The station manager opens our exchange by offering to buy my bike. I explain that without a bike my life wouldn’t actually function and that it wasn’t really just a bike but also my companion and friend. He looks at me searchingly and then nods, in apparent comprehension.

The inevitable question.

“Where are you from?”

When he learns I am, originally, from Australia the man bustles me into a air-conditioned room filled, unexpectedly, with brand new sleek black electronic equipment to watch a DVD about an environmental programme he is running which features images of Sydney, where a similar campaign took place. We settle in to watch the film but the previously unnoticed background rumble of a generator suddenly dies and a plaintive beeping starts up from the bank of electronic equipment. The man jumps up and glares balefully out the window at a man walking away from a ramshackle shed in a field across the road. He apologises and turns off the computer.

“This is the third time I’ve tried to watch it,” he says sadly.

We return to the room across the hallway and he shows me images of the local wildlife and asks me about my trip. When he learns that I have an interest in photography he guides me back into the other room to show me the framed photos he and his workmates have taken of the Peninsula’s fauna which adorn the walls. I question him about what kind of camera he uses.

“I had a Cannon. It was a gift… but I sold it.”

He sighs.

“Life is very expensive.”

We talk more about what the park offers and where I might be able to camp and how to organise meals. He invites me to take part in any walks or excursions with any other tourists that might organise a tour with a guide and then he questions me again about Australia.

“I would love to go to Australia.”

He pauses.

“I was invited to go to Queensland last year,” he tells me.

“Did you go?”

It is a question that I know I probably shouldn’t ask – that I already know the inevitable answer to.

He sighs, again.

“No… Life is difficult.”

We bid each other goodbye and I cycle the twenty kilometres or so to the end of the road towards the east of the bay and then backtrack to the most attractive camp site where, after a brief exploration of the limpid blue waters with my snorkel, I light a fire and cook a meal from the food stash in my panniers.

The Caribbean blues on the Gunahabibicanes Peninsula.

Close to my campsite, yet another Che memorial. It is hard not to love Che; studying a book of photos of him at the airport I discover the ubiquitous photo of his stern face is almost the only one of him that exists where he is not smiling or laughing.

In the morning, after a leisurely breakfast on the beach, I return to the ecological station to talk to my new friend. He tells me some tourists have booked a tour in the afternoon and I can join them if I want and directs me in the meantime on a short walk through the forest behind the Ecological Station.

Trees grow out of an astonishing jagged bed of rocks, inhabited by swarms of large brightly painted crabs. The day is grey and blustery and soon it starts to rain. I shelter under a tree lost in my thoughts when I hear a gentle croak above – glancing around a spy a blue bird, splashed with red and white, with a long ruffled tail, also sheltering from the rain. The bird rearranges its feathers and flaps its wings to display its bright red underside to me before flying to another branch a little further away. We examine each other at length before I turn back and return the way I came. As I walk along the path large brown birds thrash about the forest with unrestrained cries.

Cuba's most prolific wildlife is a multitude of land crabs.

Bird filled forest.

At the station, my friend jumps up from his work to greet me. He tells me the names of the birds I have seen – the Cuban trogon and the Great Lizard Mockingbird – and gives an astonishing accurate rendition of their cries. I examine his bird book and he apologises for not being able to give it to me.

The group, unfortunately, have cancelled their tour because of the rain, he informs me. A mini tropical storm is heading our way and so the weather is going to continue to deteriorate over the afternoon.

I am disappointed that my guided tour has suddenly evaporated – it is not permitted to walk in the park without a guide and I would feel bad to ignore the rules since this man has been so generous to me – but my friend tells me that groups of biology students are camped on various beach towards the west end of the cape conducting a survey of nesting turtles and I could, if I wished, camp with them and see their work.

As I set off on this venture, rain pours down accompanied by fierce winds but I find the conditions quite invigorating after days of intense humid heat and the weather suits the wild terrain of the coast.

Austere landscape...

... and wild coast goes well with wild, windy weather.

After a couple of hours, I come to a camp on the beach close to the road and wheel my bike across the sand to investigate. The two young men standing in an open sided thatched shelter are surprised by my appearance. A bundled form recumbent in a hammock suggests a third inhabitant of the camp.

I ask if I can stay but the boys are wary, muttering non-committal nothings and defer ultimate decision making to the sleeping form. I mention the man at the Ecological Station’s name but it seems to mean nothing to them. However, they invite me to sit down, referring to the inclement weather, and offer me a cracker adorned with the surprising combination of guava paste and mayonnaise. An old man, toothless and gnarled, who has lived on the beach for 15 years in a nearby small thatched shelter, comes by to examine the unexpected guest. Eventually, the girl in the hammock arises and again I ask if I can stay.

“If you would like to….,” she says uncertainly.

That’s good enough for me.

I put up my tent next to one that lies collapsed on the ground which the three young people then tend to. Accommodation sorted, we all return to the shelter where we pass the rest of the afternoon playing dominoes.

Biology students studying turtles pass the day sleeping and playing dominoes.

I am initiated into the game - the concept is simple but it helps to have a good memory, not something I am particularly blessed with. I have a surprising run of wins but I think I am aided more by good luck than skill.

As dusk falls I take a nap to prepare for a night of scouring the beach for turtles and wake to a meal of rice and canned meat waiting for me. My contribution of Quaker museli bars for desert is carefully perused and commented upon.

“Where did you buy these?”

“Mexico.”

They are impressed and their thanks are embarrassingly earnest.

After dinner the girl examines my hands and gets out a primitive first aid kit to scrub out my infected cuts with alcohol and dress them with ragged bits of gauze and tape. One of the boys wraps up some spare gauze in a scrap of paper and insists that I pack it in my pannier.

We sit talking by the light of a smokey kerosene lamp.

Towards midnight we take turns to walk the beach watching for the marks made by female turtles dragging themselves up the beach to make their nests. I sit with one of the boys on the damp sand under the unknown stars and he tells me the dreams he has for his future. We pace the beach again and again and finally, I go to my tent to sleep. The boy says he will wake me if any turtles appear on the beach.

I wake at dawn and return to the beach to investigate the nest sites.

The view from my tent.

The beach at dawn.

Turtle nests...

... are carefully marked. Sadly, no turtles visited the beach the night I camped here.

The turtle camp.

I pack up my belongings and when they emerge from their tent, bid a very fond farewells to the biology students and set off to reach the westernmost point of Cuba.

The marina on the western most point of Cuban - closer to Cancun than Havana.

Always hungry for fish, at the marina I sidle up to a fishing boat and am lucky enough to end up, before long, with freshly caught fish served up to me, fried crisp and brown. with a few wedges of lime.

Cleaning a fish, that minutes later is before me on a plate.

An impressive fish.

I backtrack to the hotel on the beach at Las Tumlas where a chat to a Dutch couple brings the very welcome gift of a tube of Bettadine ointment. I spend the rest of the afternoon relaxing on a squatted lounge chair under the shady trees on the beach availing myself of the fresh water showers and other comforts.

It is four-thirty before I set off to cover the 55 odd kilometres back to La Bajada where I intend to get something to eat before finding another campsite on the beach. Favourable winds speed me along but iguanas soaking up the last of the sun’s rays and families of jutias, a large indigenous rat, playing by the road provide adequate distractions to slow my pace.

When I arrive in La Bajada the sun is already resting on the horizon and the lovely women who cook for me have little trouble in convincing me to stay for the night.

Casa! A welcome break from camping where I can wash myself and my clothes and generally make myself a little more socially acceptable.

