the backpacker scene once again, we checked into the Holiday Inn Beach Resort in the tourist mecca of Puerto Vallarta on Mexico's Atlantic coast. A holiday routine ensued. Hours by the pool, evening trips into centro and hawkers hustling for you to sit in their eateries, take their tours, change money. You know the sort of thing. Six nights into our week long mini-break our sleep was disturbed. A wedding party ran for cover late in the evening with the onset of an unexpected storm. Their live band plugged into the canteen mains and continued until 2am. This in close proximity to our room. 10 rooms called reception to voice their disapproval. As a form of compensation, we were treated to a rather nice dinner and drinks. Cerveza, vino and Tequila laced slush puppies led us to the worst hangovers in years. Newly aquired Canadian and American friends took pity on us being the only 'non all inclusive' patrons and plied us with more puppies at the lobby bar. The line of styrafoam cups grew as did our ability to forget when to stop. Phill stripped naked and ran into the sea, though fortunately remembered in time that he possesses the swimming skills of a Mongolian nomad. Unfortunately not only were we committing ourselves to hangovers from hell, we were also already committed to the mother of all bus journeys the following morning. Bus Babylon pulled in at 1pm the following day and swung us south bound for a town we had never heard of, let alone pronounce. We hugged the coast and took turns in running for the toilet. We boasted 15 bouts of oral illness in a stiflingly hot loo, whilst bounding down precariously windy, pot holed roads. The journey passed an array of dilapidated towns, each sported a sleeping policeman. One evaded the attention of our driver. Have you ever seen a child throw a hamster in the air? Brightly rag rolled, half built houses were the order of the day, this against a backdrop of baron, dry landscape. Each town possesed statutory rusting abandoned cars on its outer reaches. We were due in at our destination at 3am. By midnight we were already 2 hours behind schedule, despite not being delayed. The Mexican way. One chap delighted in advising Phill that we were entering prime bandit country. We weren't pulled up by blazing gunmen, though every dab of the brakes had us bolt upright ready to shout banditos, banditos!' An electrical storm of monumental proportions caught us at 5am and brought down power lines just in front of our path. We sat there for 2 hours. Most occupants of our first class bus were none the wiser. The seats reclined to a point most airlines would be proud of. We of course were more concerned with the prospect of handing over our ipods to masked horsemen. We arrived safely in the end, 5 hours late, to a town which had been subjected to the worst storm they can remember. Streets were flooded and the power was out. Squelching through mud to reach this internet café, we are now considering the prospect of 70 more hours in the saddle to reach the Belize border. We board Bus Babylon again on Friday - this time in search of a TV showing the Paraguay game at 7am. We have been warned to expect the worst! C'mon England! PaS