Well, having originally planned to leave Mexico City last Friday, I ended up staying an extra 2 days, as I was enjoying myself too much to leave! Mexico City Districto Federal (or D.F. for short) is enormous. I mean, really, really enormous. One day we took a bus tour of the city which demonstrated just how large it was, we spent over 3 hours on the bus and only covered part of the city. It also became obvious that protesting seems to be comething of a national pastimes here. We saw 3 different protests that day alone, all peaceful, but protesting about education, lack of jobs & rising cost of living and social injustices. Thursday evening was spent in Plaza Garibaldi where hoards of Mariachi bands (not sure of the correct collective noun for them!) gather and vie for your attention to serenade you with their tunes. I think the fact that the first band that latched onto us had a brilliantly charismatic front man made it all the better. His singing, well shouting is probably a more accurate description, just added to it and the cacophony of sounds around the square was amazing. We were also approached by a rather drunk local performing card tricks, no idea how he managed to remember his cards but he didn't fail once! We visited Xochimilco which is a town bordered by canals about 20km from the city centre. There you can ride in a type of brightly painted punt, which seemed like the thing to do on a Friday afternoon as there were scores of college kids who'd taken picnics (OK, more like snacks and loads of booze) with them on boats tied together. I also saw what looked like an office trip as they were all in their matching polo shirts, but seemed like a very civilised way to end the week to me. Another day was spent at the massive National Anthropology Museum and to be honest probably covered only about half of the displays. Fascinating stuff, but there is only so much information in Spanish and English and incredible artefacts a girl can take in one day, but great to understand a bit of the background to some of the places I'd be visiting in the coming weeks. For my last night in DF a few of us from the hostel headed out to meet up with a German friend of one of my roommates who is currently living in the city. Having arrived at the agreed meeting point we found the bar to be closed and so headed to the rearranged bar. Imagine my delight at said bar being Mexico's premier English bar...just what I'd flown 6000 miles for! Needless to say we didn't stay long and made our excuses to find somewhere else, if not any better, that was more Mexican, showing muted Mexican boxing on the TV to a soundtrack of cheesy music. Fair to say it was an interesting night! So that was Mexico City, a great place to start and somewhere I enjoyed more than I thought I would. Jet lag banished, guide book in hand, next stop Oaxaca 6 hours bus ride away. List of things NOT to do whilst travelling: 1. Leave your camera in England. Yes, I'm embarking on the trip of a lifetime and have managed to leave my camera somewhere in either Lancaster or Manchester, either way, not much use here! However as this problem can be rectified, albeit at a cost, there's a new entry at number 1; cycling up to almost 2000m altitude in the midday sun. The first day in Oaxaca I met up with my Mexico City roommate from Didsbury and we hired bikes for the day. Not to be deterred by the searing heat, lack of shade, traffic in the centre, or the 400m vertical climb, we set off for Monte Alban, an ancient city that was built in the hills 10km to the East of Oaxaca. A couple of hours and several litres of sweat later, we made it to the top. We did come across one person only slightly madder than us, a local who was running up in t shirt AND hoodie, but who did stop to chat and comment on our temporary insanity at deciding to cycle up there. Oaxaca is a city South East of DF and completely different in most respects. In comparison it felt like a sleepy backwater, although I suppose that after the vastness of DF, most places probably do. Most buildings are only 1 or 2 stories high and all of the 'city centre' is within walking distance. Great place to visit with beautiful colonial architecture, but nothing that made me want to stay more than a couple of days. So then it was the night bus to San Cristobal de las Casas, eleven hours away. The long distance travel here seems pretty comfortable with reclining seats, air con (usually a little too cold though) and films for those not prone to travel sickness. I opted for a front seat to try and avoid feeling queasy which worked, however it was not conducive to sleep as the driver was playing love hits from the 80's and 90's to keep himself awake, and wanting to arrive in one piece I thought sleep deprivation preferable to bus crash. So it became the soundtrack to my journey too! And here I am in San Cristobal, will probably be here only a couple of days before heading off North East up the Yucatán peninsula. Incidentally I have now bought a camera so will be able to update with photos, many thanks to my lovely roommates who have so far given me copies of their photos!