Excellent interior decorating.

When I finally do get my hands on a map I find that, while there are indeed a few tracks wandering off the main thoroughfares, few of them link up. However, I nonetheless manage to spy out a route that might work – the only issue being a river around the halfway mark that is going to need crossing somehow. I am discussing these route options with an ex-pat American who is overall quite doubtful about my plan but gives me what turns out to be a lucky camping tip; down the highway towards the Belize Zoo are a couple of bar/restaurants that he feels sure will let me camp out the back.

The first of these establishments, which I approach at dusk, gives me a rapid brush off but the second, run by a Hungarian whose overarching philosophy is stated as ‘anyone can do whatever they want here’, is much more welcoming. So, after my tent is set up at the back of the Hungarian’s house, I find myself downing a couple of beers at the bar with an eclectic Caribbean crowd during an extended happy hour chatting to an US archeology PhD student doing some research at a local site. One of the men, clearly a regular, gets up to leave as the happy hour finally draws to a close and the girl I am talking to suggests that I ask him for advice about the roads.

After I explain my potential route to the man, he abandons his plans to leave the bar and spends the next hour making phone calls, trying to track down someone on the farm that the road passes through who can help me negotiate the problematic river crossing. After failing to get a definitive answer, Bruce gives me directions to his house and tells me to drop by in the morning, any time after 6AM, to follow up on the matter.

So the next day, I arrive at Bruce’s house at about 6.30 and, after he has fried me some eggs and made the coffee, the phone rings and the manager of Big Falls farm is on the line promising that someone will be waiting for me at the river to ferry me to the other side. You’ve got to love a small country!

Escaping the highway is not so easy in Belize. Most roads that aren't the three main highways of Belize are private roads. This one runs through a cattle ranch called Big Falls. A chance encounter in a bar gave me the contact I needed to negoitate the river at the end of the road and the right name to drop to the people who accousted me en route to tell me that I was on private land.

Three men are waiting at the river with a canoe help me to negotiate the crossing.

Once across the river, I am faced with having to navigate a confusing tangle of tracks aided only by a few place names: Rancho Dolares, Hill Bank, Indian Church, Lamanai. I am not helped by the fact that mostly I don’t actually know what any of these names is referring to – a village, a farm, a reserve, an archeological site… I have no idea.

The people I make enquiries to are clearly dismayed by the urge to travel. “That’s not in this area!,” they exclaim, while making vague serpentine gestures with their hands to describe the way. One woman tells me that I can’t go to Hillbank because it is a long way and there is nothing there but wild pigs but a group of old men sitting under a shady tree at an intersection tell me that Hillbank is a ‘big tourist place’ where, obviously, as an apparent gringa, I will be welcomed. However, neither of these snippets of information contains very much truth.

Hillbank, it transpires, is a privately owned, protected wildness area that borders the Rio Azul area in Guatemala – it is, in fact, where I would have ended up if I had managed to cross the border at Tres Banderas. Three rangers are hanging out at their post at the barrier which controls access to the area and they ask me if I am expected. I want to give them the right answer so I hedge a little.

“Should I be?”

“Well, yes…”

After I admit that I am not expected, the guy who appears to be in charge radios to some higher authority and then opens the gate. Once I am inside he is much more friendly: he sends me to the water tank to replenish my drinking water, gives me a handful of tiny yellow mangos and then invites me onto the verandah to rest a while. When he see me get out some fairly meagre rations from my food pannier he asks me if I would like to try some of the ranger’s lunch-time fare of chicken, beans and rice.

Three park rangers control access to Hillbank, a protected wilderness area that borders the Rio Azul protected area in Guatemala. I am close to Tres Banderas.

They introduce me to one of three endangered yellow-headed parrots rescued from poachers and now undergoing rehabilitation so that it can return to the wild.

And feed me a fine lunch of rice, beans and chicken.

Eventually, well-fed and rested, I set off again across the savannah, a hot sandy place under the mid-afternoon sun, and struggle towards Hillbank, still unsure exactly what I am going to find there but hoping that it will prove to be a place where I can camp and possibly eat.

Riding on the through the savannah - a hot and sandy business.

I have left the savannah behind me and have re-entered the jungle when I see a couple walking towards me dressed in khaki jungle gear, rubber boots and sensible hats. I guess they think I look kind of strange, too, on my bike. I stop and we exchange particulars – they are ornithologists stationed at Hillbank conducting a comparative study on different swallow species. The objects of their current interest are mangrove swallows.

I ask them if I can camp at Hillbank and they look unsure.

“Well, you can ask.”

They don’t sound very convinced.

I ride off and it is not long before I arrive at a clearing dotted with wooden buildings overlooking a lagoon and, after some dicey negotiation, receive rather grudging permission to stay a night.

Nat and Katy, the ornithologists, return from their walk and, with greater enthusiasm than the management evinced, invite me to the mess hall for an illicit dinner and, more excitingly, to accompany them the next day on their rounds of the swallow’s nests.

The lagoon at Hillbank... with the nesting boxes.

Nat and Katy checking out their babies.

Six day old mangrove swallow chicks.

The chicks are exhaustively measured...

...and even have their nails painted.

Then we stake out the box, having wired it to trap papa swallow...

...a wily bird...

...who nonetheless eventually falls victim to Nat and Katy's evil designs and has his blood taken...

...and vital statistics recorded.

A dragonfly freshly emerged from its shell - still damp and wrinkled, drying in the sun..

It is late in the season and so most of the birds have already flown the nest and the days work is over quite quickly. In the afternoon, after Nat has managed to secure me another night’s camping at Hillbank, we go for a walk which ends in a refreshing snorkelling adventure in a small mangrove lined stream.

Afternoon sees the three of us relaxing on the verandah... (Photo: Nat)

...before a walk which culminates in a swim in a crystal clear mangrove lined creek.

Cool water is heaven.

The next morning, early, before I completely wear out my dubious welcome with the authorities at Hillbank, I set off again.

Packed up and ready to leave at dawn.

Deep black water.

One of my reluctant hosts at Hillbank has drawn me a very detailed and beautiful map to speed me on my way to the border that sadly proves, at the very first intersection, to be utterly useless. I pass through Mennonite communities and ask for directions where I can always receiving elaborate instructions with a myriad of very specific references to local landmarks, accompanied by a fluid wave of a hand that indicates any number of potential twists and turns. All in all, it combines to form a overwhelming fog of hazy information and a number of times I have to resort to my compass to make a reasonably informed decision about the way.

Nat and Katy have informed me that I need $37.50 Belizian dollars to leave the country and this leaves me with exactly $2 Belizian dollars at my disposal unless I happen to find an ATM before I reach the border – which is pretty unlikely – so, with my almost empty food pannier, it’s looking like a hungry day. Things look even bleaker when I discover that I can’t cross the border at the customs post at Blue Creek and not only have I ridden 15 kilometres out of my way but I have to ride an extra sixty kilometres through Orange Walk and up to Santa Elena.

However, I am saved from starvation by a lovely girl called Ingrid in San Felipe. I have been told she sells tamales and when this turns out to be misinformation I clearly look very crestfallen. She tells me to wait, runs to the kitchen, and then returns asking if I would like fried chicken and beans.

I can’t refuse this offer even though it’s probably going to break my budget and leave me in trouble at the border.

She invites me into her house and sits me at the kitchen table where she serves me a generous helping of chicken and frijoles accompanied by a stack of tortillas and a big glass of watermelon juice. After I have polished off the first helping she refills the bowl with beans and then, when I have finished them, she opens a packet of sweet biscuits – an item she surely keeps for special occasions – and gives me a pile.

