I am now back in Merida. I suffered a bad belly bug in Guatemala, but I feel a lot better now I am home. Maybe it was altitude sickness?

My recent posts have been “sans photos” since my camera exploded.

Isabelle has about 10,000 photos to put up online. She is currently on her way back to the Netherlands, so as soon as she uploads the photos I´ll post up a selection.

Overnight bus from Merida, on which I actually slept some thanks to a red rubber thing I bought for 60 pesos. Woke up in Palenque, and was wisked away in a fast car to “the ruins”. These ruins are very impressive, but at the end of the day I´ve seen so many pyramids now, I`m getting pyramid blindness. The afternoon we went to some very impressive waterfalls, and had a swim in icey cold water. A bus then picked us up and off we went on a nightmare journey to San Cristobal. The driver was a fat guy with a death wish who overtook anything that moved or didn´t on blind corners and at great speed. I guess though he was a lucky driver, as at about 10 30 we arrived in the city and took a taxi to our hostel. A quick turn around the block for a leg streatch and off to bed.

I slept like a tronco, and I now enjoying the morning here in San Cristobal. The city is over 2km about sea level, and cold at night and nippy in a morning.  At about 11 it heats up, and the contrast is fantastic.

The new Harry Potter is on the menu for tonight, along with roast chicken, if we can find a cinema.

On our way to the zoo a few days ago we were given discount fliers for the circus, and being in the habit of taking what comes we decided to go on Sunday night. I remembered the circus I had seen as a kid, lions, elephants, bareback riding etc, and how the last circus I saw as an adult had nothing more exciting than a troop of performing budgerigars.  We noticed that one of the trucks had tigers, lions and elephants painted on it, which gave me great hope that the animal rights lobby had not yet spread to Mexico. I was very excited as we arrived by taxi and saw the “big top” and a queue that went well around the block.

I marched up to the ticket office and ordered two of the best seats in the house. The guy in the ticket window seemed shocked, called me “caballero” and charged me 100 pesos a head ( 5 pounds ). Into the tent and there were ushers screaming to people to go left or right, but on seeing our super tickets a flashlight appeared and we were escorted to our seats, which were literally “ring side”. In fact about 2 feet away from the action. What´s more the ring was caged in, which I took as a very good sign. After a bit of dancing from a troop of “gogo” dancers the main acts started. First up were six full grown tigers and a chubby guy with long hair, dressed in black with a very big whip. He got them up on stools, off the stools, up a scaffold, in a pyramid formation, rolling on the ground, and even boxed with one of then while it growled at him like it was real mad! This was fantastic, the crowd went wild!

We were then treated to clowns, trapeze acts, a contortionist ( very skinny girl ), a reconstruction of Michael Jackson´s Thriller Video, more clowns, more acrobats, and a fantastic juggler. Then came on 3 camels and 3 lamas and the same fat guy with the whip. The camels danced, did twirls, and swapped places with the lamas like some bizarre Scottish country dance. I was well satisfied when the called a break and we went to get a snack, but the best was yet to come. The finale was an elephant that did all sorts of tricks, but my jaw droped when I swear to God the thing did a hand stand! It finished off sitting on a chair with its front feet in the air and the fat guy sat on its knee.

Beat that, Billy Smart.

(Off to Guatemela tonight, to see what´s there).

I am in catchup mode, so blogging after the fact. Before the road trip we made a visit to the museum of popular art. The museum stands by a park called Mejorada, which means “made better”, implying that it was a poor park beforehand. We went on Sunday, as many museums are free on sunday, as opposed to the 20 pesos on other days. This was my second trip to the museum, and of all the museums in Merida, I would say it is my favorite. It is a grand old colonial building, marble columns and floors, it would not be out of place in France or Spain.

The museum is devoted to handicrafts, which at first glance you might think of as those rubisshy things carved from wood, and often made in china. The nice thing though about this museum is that as well as the boring old “traditional” handicrafts, you can see up to date stuff, much like “pop art”, which is for me exciting and interesting. Here are some examples of figures which illustrate the Mexican obsession with death. They are made of wood and painted. These photos were shot from behind glass, so some have reflections.

I have just returned to Merida after a week’s roadtrip with my friend from the Netherlands ( always avoid the “D” word as it makes them shirty ), Isabelle. It has been a thrill packed week in which we have entered into a deadly enclosure containing jaguars, lynxes, and crockadiles among other stuff; naffed off on a jet scooter for 30km; played top flight bingo for big money ( one of us won, guess who…); been quizzed by men with machine guns; and taken a dangerous trip into the underground caves.

We have eaten all sorts of food, stayed in some fun places, and generally had a good alround time of it. My camera blew up on day four, Isabelle’s camera failed the same day, but was resurrected from the dead. There are lots of photos, some of them good, and a lot to “blog up”. So after lunch I’ll be getting onto it!

Oh and my domain name expired, but I seem to have been able to renew it anyway. Isn’t the internet wonderful?