Evan I believe left you as we were about to cross the border to Mexico... well this was stressful.. not becuase it was hard, oh no ,but because it was far too easy for comfort. We know from experience that you have to check out of the country you are leaving before getting into the country you are entering.... but non of that here. We had to seek out a USA immigration official, which involved our bus driver marching us to the front of an irate queue of people waiting to get into the states, to tell him we were leaving. Then we faffed around trying to get the right papers for mexico, pay the money for entering and so on.... by this time we just wanted out of Nogales so caught a 26 hour bus ride to Guadalajara.

Phew.... we arrived late at night and found a very cheap scuzzy kind of dive that was at least friendly and central... rough guide on the first of its many lies... said it was clean... if clean involves there being footprints up the wall then fine. Guadalajara was nice, big city so not exactly chilled, but we enjoyed some cheap tacos ( which are always soft not crunchy in Mexico, and always corn, unless you are in the north.) We also happened upon a dancing show in one of the town squares where everyone´s parents appeared to be on stage in elaborate costumes, and a carnival, which was lots of fun.

Decided to head on out to somewhere more chilled and chose Guanajuato, a colonial university town in the mountains. It took about 5 hours to get there and a long trek round, thanks again to rough guide for having completely the wrong pricing, to hostels that were ghost hostels with no one there, ones that were far too expensive, before landing one with a friendly mexican boy manning the fort to help us out. We enjoyed a lot of street food here, the first of many Tamales, which is corn dough ( like polenta) stuffed with something, usually chicken and a salsa sauce, but perhaps frijoles ( beans) or mole ( amazing amazing chocolate based savoury sauce) or similar. It´s a typical breakfast, or if you are us, breakfast, elevenses and late night snack... we are getting fat! We ate a lot of picnics from the market of corn tortillas with various bean type fillings, avocadoes etc...

The day of the dead was looming, this is when everyone in Mexico celebrates those they have lost. They adorn an altar with photos and the favourite food of the deceased in order to lure them back from the dead. It´s a really happy time in spite of the slightly macabre nature of it all, and here there were lots of stalls selling sugar skulls and marzipan treats of all shapes and sizes for people to put on their altars. On the Monday morning after we arrived we took a walk round Guanajuato and so did every single school kid of 4-10 years old who were busy buying marzipan pigs and so on. There was lots to see, old churchs and colonial buildings. The second day we took a bus ride out to an old Hacienda which belonged to one of the rich in the 19th century. It had lovely gardens and tons of antique furniture and was a very peaceful place to be but yes thanks rough guide for again getting the bus journey completely wrong!!

More street food - this time sweetcorn in a cup. Try it at home - layer hot sweetcorn, mayonaise, chilli sauce, cheese ( optional) and crucially, lime juice for a tasty snack yum yum. We also ate at a real restaurant where I had garlic soup with a poached egg in it - wicked.

Next stop was Oaxaca for the Day of the Dead celebrations. We had booked into a hostal, thankfully as we arrived after a day of travelling ( the highlight of which being 2 tamales at mexico norte bus station) at 11pm at night. Luckily the hostal still open and we collapsed hungry into bed. The next day was November 1st the first day of the festival, and we took a walk round colonial Oaxaca. There are a quite a lot of tourists here compared to other places we have been, but still more mexicans than americans by a long way, happily. We took in the cathedral, and the market where we had our first experience of Pollo Mole, which is chicken in a mole sauce. It´s hard to describe a chocolate sauce that is savoury but believe me it´s very good. We were sitting at the market stall next to a mexican family on holiday from Mexico city and we had a conversation with them in our phrase book spanish, about their daughter´s belly button piercing and where we were all from.

The evening of the 1st is where all the fun happens and we were accosted by several urchins after hard cash, see the photos! There was also at any one time about 3 bands playing in different streets, all competing for your attention. We stumbled across a show going on behind one of the churches, all in spanish but seemed to be the story of the day of the dead, the native americans and spanish settlers buying food, putting it on the graves of the dead, then shock horror the dead coming alive and doing LOTS of dancing, including with several strange people with papier mache balloon shaped heads, before going back to sleep. At the end of this extravaganza staged by local children, there was a commotion to our right and a guy was running around with a strange tin donkey costume on, with fireworks coming out of his bottom. crazy madness!

We headed to the cemetary where apparently all the fun happens and came across yet more nice food, so felt obliged to try an empanada, which is like a corn pastry/tortilla number filled with whatever you fancy, stringy goats cheese, chicken, etc.... very yummy. And after all that food and fun, we headed home to bed.

And the tales of Mayan ruins, free mezcal ( a type of tequila) and our new friends will have to wait for next time.