We chat about our lives as she continues with her domestic tasks, cutting vegetables at a bench with her 8 month old baby daughter scooting around her feet on a walker with wheels. Eventually I get up to leave, asking how much for the meal, but she waves any suggestion of payment aside dismissively and insists that I must come back to visit again the next time I pass through Belize.

Unless I come across an ATM, I have two Belizian dollars to see me to the border so abundant mangoes by the side of the road are very welcome.

The Belizians are not much into signage, it seems. This is one of about four road signs I saw passing through the country. I particularly like its sense of perspective.

I quiz the guy about the border crossing to Mexico and he assures me it is not far but it is the hottest part of the day and I am still worn out from yesterday’s ride so I am happy when the young man points to some hammocks hanging in a thatched shelter. I find myself snoozing the rest of the afternoon away swinging gently in the breeze.

As the afternoon passes, the camp gradually fills up with people. Another man comes over to talk to me and takes me to the kitchen where the camp cook rustles up some re-fried beans and toasted tortillas for me. The first guy I spoke to comes back and shows me a cabin where I can stay the night before I return to the hammock with Como Agua por Chocolate, the novel I am attempting to read in Spanish, and my Spanish dictionary. My attention is constantly distracted from the book by a group of Ocellated Turkeys going about their elaborate courtship rituals.

Eventually the dinner bell rings and I return to the kitchen structure to eat with the workmen.

Later, back in the hammock shelter, the men question me at length about my life and I, in turn, question them about crossing the border into Mexico. They all agree that the border is close and that there is no problem with crossing it. There is, however, no immigration post but no-one seems to think that this small detail is problematic.

Rio Azul work camp.

I get a cabin to myself at the Rio Azul work camp.

A pair of Ocellated Turkeys. The male is involved in a riveting and, clearly, quite exhausting courtship dance. He keeps at it for hours and then collapses on the ground all tuckered out. The female seems largely uninterested.

In the morning I set off, with the intention of crossing the border back into Mexico. I am heading north towards Cancun on the Yucatan Peninsula where I hope to find a way to hop across to Cuba and this foray into Guatemala has been largely motivated by the need to get a little more visa time in Mexico in order to organise the logistics of the Cuba trip.

On the road towards the border, I pass the Rio Azul archeological site and stop to explore. A group of three Mexican archeologists are currently on site and many of the workmen at the camp are engaged in various tasks to do with the restoration and preservation of the structures, presumably under the direction of these archeologists.

Nobody is around, however, and I wander about the overgrown ruins alone. On top of one of the larger structures, a rickety wooden lookout has been constructed and I climb to the top to view the jungle canopy from above. Circling the structures, I notice each one has an opening, carved through the stones, straight to the centre of it and I hope that it is possible to enter but I am thwarted in each case by a firmly locked steel door.

Overgrown ruins at the Rio Azul archeological site. Rio Azul is a working site with real live archeologists doing their thing.

A raided tomb - grave robbers cut their way into the depths of these structures back in the 70s and looted the contents of the tombs at Rio Azul. Most of the artefacts, recognisable by a unique glyph associated with the Rio Azul site, are now in private collections in the States. When I told one of the archeologists that I would like to see inside she informed me that a hazardous fungus infests the tombs and they have now been sealed.

A lookout built on the top of one of the structures provides a rare opportunity to see the jungle canopy from above.

On the way back to my bike, I spy a walking trail which lures me into the jungle for a diverting hour or two.

Spectacular trees...

Coati or Pizote - this little critter is surprisingly aggressive. He catches sight of me and comes scampering down the tree towards me quite threateningly. I backed off.

Finally back on the bike, I head towards the border. I really don’t know what I was expecting of a border crossing without an immigration post but things start to get a little weird.

First, I met the young Wildlife and Forestry guy from the work camp jogging along the road towards me. He stops and tells me that I am close to the border now and jogs away.

Then, the road ends.

Two other guys from the camp appear out of the brush pushing a four wheeler out of a ditch. I look at them a little confused but they gesture into the thicket and tell me that if I follow the path I will come to the road in Mexico soon. They assure me that everything is OK, the way is clear and I can go on. They check my bike over and ask me if I have enough water. Um, yes. I push my bike into the jungle.

I follow the winding footpath through the forest and the warnings of the people in El Remate suddenly come back to me. They told me I was heading in to the Zona Roja – the Red Zone – where drug traffickers and people smugglers do their business across the Guatemalan/Mexican border. I keep pushing the bike along the path while pondering on whether the guys from the camp had come this way specially to check if the way was clear for the crazy gringa on her bike, or, alternatively, if perhaps they themselves are the drug traffickers and people smugglers. They would be pretty well set up for it but they all seemed like nice guys to me.

Intricate plots for a complicated thriller set in the jungle suggest themselves to me. All the elements are here: an exotic location; a host of intriguing characters – the foreign archeologists, the gang of rough and ready workers, with their prison style tattoos, the handsome young Wildlife and Forestry worker, with his girl trouble, the cook and her assistant, rich foreign collectors, without many scruples; pickup trucks arriving in the early hours of the morning, full of mysterious boxes; there is a shady back story, with tomb robbers; sealed up pyramids with a deadly fungus growing inside; wild animals in the forest; a whole range of illicit activities – drug trafficking, people smuggling, wildlife poaching – to add unexpected twists and turns to a labyrinthine plot line. It is bound to be a best seller and if I can tie it all in with the Mayan 2012 end of the world prophecy then Dan Brown will be eating his heart out and I will be laughing all the way to the bank!

At the end of the road in Guatemala a discrete, but clearly well-used, foot path winds through the jungle towards Mexico.

Just after passing a small clearing on the path where people could potentially gather, while still under cover, I stumble, blinking, out of the jungle into a bizarre space. A bare strip twenty metres wide stretches away in both directions, adorned at regular intervals by white painted obelisks. On closer inspection, each obelisk, it turns out, is graced by four plaques, stating Guatemala and Mexico on opposing sides, while the other two sides are bisected by that imaginary line that makes nations.

I spend a considerable amount of time here, unable to drag myself away from this weird spectacle that makes so little sense to me. The idea of nations, a relatively recent historical phenomena, has never seemed particularly real to me and I am astonished by the way this abstract concept has been physically carved into the landscape.

I emerge from virgin jungle into this weird space.

Just so as you are in no doubt as to where you are...

...everything is clearly....

...delineated and labelled...

...at one hundred metre intervals. Absurd!

Eventually, however, after locating the road on the Mexican side of the line by dint of wandering up and down for a while, I am about to set off into Mexico when it occurs to me that, really, getting my passport back in order if I go through with this is probably going to be quite a bureaucratic nightmare. What on earth, I am going to actually tell the Mexican immigration people when I rock up to their office for my entry stamp? And what about the next time I want to enter Guatemala? How will I explain the fact I don’t have an exit stamp? Suddenly, it doesn’t look like such a good idea and it amazes me that it ever did.

So I retrace my footsteps and head back into Guatemala.

When I get back to the road I study my map. The guys at the camp had told me that there were two options for crossing the border and this one had the benefit of being the closest one. The other one is at a place called Tres Banderas, the point where the Mexico, Guatemala and Belize all converge, and the road is clearly marked on the map traversing the border. There is no immigration post there either apparently, but, perhaps, I think, if there is a continuous road, at least, I will have a more convincing story to tell the authorities.

I decide to go to investigate.

