I loved El Paso. Can't even put my finger on why, there's just something relaxed and comfortable about the place. I was a bit stunned when the assistant manager at the hostel told me that the Mexican border was only 15 minutes from the hostel, that's 15mins walking. And yet I felt the safest I have in the US cities I've visited so far (admittedly only 3 others). The assistant manager, Antonio, runs a pseudo tour guide service because he thinks the tourist office staff are a bit rubbish (and he's right). So Antonio drove me over to take the gondola up into the Franklin Mountains to see the city view, and then back in the evening to a good spot to take pictures of the city lights. Top bloke.

The population in El Paso (800,000) and 82% Hispanic so there's a lot of Spanish spoken everywhere but of course they spot me a mile off and immediately switch into English. I did my best to hunt out some authentic places to eat Mexican food (that weren't Mexican/hamburger or Mexican/chinese takeaways) and discovered that $7 buys a lot of lunch and not a lot of it was familiar. Never did figure out whether you're supposed to try and eat the fried corn husk that the tamales come in or not - I opted for not. And why has no one told me before that freshly baked tortillas are fantastic and nothing at all like the shop bought ones?

Things learnt:

1. It pays to do a quick refresher of basic Spanish phrases before trying them out in shops, especially if you are prone to mix up Spanish and Italian.

2. Texas is in the central time zone, except for the little corner that is El Paso which is in the mountain time zone the same as Arizona, except that Arizona doesn't observe daylight savings time so is an hour out, except for the Navajo reservation where they do observe daylight savings time. Oh and Amtrak doesn't always put the local times on the train timetables.

3. I am big and I am beautiful. I know this because a nice old man on the street who spoke next to no English told me so.