The Travelling Buncebury's

covering 31 January – 10 February 2020 Campeche. two priests on their way to church, Sunday morning Campeche was a delight, an old town still partially encircled by a defensive wall with a grid street layout inside it of generally low rise and often coloured buildings.   One big plus is that the town stands right on the coast so the temperature is tempered by sea breezes.  Once so near the coast that one church has a lighthouse on the top of it.   The waterfront itself now lies beyond reclaimed land and is some three hundred yards from the Sea Gate, one of the defensive bastions or forts which helped protect the town, usually from pirates.   A few hundred yards of the original two mile wall plus some bastions are still standing and we were able to walk along the walls which stand about twenty feet high and are quite narrow.   The wall has a low battlement on the outside, possibly reflecting the height of the inhabitants several hundred years ago and a walkway whic

covering 27 January - 30 January 2020 a very typical Merida view pictorial street signs in Merida to aid the illiterate.  pity this road isn't called Avenida Dolly with the Brolly The Yucatan Peninsula was our next destination and for the non-geographers among you it’s the pointy bit that sticks northwards into the Gulf of Mexico and from what we saw it’s mostly flat.  Cancun, the big beach holiday scene for Mexico is here so naturally we’re giving that a wide berth.  We’ve chosen yet another town to stay in which begins with M – it’s a coincidence, really.  It’s called Merida and has some glowing words in our guide book The L….. P……, which turns out to be another duff description.  To be honest, it’s like so many central and south American towns with little to distinguish them, grid pattern streets, pretty flat and many buildings only one storey.  However, on our last (and best) day in Merida we left the centre to see a grand avenue which was allegedly based o

covering 23 January - 27 January 2020 waiting for two margaritas in the bar of the Torrreamericana - and I don't mean pizzas Older readers will remember the fuss about the 1968 Olympics being at altitude in Mexico City and at just over 7,000 feet it turns out to be the highest altitude we’ve been since we got to Mexico.   Fortunately we ain’t running or jumping anywhere.   We were a bit hesitant about spending any time here because there wasn’t much that appealed to us and we expected the city to be heavily polluted.   The metropolitan area of Greater Mexico City has a population of over 21 million and the city sits in the slowly sinking caldera of a (fortunately) extinct volcano.   I once saw a TV programme about the world’s worst jobs and one was here.   As the city is in a subsiding caldera, the sewage has to be pumped up and over the surrounding hills to clear the city.   The pumps block regularly and they’re cleared by someone going down into the sewage in a wetsu

covering 19 January - 23 January 2020 the cathedral, early evening After the coast we were heading to higher ground where it would be less humid and cooler.   A number of places had been recommended to us but we chose somewhere different based on a comment in Lonely Planet.   This is a risky attitude to take because they try to make everywhere sound good and they often exaggerate the appeal of some places so I now think of Lonely Planet as an impeccably unreliable source.   I can imagine their review of Hell (not the town in Norway) suggesting that the company was lively and there was no need to take a coat in order to keep warm.    On this occasion Morelia, west of Mexico City was a great choice and they described it well.   A compact centre, a few sights to see plus excellent dinner on four consecutive nights which for me set a new All-Country record.   One thing we have never seen anywhere else but which is quite common in Mexico is a four foot high hat/coat/bag stand de