I find the junction and set off on a narrow track following a sign which informs me that it is 11 kilometres to Tres Banderas. The road doesn’t appear to get any traffic at all and it gradually gets more and more overgrown but I persevere. Sticks and vines constantly find ways to wrap themselves around the spokes of my wheels and my chain drive and eventually since I am having to stop to remove them every few metres, I get off the bike and push.

Suddenly, some way ahead of me I see a brown shape moving on the road. I stop and grope for my binoculars. A puma! The animal is walking down the track towards me, casually doing puma things, oblivious to my presence. It stops and I lose sight of it for a second as it rolls in the grass and then gets up and continues on its way, pausing again to rub its face on a vine hanging over the road.

The animal moves with a steady feline grace. It seems that the beast is just going to keep on walking down the track until it runs straight into me and I am quite tempted to allow this to happen but at about 80 metres caution prevails and I decide to let it know that I am here.

I wave my arms in the air and say, “Hi, Puma!”

The animal stops immediately and regards me very intently for almost a minute before turning – slowly, disdainfully – and walking, at exactly the same pace as previously, back the way it came before disappearing into the jungle to one side of the track. I wait a little while before continuing on my way past the place it vanished. The forest is so dense that I can barely see 10 metres into it.

It is not long before I come to a point where the track, regardless of the information provided by my map, is suddenly swallowed up by the jungle and there is nothing left for me to do but attempt to get back to Rio Azul before dark.

Puma! I am a bit over-excited (the puma is only about 80 metres away and walking straight towards me) and the light isn't great so, sadly, the quality of this image doesn't do the animal justice. In fact, the photo is barely intelligible and I shouldn't post it but I just can't help myself!.

The men at the camp are astonished to see me. “Couldn’t you find the road?” they enquire. I explain that, really, an illegal border crossing isn’t very convenient for me and they consider this unexpected fact. My only option now is to head due south to where I can cross the border legally into Belize and then north from there towards Mexico – a venture which requires tackling another 100 kilometres or so of muddy jungle road to the border town of Melchor and then traversing Belize to get more or less back to the point where I am now, only about 50 kilometres to the east and legal.

I almost ran straight over this little fellow and after photographing him where he was on the road I heard a rare vehicle approaching so I moved him out of harm's way.

Groups of butterflies in tasteful colour combinations sit on the road.

The mud situation is beginning to get tiresome; after a good start, the track degenerates and I have another difficult messy day ahead of me.

The gateway to the jungle... unfortunately, I am leaving it behind... About fifty metres past this symbolic gateway there is a real barrier manned by military personnel. They were truly astonished to see me appear out of the wilderness on my bike.

A sorry sight on re-entering the lands where humans hold sway.

Muddy, muddy, muddy. The road is negotiable but not at all relaxing.

So the day passes, negotiating patches of mud and fending off clouds of mosquitoes while toucans flap from tree to tree overhead, turkeys, guans and carassows stalk across the track and monkeys chatter and rant above me, clearly indignant at my presence. My fondness for spider monkeys becomes somewhat tempered by their propensity to hurl missiles out of the canopy at unwanted passersby.

The spider monkeys are less impressed by my presence than I am by theirs. They shriek abuse at me while shaking their fists and hurling missiles from above.

Not all the wildlife is so confrontational. A frog sits calmly in a log.

Antonio has given me what seemed like clear instructions on the route but they appear hazier in the forest than they did at his table. I am counting off turns to the left but I am unsure exactly what counts as turn as opposed to an unremarkable path. Additionally the road splits and branches around boggy sections and then reunites on the other side of the obstacle but sometimes the diversion wanders from the main stream for long enough for me to start wondering if I am heading into uncharted jungle.

Getting lost out here would be problematic and I’m not sure if any of the people who know of my plans are sufficiently invested in my welfare to ever know if I make it to the other side or not. I’m sure news will filter through eventually but I’m not certain how fast. However, I have enough water for two days and enough food for four and I imagine that even if I can’t find my way to Dos Lagunas, my first pit-stop, then I should still be able to find my way back to Uaxactun.

However, a sign duly appears – it says Dos Lagunas and has a neatly hand carved wooden arrow painted yellow hanging below pointing to the left. I am torn, though. I thought there was one more left hand turn to pass but this sign is so authoritative.  Leaves cover the track and the trees lean in overhead. Antonio told me not to take the second path because although it does go to Dos Lagunas the road is steep and round about… but why would anyone place such a beautiful sign directing people the wrong way.

Who knows? Another one of life’s unanswerable questions.

It's a beautiful sign. It's a shame that it points the wrong way.

So, obediently, foolishly, I follow the sign and the track gets steeper and steeper and, as it gets more and more overgrown, darker and darker. Moments of doubt assail me and I contemplate again what might happen if I get hopelessly lost alone in the jungle, anxiously calculating available food and water and days needed to retrace my footsteps but ultimately I am reassured by the fact that it is hard to get hopelessly lost if you are following paths or roads. You might not be able to get to where you want to go but usually it is possible to return to where you came from.

The jungle teems with boundless life, much of it in the form of biting insects. The environment is not so much hostile as magnificently indifferent to human needs. As I struggle to haul myself, my bike and my belongings along the punishing track I feel that I am indeed alone in the wilderness. There is nowhere to stop and rest, the only place where it is possible to sit is in the middle of the road itself, where it is not a foot deep in mud and to stop is to be besieged by insects. Mosquitoes whine all around me, ants swarming over the ground sting and bite.

The canopy closes overhead; there is no vista, no way to see the lie of the land or the scope of the forest, but just when it starts to feel relentless another sign comes into view and I go on. The track begins to descend again and eventually I arrive at Dos Lagunas as the shadows lengthen and sun finally loses its sting.

I was beginning to seriously consider retracing my footsteps to the last junction when I came upon this second clue indicating the potential proximity of Dos Lagunas.

Finally, I arrive. This is one of the two lagoons referred to in the name Dos Lagunas. Those inviting waters, home to lurking crocodiles, are sadly out of bounds.

Verdant green waters...

...with cute baby crocs lurking...

...and toucans above in the trees. (This is a Keen-billed Toucan.)

Dos Lagunas is one of the work camps where I hope to find some form of hospitality. I sit by the lagoon until a couple of workers appear. They are somewhat surprised to see me but welcoming enough. I cook my dinner over their kitchen fire and then collapse in my tent and sleep.

Unknowingly, I arrive in the middle of the World Cup qualifier between Guatemala and South Africa and so Antonio’s focus is somewhat divided – I am very impressed that he manages to lavish any attention on me at all. With eyes flickering between me and the television, Antonio tells me that what I want to do will be difficult, but not impossible, before we agree that we talk later, in more detail, over some maps. He then returns to bear witness to Guatemala’s doomed struggle with South Africa and I venture out into the blistering afternoon sun to explore Uaxactun.

Uaxactun is a quiet village lined up in two rows on either side of a wide green, set in the middle of ancient ruins. The Mayan site pre-dates the larger and more popular Tikal site. Crumbling structures surround the living village and there is not a tourist to be seen anywhere. I wander alone in the afternoon heat, resting often under giant trees.

Spider monkeys hurl themselves carelessly from one tree to the next with utter confidence. The ground doesn’t seem to exist for these creatures. I decide that I like spider monkeys far more than howler monkeys; spider monkeys are agile and move very fast through the jungle canopy, branches dipping and swaying as they leap and then hang nonchalantly from any combination of their five limbs. I wonder if there are occasional accidents… do branches break, perhaps?… is a misjudged leap possible?

