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I'd like to add that in writing this, I realised I was overcoming a third "wall": the gulf between what my trip was actually like and how my friends at home perceived it. I think that's why I included bits like my FOMO at the hostel in San Cristóbal and the embarrassing incident in León.

Beyond the Wall – Part Two

By rbuxton

Editor's Note: This is the second part of a two part article. You can read part one here.

Arturo's Quest

Timmo on his horse.

I'm pleased to report that hitch-hiking has made a comeback, albeit with a 21st Century twist. Unlike other ride-hailing apps, BlaBlaCar genuinely links people driving long distances with potential passengers, and Mexico is the only country outside Europe where it's available. I had been nervous about using it because of my weak Spanish but all of the drivers I met turned out to speak English. My first ride, and the first stage of my journey towards Parícutin, took me south from León to Morelia. Arturo had recommended I visit the city but cautioned that its state, Michoacán, is the capital of drug-related crime in Mexico. Drug-related, however, is not tourist-related, and I felt perfectly safe for my whole visit. In Morelia I visited a museum dedicated to sweet-making and the house of yet another revolutionary leader, Miguel Hidalgo. On Sunday I plucked up the courage to attend mass in the cathedral, where the 4000 pipes of its organ were put to good use. The towers of the cathedral have a bewildering array of features: they took so long to build that their tops were finished in a completely different architectural style to their bases. Inside I was touched by the little shrine to Santa Niño de Atocha, a child saint who is given offerings of toys when children are in need of his care.

My bus ride from Morelia to Patzcuaro was not altogether smooth. I followed the journey on Google Maps until we got to the northern outskirts of the town. I asked the driver if the stop was close and he nodded and said "Estación". The next stop appeared to be the middle of nowhere so I didn't get off, only to find us whizzing out of Patzcuaro the next instant (the town is very narrow in the north). I had assumed the driver's answer meant we were heading towards a "bus station", but they don't use that phrase in Mexico and he was actually referring to the small, freight-only train station hidden beyond the trees at the stop. I decided to stay on the bus as far as the next town, where I might be able to get off and make some enquiries about tours to Parícutin. The journey through pine-covered hills was long, and in the end I just hopped on a bus back, this time to the centre of Patzcuaro.

Patzcuaro is a lakeside Pueblo Mágico (magic town) full of low, whitewashed colonial buildings with red signs and eccentric tiled rooves. It's also the capital of Day of the Dead celebrations, but I was there at the wrong time for those. I stayed in a hostel in a traditional building just off one of the main squares, which had an inner courtyard and colourful streamers hanging everywhere. I climbed several hills (actually extinct volcanoes) to get views of the town and lake. There were cobbled streets and old buildings aplenty to explore. I went to a craft fair organised by a Canadian artist where I tried my hand at weaving on a huge, pedal-operated loom. One morning I stumbled upon a parade in honour of one of the saints. A lot of people were in traditional costume, which included long ribbons tied into women's pigtails. I couldn't stay for the whole thing because I was due to watch the Eurovision song contest remotely with some friends back in the UK.

I took a number of trips out of Patzcuaro by collectivo (shared minibus). I went further into the mountains to Santa Clara del Cobre, a centre for copper working. I also visited Tzintzuntzan, a name which means "Place of the Hummingbirds" and is often abbreviated, conveniently, to TZN. It is a unique ancient site overlooking Lake Patzcuaro, dominated by a series of connected semi-circular platforms. Historically it was one of the few cities strong enough to resist domination by the Aztec Triple Alliance during their heyday. I actually saw more hummingbirds at Ihuatzio where a pair of temples look over the islands of the lake, their bases encroached upon by farmland.

My biggest trip out of Patzcuaro, however, was to Janitzio Island. I got up at 5 am and made my way through the cold and mist (the town is more than 2000 meters above sea level) to watch the white herons and other birds of the lake in the dawn light. The first boats from Janitzio began to arrive, disgorging secondary school students and loading up on crates of beer. I took one of these boats with the rest of the morning's tourists and we were treated to a display of the traditional fishing technique, which involved what I'd call a giant butterfly net. The steep-sided island was crammed with buildings: there is an entire town there, where the indigenous Purépecha culture is still very much alive. It seems odd, therefore, that the island is dominated by a giant hollow statue of Hidalgo, a champion of Mexico as a whole. I did some more birdwatching and spotted a number of butterflies and a snake. Then I followed the main (only) road as it spiralled up towards the statue. On the way I met an old woman, Carolina, sweeping her doorstep. She was wearing traditional clothing and was missing a lot of teeth. I told her I was from England and I wanted to visit Guatemala and El Salvador; she described all of these places as "far". Otherwise the conversation was mostly about whether I was married, though after a few repetitions of "Dinero para mis tortillas" I realised she was asking for money. I felt I had to oblige her but I couldn't bring myself to ask her for a photo – this is not really appropriate any more.

