Actual, Proper Mexico

Well, here I am: in Actual Proper Mexico. It only really hit me this morning when I woke up that this would be the first morning of hundreds (sort of) that I would wake up by myself in a totally foreign place.  But it feels good.

After testing out several travel-blog hosts, I decided to just stick with this one- mostly beause there are no adverts or silliness. So although I have written a couple of other mindless rambles, I'll copy them into here when I can.

"When I can"- My travel journalism weapon of choice is a nameless but cheap and mostly cheerful android tablet thing from China, via ebay. It's a bit slow, gets confused easily and has a attachment keyboard whih only mice could comfortably type on... so I thinkI should get extra points for handicapped blogging. But then again, I would feel like a bit of a tit sitting around a Mayan campfire with my Macbook. The gist of this paragraph is- please forgive any typos.

I left heathrow at 18:40 on Thursday, and apparently was pretty lucky to get away due to the inevitable panic over snow which followed. Got into Madrid at about 9.30 to find the airport totally deserted (odd) apart from a few other lost souls waiting for transfers and a man selling sad looking baguettes.

As an over-head tannoy announcement warned me that there was a "lack of announcements at this time", I sat down to eat a ham and cheese baguette to kill some time. A bit later, I had a lovely chat with a Portugese man from Angola, who re-named me 'Raquel" and gave me half of his kit-kat. I told him that I am a journalist, simply to avoid explaining that actually, I'm an unemployed bum who i sodding off on a very extended holiday... He was an accountant but flew private planes on the weekend. I will never be able to spell or remember his name.

My neighbour on the long-haul flight was Julietta, a Mexican girl who had been living in Paris for 5 years and had a very confused accent, and forceably said "Ooh la la" at any given opportunity. I liked her.

We arrived into Mexico City at 6am, and although it was still dark, the lights that seemed to extend to all corners of the horizon showed me the absolute monster of a city waking up to Friday. It was huge!

While waiting for my final connection I set out to find myself a cup of tea... and to my horror, learnt that the only place that sells the stuff in the country is Starbucks, my nemesis. The irony...

After a surprisingly pleasant flight on Aeromexico, I arrived in Guadalajara and was met by my new BFF, Ariel, in a truck that was 3 years older than me.

And now I sit on my bed in my new home, which belongs to Ariel's mother-in-law, Rosie, her husband, their two dogs Flacco and Luna, and a cat called Chuchita. Chuchita sits on my bed right now and tells me that she hates me- that this is actually her room and that I'm dirty and foreign. But I think we're becoming friends. Also staying here are two older women from Sussex, and Becky and James: a young British couple who have a crazy plan (and lots of money saved, it would appear!) to travel all around the world to about 100 different countries. They probably all think I'm a bit mad and brave to be travelling by myself- and maybe I am, but I'm perfectly happy by myself so far.

Becky and James went on a trip up a mountain today, which I'm quite looking forward to hearing about.I'm also aware that this blogpost is becoming far too long for any sane person to conecentrate on, so I think I'll call it a night and continue tomorrow!

Hasta Luego.