The archeological site at Uaxactun is deserted, except for the monkeys and a woman with a wheelbarrow collecting wood.

As the shadows lengthen a small grey fox trots purposefully out of the jungle carrying a bird in its mouth, feathers curling luxuriantly from both sides of its snout. The animal is unaware of me and turns onto the path I am standing on. I don’t know which of its senses suddenly alerts it to my presence but it freezes and then leaps away and races back into the forest.

Later, while I am sitting at the base of a pyramid, I spy a toucan, in a tree very close to me, moving from branch to branch. This is not a Keen-billed Toucan but the Collared Aracari, a smaller bird, predominantly black with a vivid bib of red and yellow. Its beak is a deep vermilion, with startlingly geometric patterning. The bird’s beak, which is so over-sized that it is easy to instinctively assume that it is clumsy is, of course, actually an elegant tool. The bird hops and leaps with surprising agility and strength around the tree seizing various items and tossing them neatly down its throat. Then, suddenly, a red fruit grasped delicately in its beak the bird cocks its head to one side and takes to the air.

I return to Antonio’s place where I set up my tent in the yard and prepare for the road ahead by removing my mud guards. Antonio has photocopied a map of the local roads and tells me what I can expect to find in the jungle. He shows me the location of a couple work camps where I can replenish my water supplies and, probably, camp. It rained heavily earlier in the week, but not for the last two days; the roads should be passable although, without question, there will be many areas of deep mud. He casually waves aside the suggestion that I will come across the bandits, rogues, murders and rapists that the good people of El Remate seem convinced haunt the jungle, waiting for an unwary cycle tourist to pass.

The logistics of my journey sorted, Antonio donates a few tortillas to complement my avocado and so completes my evening repast and cooks himself some eggs. After we eat, I show him a few photos of some previous parts of my journey.

In the morning, when I am almost ready to leave Antonio unlocks a door on the verandah and invites me inside. The large room is lined with shelves holding an impressive collection of Mayan artefacts. They are, largely, what was left behind by tomb robbers who looted the local site. The larger more valuable items from the tombs have long since disappeared into private collections and these are the remnants. I have seen the extensive collections at the anthropological museums of both Mexico City and Puebla but there is something much more thrilling about the immediacy of these items which I can actually pick up and hold in my hands.

.

Antonio's collection of artefacts,...

...the less valuable items left behind by tomb robbers, who looted the site.

Stone implements found in the area surrounding the village.

When I have finished admiring the collection, we set off together as Antonio has decided to accompany me for a way, to set me on the right track. We head out of the village on footpaths through the houses and onto a road ankle deep in fine black mud which quickly coats my wheels. There are narrow tracks, paralleling the road in places, skirting the worst of the bogs but, even so, with viscous mud sucking at my wheels a couple of kilometres or so of it has me wondering about the feasibility of my plan. However, the track we are riding on, or, really, pushing and dragging our bikes along joins another and here the ground seems firmer and Antonio gingerly shakes my muddy hand and then sends me on my way with good wishes.

Antonio leading the way on a bit of jungle single track.

More monkey business.

..

Bonampak is about thirty-five kilometres past the turnoff and so it is not long before I arrive at a village near the site and set about finding a base from which to explore the area. I pull into the first place that offers accommodation and ask if I can camp somewhere.

A man shows me to a ramshackle structure on stilts overlooking the river and says I can put up my tent on the verandah. We almost come to grief over the price – the man initially quotes 100 pesos, a ridiculous sum for camping, but he finally, and somewhat incomprehensibly, settles on allowing me to stay for nothing. Camping under a roof is not a bad idea in the rainy season and after checking out the attractions of the river, I am quickly won over.

The campsite...

...with a private beach...

... and a swing over the water,...

After a swim I contemplate getting on my bike and riding the 10 kilometres to Bonampak but dark clouds lowering in the sky prompt me to take an afternoon nap in the hammock instead.

...and a hammock to lie in...

... while I watch the rain fall into the river fall into the river.

A candle in a paper bag to light up my jungle night.

The following morning I decide to walk to the cascades, one of the local attractions. I am not so fond of ‘attractions’ but the cascades are situated in some old growth forest and I am absolutely entranced by the jungle. A forty-five minute walk brings me to the cascades which are, in fact, quite spectacularly beautiful.

Some of the most beautiful waterfalls I've seen...

... verdant grottoes...

... and crystal clear water...

... in a pristine jungle setting. The sum is close to paradise.

I spend a hour or so sitting by the waterfall before making my way back along the path winding through the trees. The sound of heavy wing beats stops suddenly me in my tracks. I creep forward and spy a riveting bird perched on the branch of a tree. I stare amazed. I feel myself, clearly, to be in the presence of an incredible being. The bird is enormous, with black and white plumage, a vivid orange-red head, a bright red ringed eye. I try to get a little closer but the bird flies off, ponderously, to another perch slightly further away. After a few more moments the bird flies out of sight into the forest and I continue on my way, wondering what it is that I have seen.*

A path leads through towering trees and I spot a number of amazing wild creatures.

Low light makes for a fuzzy photo but I was astonished to find a crab scuttling across the path.

A towering tree.

Strange fruit in the jungle.

In afternoon, after stopping by at my veranda campsite for a refreshing swim, I make my way to Bonampak hoping to get there and back before the heavy afternoon rains set in.

I ride happily on ten kilometres of gravel road through more virgin jungle to the site but I find Bonampak produces a feeling of overwhelming ennui in me. Initially, I attribute this to Bonampak’s status as a ruin because, traditionally, ruins function to produce a feeling of romantic melancholy. However, after reflection, I associate the feeling with the presence of bored groups of guides waiting for a likely tourist, and a dense cluster of stalls selling trinkets, a ticket booth, a snack bar and public toilets.

I walk around the site contemplating whether I should give up going to tourist attractions completely. I wonder what, if anything, I learn from visiting the crumbling remnants of a culture of which I know nothing and no answer to this question occurs to me.

Ancient piles of stone.

Murals inside the structures.

Elaborate carvings.

Tranquil lawns.

Encroaching jungle.

On the ride back to the village, I encounter a green python making its serpentine way across the gravel road. I am travelling fast and I am almost upon the creature before I see it. The snake and I both recoil, the snake more elegantly than I because coiling and recoiling are what snakes are made to do.

In fact, the snake recoils and I jump, if it were possible to jump while riding a bike. I fling the leg closest to it into the air and grab the brakes. I come to a stop as the snake undulates off the road and into the bushes. Once it has achieved cover, it stops, draped along a branch – vivid green, orange eye unblinking, tongue flickering – and then slowly, in control now, it flows into the dense green foliage

*Internet research and the assistance of a knowledgeable person on an internet forum reveal the bird to have been a King Vulture

Leaving Puebla is not hard.

Mexico is full of abandoned building projects. I like the scuptural steel forms of this example, spotted while passing through a village just outside Puebla.

The day is long and the road unwinds into a arid valley bounded by dry rocky hills covered with mesquite and Joshua trees in flower. The nopal, too, is blooming, each paddle fringed with bright red blossoms while the agave cactus send giant spears shooting into the sky, green shiny heart shaped pods, bursting into bright yellow clusters of flowers.

Can anyone tell me if these really are mesquite flowers?

Suddenly, as I come around a long curve a hill comes into view thick with towering columns of tall straight cactus.

Incredible vegetation.

Cactus valley.

The day is hot and I have to rest in the afternoon under a rare shade tree and it occurs to me that maybe I have done this all back to front, traversing the mountains in the north in winter and now heading towards the desert peninsula moving into high summer.

When I finally find a place to camp – to the side of the road hidden from view of passing traffic by a long mound of earth – I eat a left over piece of Spanish tortilla, cooked the night before in Puebla.

The stars appear one by one and it is so long since I have camped out in the open that they have shifted and the sky appears unfamiliar to me. Orion is low in the north-west. In the south, hovering just above the horizon the Southern Cross appears for the first time on my journey. I watch it and during the night when I wake it is still there in the same position – the axis the world is spinning on – but I can’t locate Paleides and Taurus in the new alignment and I am bereft. I wake again just before dawn and Orion, too, has vanished.

In the morning I continue to ride among incredible cactus. Before long a mountain ranges looms ahead.

Fat cactus.

An impressive cactus tree... I wish I knew the names of these plants.

I'm heading towards those there hills...

I wake on the second morning out of Puebla having camped by the side of the road, just out of direct line of the car headlights and so hidden by darkness, but exposed once the sun has risen, clearly visible with a simple sideways glance. I am up quickly and gone without breakfast. Thorn bushes cling, tearing at my bare legs, as I push my bike back to the road; everything hard rough surfaces, spines and prickles.

A few kilometres brings me to Teotitlan where I must choose between heading south into the heart of Oaxaca or east towards Vera Cruz. The eastern route is slightly more direct and, with my visa clock ticking, I decide to go that way. Turning off the more travelled route I begin, without preamble, to climb. The sun rises behind the mountain range I am ascending and so I am, at least initially, sheltered from its rays.

Rising, slowly, out of the desert valley, I watch the mountain range on the other side. The road winds higher and higher, snaking in and out of the folds of the mountain ridge. I top a crest and the road follows the top of the ridge for a while rolling up and down before rising steeply again. The mountain tops are less barren than the valley and lower slopes and there is some tree cover but now the sun has risen the heat is intense.

Looking back down into the valley during the long climb upwards.

I drop down into a another valley to face another long brutal ascent to the township of Huautla – a grim settlement strung out along a ridge, tin shacks spilling down the precipitous slopes. People stare – there are no smiles here – the atmosphere is uncomprehending and hostile. I feel like I might be the first tourist to ever stray this way but I discover later that the place is famous for its magic mushrooms and sees its fair share of foreign visitors.

Huautla - a sprawling ugly town strung along a mountain ridge. This one of the only places were I have felt genuinely uncomfortable simply riding down the main street but maybe the 30 kilometre climb in 35cxvx degree heat was a contributing factor.

I rest in an internet café, venture to the tiny market behind the square to buy supplies and go on. Incredibly, after a brief descent, I start to climb again, up and up.

The sun sets over mountains such as I have never seen before, lofty peaks marching endlessly into an deep blue haze. I camp just outside a small village in another of those half built construction projects, the only level ground to be seen – hanging over the edge of the deep valley.

Sun goes down over the mountains at the end of a hard day's climbing.

When I wake, I finally begin to descend, speeding through villages, barely awake, the inhabitants – poor folk in indigenous dress – wary and amazed to see a gringa tourist whizzing past on a bicycle at dawn.

I drop out of the sky and into jungle. The world has been remade over night, here the air is warm and damp and multitude of unknown birds scream in the trees. I stop to watch black birds with yellow tails tend to their Christmas stocking nests, hanging from the trees, stuffed with hidden treats. Two of the raucous bickering birds tumble towards the ground locked together, breaking apart just before hitting the ground.

I continue descending but I soon stop again, amazed by a toucan which takes off in flight from a tree beside the road before landing on another tree lower on the slope. I watch until the bird takes off again chased by a shrieking smaller bird. With its massive clumsy yellow bill, how the creature manages to stay airborne is a complete mystery to me.

Pure jungle magic but hot, oh, so hot!

And on the other side of the mountains, a humid sunrise...

It is is a different world here.

My excuse for an extended stay in the D.F. is provided by David, an old friend from Sydney, who is meeting me here in the metropolis as the starting point for a couple of weeks of Mexican exploration and adventure. We’ve been tossing ideas around in cyberspace for a couple of months now and we want to check out the city and then climb a few volcanoes. David has a special interest in earthquakes and disaster which extends to all geological events, including volcanic activity.

The Mexican flag flying high over the Zocalo in Mexico City.

My sister, refusing to concede defeat and allow me to travel the world poorly dressed, has sent the little black dress that I finally divested myself of in Zacatecas – by including it in a package of Mexican goodies that I sent to her in Sydney – back to me using David, who is also a friend of hers, as a courier. So after David has recovered somewhat from the 30 hour journey from Australia, we make our way to Coyoacan in the south of D.F. on the practically compulsory pilgrimage to Frida Kalho’s house, both nattily dressed in black.

Frida Kahlo is a cultural figure that requires celebration no matter what one thinks of her art work and we spend a happy day in the Blue House discussing life and politics. David is keen to start an un-australian political party and we decide that Central Mexico seems like it might be a perfect place to set up headquarters.

Hanging out at Frida's house: no visit to Mexico City should fail to include a visit to the Blue House. (Photo: @dvrodgers)

Me and Frida. (Photo: @dvrodgers)

David's eccentric footwear makes it a trifle difficult for him to pass unnoticed on the streets of Mexico City.

After a few days in the city, we set off towards Nevado de Toluca, the first of the volcanoes we intend to visit. Since David doesn’t have a bike, we decide to travel by a combination of buses and hitch-hiking, a state of affairs I have very mixed feelings about. However, despite any misgivings I might have, we leave D.F. on a comfortable bus, complete with movie screenings and the possibility of wi-fi. Arriving in Toluca, a couple of hours later, we catch another much more basic bus towards the mountain, which at around 4700 metres looms large in the distance.

I rode past this mountain only a week ago and so I am familiar with the terrain but as the rattletrap old bus heads west and starts to climb  we are deep in discussion and completely miss the point were we should get off the bus to enter the national park. Eventually we realise that we are descending the mountain again and, after hastily leaping from the bus, we have to hitch hike back to the entrance of the national park.

The un-australian hitch hiker. (Photo: @dvrodgers)

It is late afternoon by the time we find ourselves climbing the mountain on foot and we only walk an hour or so before setting up camp in the forest just below the snow line. The mountain is quite high and a night’s rest is probably a good idea in order to acclimatise ourselves to the altitude – especially for David, who was at sea level only a couple of days ago.

Late afternoon sun on Nevado de Toluca.

Sunset on the mountain.

The morning brings bright sunshine and a biting icy wind blowing relentlessly over the snow covered mountain top. We walk along a well made gravel road, passing communication towers and a meteorological station before reaching a mountain hut, where we leave our bags, and make the final ascent of the mountain. By the time we reach the top we both have splitting, attitude induced, headaches and we huddle down behind some sheltering rocks to rest for a while before making the descent.

In the morning we set off up the mountain. Not much real climbing is involved in getting to the top of Nevado de Toluca - there is a well made road and in summer it is possible to drive all the way into the crater. (Photo: @dvrodgers)

Looking down towards Toluca from the mountain top.

The central crater is a stark fantastic landscape.

Eventually we stumble down the mountain again and set up camp in the forest near the entrance to the park and fall asleep without even bothering to eat. In the morning we hitch a life back to Toluca, sharing the back of a pick up truck with an inebriated rural labourer, who sings dubious songs to David and I, in between questioning us thoroughly as to the exact nature of our relationship and swigging away on the unidentified contents of a plastic bottle. I think this man proposed the idea of marriage to me but his lack of teeth and my uncertain grasp of the Spanish language make it hard to be absolutely sure.

Back in Toluca, we board another bus to Morelia, the capital city of the state of Michoacan. I am pleased to the have the opportunity to visit this city, with a pretty well-preserved historical centre, which I missed on my previous travels in Michoacan. We arrive in Morelia mid-afternoon and wander the city for a while trying to find a hotel far enough from the touristy historic centre to be reasonably priced. The tourist information kiosk has no advice to assist with this endeavour but after a few false starts we stumble across the perfect accommodation on a lively square a kilometre or so from the Zocalo.

Window: the hotel in Morelia more than satisfies an exacting aesthetic criteria developed over years of watching road movies.

Courtyard tiles.

Courtyard washing.

Green walls in the entrance hallway.

During my visit to the butterfly sanctuary at El Capulin, I met, by chance, a Mexican cyclist activist and astro-physicist called Andres, who lives in Morelia, and so I contact him and we agree to meet for a drink. Walking through Morelia, we pass a square where an annual church festival is taking place. An elaborate kinetic, pyrotechnic sculpture has been installed in front of the church and we decide to return after dark to watch the display.

Kinetic firework structure.

Home-made pyrotechnics.

Eventually the structure is lit up...

... and wheels...

...and hearts start to spin......

... until, in the grand finale, a giant crown takes off flying high above the church towers.

After the pyrotechnics we return to Andres’ house where we meet Dona Cleta, a giant puppet, who will take part in tomorrow’s Critical Mass ride in Morelia. Unfortunately, I am bikeless for the moment and, as David and I are intending to set off towards Paricutin, our second volcano, in the morning, I regretfully decline to participate myself.

Meet Dona Cleta. (Photo: @dvrodgers)

Keeping the peace in Morelia: in Mexico the police always travel in large numbers and with masked faces.

In order to reach our next destination, Angahuan – a small indigenous settlement close to Paricutin, we decide to try our luck with a more extended hitch hiking adventure. The journey goes in fits and starts – the rides are short, interspersed with long waits by the roadside in the bright sun – and by late afternoon we have made it only to the outskirts of Uruapan, a mere hundred kilometres or so away from Morelia. We give up and jump on a local bus for the final stretch to Angahuan where we are fortunate enough to be given, what turns out to be, an excellent recommendation for accommodation as soon as we get off the bus.

We make our way through the dusty village streets accompanied by a strange relentless soundscape of multiple loudspeakers emitting rising and falling chants in the local indigenous language. We follow the white pick up truck that was pointed out to us by our informant at the bus stop to an unmarked gate where we are soon led by a woman, in the full skirts and lacy petticoats of the local indigenous costume, to a building sitting on the hillside in an expansive garden. We are shown our room which has an open fire place where we cook a much needed hearty dinner of lentil and vegetable soup over a wood fire.

On questioning our hostess about the ubiquitous broadcasting in the village, she informs us that these spoken word works are, disappointingly, but perhaps unsurprisingly, merely advertising. The morning brings a renewed aural assault when the noise emitted by the loudspeakers is accompanied by a brass band roaming the streets of Angahuan, pursuing a wedding party in a scene reminiscent of the opening of the movie, Underground.

An excellent place to stay at Angahuan - lovely simple rooms with open fireplaces. (Photo: @dvrodgers)

The roof tops of Angahuan - the village is, sadly, a relentlessly noisy place.

We prepare for our visit Paracutin, a journey that entails a twelve mile round hike from the Angahuan. Paricutin is only a small volcano but it has the distinction of being one of the youngest in the world. The volcano emerged from a local corn field in the 1943 growing to a height of close to 400 metres within a year and spreading ash and lava over an area of 25 square kilometres over the next 9 years of activity. Two local communities, Paricutin and San Juan Panrangaricutiro, were inundated by the eruptions which ceased in 1952.

I spend some time before we set off attending to shoe repairs: my shoes have taken a bit of a beating over the last nine months. (Photo: @dvrodgers)

We leave the village, evading the horse touts, and make our way to the buried village of San Juan. The path is uncertain but the church tower rising out of the lava field provides an unmistakable landmark.

Church towers rising from the lava field offer an unmistakable landmark.

Shrine.

Buried church - it seems that the second tower hadn't been completed at the time of the volcanic eruption.

After wandering for some time around San Juan, we are ready to make our way to volcano itself but finding our way from the ruins to the base of the volcano starts to look a little more challenging than expected. We have also been further discouraged by a story Andres related in which he spent a day searching fruitlessly for the access path to the volcano despite the mountain’s obvious presence on the horizon.

Eventually we strike a compromise with a guide who offers to accompany us to the start of the path crossing the lava field for half the fee of the complete trip. He sets off through the scrubby forest and fields of volcanic ash at a cracking pace with David and I trailing behind. When we reach the edge of the lava field he issues some vague instructions and we are left to our own devices in attempting to cross the 3 or 4 miles to the volcanic cone.

The going is slow over the rough ground and abrasive surfaces and we constantly lose the path struggling over volcanic boulders but gradually we creep closer and closer to the cone.

The volcano peeping over the lava field.

The last section is a desperate scramble up the volcano’s steep ashy sides. Having gained the summit, however, we are very happy to admire the incredible landscape.

Looking back down on the visible remnants of San Juan Parangaricutiro.

The view from the top of the volcano.

The volcano is a monogenetic volcano, which means that it will never erupt again, but, despite its status as extinct, puffs of steam emerge from the ground which is too hot to sit on for any length of time.

Un-australian on the crater. (Photo @dvrodgers)

Puffs of steam emerge from the ground around the crater.

Denizens of the volcano.

Volcanic creature.

The general atmosphere is sultry and humid and slightly inhospitable.

Steaming ground.

We descend the cone and struggle back over the lava field, following in the footsteps of a fellow hiker who is, unaccountably, carrying a mountain bike over the volcanic boulders and return exhausted to the village where we spend another night.

We wake in the morning ready to tackle our next mission which is to hitch hike to the coast of Michoacan, about 250 kilometres to the west, where we intend to spend a few days relaxing on the beach. There are two routes to the coast available to us and we decide to take the slightly more convoluted one. It turns out that this decision means we are on roads that see little traffic and we make very slow progress. After covering about 100 kilometres, as darkness falls, we flag down a bus which takes us to the town of Coalacoman, where we spend the night before continuing in the morning. Again our attempts to hitch hike end in defeat and by mid-afternoon we arrive at Maruata by bus.

Maruata is a Pacific dream – a sleepy fishing village on a wild rocky coast populated with abundant wild life. Pelicans wheel ceaselessly over the waves and plummet headlong into the water in pursuit of fish.

Maruata is a relaxed fishing village on a rugged, beautiful coastline...

... waves crash onto its craggy beaches...

... and pelicans hurl themselves at the water in pursuit of fish...

..., ceaselessly,...

..., without restraint.

We spend the days relaxing under shade structures and wandering along the beaches where whales swim just off-shore, leaping periodically from water.

Shade structures line the beach and for a few pesos it is possible to pitch a tent under them.

The simple construction and biodegradable materials are inspiring.

Life can be a beach.

After dark, giant Pacific Black Turtles make their way up onto the beach and perform their labourious nesting rituals. The females haul themselves across the sand and then start to dig, initially with their front flippers, to clear a large area of loose material and then, painfully slowly, they excavate a smaller deeper cavity with their rear flippers. Once the hole is prepared – and sometimes they dig several before they are completely satisfied with the result – the turtle lays a clutch of up to seventy eggs before burying them and dragging herself, exhausted and sighing, back down to the sea.

Maruata is one of the turtle reserves that line the Michoacan coast. The threatened Giant Pacific Black Turtles nest here. A female is digging a hole to lay her clutch of eggs - a process that takes up to an hour to complete. (Photo: @dvrodgers)

Around 50 to 55 days later, the results of this labour emerge. Tiny babies, absurdly miniature versions of their giant 100 kilo mothers, emerge from the sand and scurry about, in wild disarray, trying to find their way to ocean. The youngsters clearly are a little lost and disorientated and the last baby turtle to emerge from the nest we observe has a deformed back flipper -  as it struggles across the sand falling far behind its brothers and sister the urge to help is incredibly hard to resist.

More midnight activity: baby turtles, emerging from the sand before scuttling down the beach to the water.

It is the week before Easter – semana santa (holy week) – the major annual holiday in Mexico, a period in which almost everybody attempts to be at the beach and preparation for the influx of visitors to Maruata are well underway. People are extending the shade structures of their enramadas and a ramshackle funfair appears in the village square.

Beachside fun fair.

Dodgy mechanics.

Carny life.

I could happily dream my life away at Maruata but after a couple of days we decide to take advantage of a fortuitous lift which will take us all the way back to Mexico City with Armando and Eduardo, a couple of fellow campers. After an epic twelve hour journey, we find ourselves back in the seething metropolis.

Mexico City metro.

Barranca de Muerto - the Canyon of Death - nice name for an underground railway station! The symbol is two vultures in flight.

The return to Mexico City provides us with a variety of peculiar entertainments.

While we are enjoying beer and fish at a cantina, we are approached by a shady character with a strange machine and we submit ourselves to mild electric shocks for a small fee.

The game - a man charges 15 pesos to pass a electric current through his customers. The idea is to see how much voltage you can bear. (Photo: @dvrodgers)

A Sunday afternoon wrestling match proves to be a theatrical pantomime event with an appreciative and very participative audience, consisting of large numbers of children. People – and they are not only children – arrive wearing the masks of their favourite wrestlers and, despite the injunctions to refrain from using obscene words, chant virulent abuse at those they despise. My repertoire of Spanish insults increases considerably during this event.

A number of excursions into the areas east of the Zocalo reveal a range of shops selling cheap versions of absolutely anything at all.

The next morning, armed with further information to reinforce the directions I have already been already been given, I set off out of Zitacuaro and start to climb yet another mountain. I have left about 5 kilos of luggage stored at the hotel and so I make pretty good time but as I didn’t get off to particularly early start it is still about 2pm by the time I arrive at the butterfly sanctuary.

For the next day and a half, I wonder the mountains and valleys of this area and words do little to describe the experience.

I have only one thing to say really – I never imagined that butterflies make a sound as the fly but I now know that when there are several million of them in one place you can certainly hear the sound of butterfly wings flapping.

The pathway up the mountain.

Flying high.

A million butterflies on a tree.

And millions more hanging in bunches.

A mountain meadow.

Blue sky and butterflies.

Butterfly squadron overhead.

Butterflies on the path.

Looking down.

Tree trunk.

Tree trunk.

Sudden flight.

Countless millions...

...everywhere.

...feeding up for the long flight home.

At the first group of houses on the road I stop to check that I am on the right track. The women I make my inquires to are aghast.

“But it’s a long way!”

“You can’t do it on that bike!”

“The road is too rough!”

“It is pure mountains!”

It is becoming a familiar refrain and I find it slightly wearying. I point out, a little tersely, that I didn’t ask if it were easy to get to Rosa Azul on this road, only if it were possible. The women fall silent and then nod assent. Yes, it is possible. I go on.

It is true that the gradients are severe and the road in poor condition but neither of these issues deters me. However, the single line marked on my map does nothing to shed light on the confusing range of options presented by the tracks which branch out before me. Luckily this area is slightly more populated than the mountains near Senguio and I manage to find people to confirm my path but every last one of them voices their grave doubts as to my ability to negotiate the road.

Another washout in the middle of a steep climb - this one requires me to unload my bike and carry it and my bags around the obstruction.

The going is slow and, after a precipitous descent leading into the tiny settlement of San Javier at dusk, I find a place to pitch my tent in a lugubrious dark damp pine forest. I am not sure whether or not I am influenced by the doubts of the people I have passed during the day but I am beginning to feel it is possible I will never arrive at Angangueo. However, the next morning, after a brief climb, I pass through a gate and soon find myself back on pavement.

Following the road...

...back to pavement.

After some momentary confusion about which way I should turn onto the paved road I set off and not far down the highway, hopeful signs appear. It seems that I may be within reach of my objective after all.

Hopeful...

...signs.

I survey the terrain from the road, reminded again of the relentlessly hilly nature of Mexico. I have been traversing mountains now without a break for the last four months but, mountains notwithstanding, within a few cruisy kilometres a sign appears indicating I have arrived at the Chincua Butterfly Sanctuary.

More mountainous terrain.

A kind of pointless map at the entrance to the sanctuary, indicating nothing in particular.

At the entrance of the sanctuary two women and a child are lying sound asleep in doorway of a small structure. One woman leaps up when I bid her good morning and promises to look after my bike while I walk into the sanctuary. After a relaxed two kilometre stroll, I come to a cluster of restaurants and stalls selling a variety of butterfly themed trash surrounded by listless groups of people waiting for a customer. I go to the rickety wooden ticket booth and a man ducks inside through an opening created by a loose board. He take my 30 pesos entry fee and then asks if I want a guide. When I decline he voices his concerns that I will get lost. I counter by saying that what I need is information, not a guide.

“It’s very complicated,” he says, sighing heavily.

I suggest he could draw me a map and after a moments hesitation he sketches a Y on the back cover of the visitors book and then crosses out the the right-hand branch. It doesn’t appear that complicated.

A cluster of restaurants...

... and some rather tired horses mark the entrance to the sanctuary.

I run the gauntlet of guides and people touting horses and set off on a track through the forest. Evidence of butterflies litters the ground and soon I am walking amongst flittering golden wings.

Dead butterflies on the ground.

The track narrows, leading through increasing dense forest and I pass a few people returning along it. After half an hour, I come across two men sitting on the path. A rope strung between the trees bars further progress and as I gaze down the slope into the trees I am rendered speechless – the branches of the trees are festooned with millions and millions of butterflies.

Wow!...

... there are millions and millions of butterflies here.

I edge my way as close as the rope barrier allows and lie down of a bed of pine needles gazing up at the trees. Dense bunches of butterflies hang motionless amongst a shifting cloud of more active ones. Mating butterflies plummet to the ground spinning crazily like stricken aeroplanes. As the sun starts to warm the clusters, whole branch loads of butterflies suddenly spill forth and take to the sky, before settling on any surface that exposes them to the sun.

Mating butterflies fall to the ground.

Whle others settle on any available surface...

...soaking up the sun.

I lie on the forest floor for some time, alone apart from the two lackadaisical butterfly minders, until my solitude is disturbed by the arrival of a group and their Canadian guide. I rouse myself a little but can’t drag myself away from this spectacle. Eventually I strike up a conversation with some members of the group and the guide tells me that tomorrow they will be going to another sanctuary, about 50 kilometres away, near Zitacuaro. where there are many more butterflies. I immediately press him for more information and directions  – I am determined not to miss it.

A butterfly tag - the blue tags are placed on butterflies from Arizona.