I was sorry to leave Patzcuaro and its lake but I had to get on to Uruapan. The city is not particularly interesting but I was lucky to bump into yet another parade when I arrived. A short walk from the centre is the Parque Nacional Barranca del Cupatitzio, which follows several waterfalls of the Cupatitzio river to the beautifully calm pool at its source. The valley is densely wooded and the water has been diverted into all manner of channels and "fountains". I spent a happy morning birdwatching and trying to remember what my dad had taught me about the relationship between shutter speed and running water when aiming for specific effects on my compact camera. I still had not found out much about Parícutin: there was frustratingly little information online and Uruapan's wooden "tourist information" box remained so firmly shut during my visit that I began to suspect it was really someone's TARDIS. I decided to go there a day early for some reconnaissance and took a collectivo to Angahuán. I walked past the small town's church to the viewpoint and there it was at last: Parícutin.

The story goes that in 1943 a farmer named Dionisio Pulido noticed a hole appearing in his cornfield and attempted to plug it with stones. He was soon repelled by the ash, smoke and sulfurous smell emerging from the widening fissure. By the end of the day the nascent volcano was two meters high; after one year it was closer to four hundred. Three people were killed and two towns buried by lava over ten years of intense eruption; the volcano is still active but much calmer today. It stands as a squat, unfinished cone, dark against the surrounding mountains; black lava fields stretch from its base into the avocado plantations below. I had been determined to get to the top since Arturo first told me the story, and I appreciated that, at 80 years old, the volcano proves my grandmother is "as old as the hills".

My guide for the day was a local man named Timmo, who recommended I ride one of his horses to Parícutin's base. Horses are a popular means of transport through the pine-clad hills of the area because the roads are so soft with sand and ash. I had read, however, that the journey is extremely uncomfortable for those unaccustomed to the saddle, so we set out on foot. I sorely missed the walking boots I had left in the UK. Timmo set a brisk pace and we quickly cleared the forest and started grappling with the crumbling, otherworldly sculptures of the lava field. A few plants had taken root on the volcano but for the most part it was a steep, dark heap of loose stones, sending occasional plumes of steam into the grey sky. The crater itself was spectacular if a little smelly. There was nothing interesting at the bottom, just the end of several scree slopes, but the views out were spectacular. I appreciated Timmo's pace then, because the day's first peels of thunder came very close just as we were preparing to descend.

We slid down a softer slope (skis would have been useful) and took shelter in a small building used by the guides. Rain was pelting down and it had mixed with the ash to form a sticky paste in my shoes – it would be many months before they regained their normal colour. Timmo dug around for plastic bags and bin liners to fashion some waterproofs for himself and we set off again. The weather gradually improved as we passed from lava into avocado fields and we stopped for my packed lunch of, appropriately, avocados and wheat tortillas. We passed a couple of small villages and Timmo taught me the Purépecha words for the fruit growing by the road (including, to my surprise, blackberries and cherries). Eventually we reached what is possibly the area's most photographed site: the church of San Juan Parangaricutiro, which is buried up to its neck in lava. It was interesting to climb around inside and wonder what the parishioners thought of the biblical-scale destruction being wrought upon their village. Finally Timmo and I made it up the last hill and sat down outside the stables at the visitor centre.

"Este es para ti," I said, handing over our agreed sum, "And this is for a new raincoat."

"Or some new shoes!" he laughed, lifting his foot so that I could see the extent to which the rubber was peeling from his plimsoles.

With that Timmo mounted his horse and rode off into the (almost) sunset. I went to Domino's for a pizza.

The next day I took a BlaBlaCar north to Guadalajara, the second city of Mexico. Famously the home of Mariachi music, the city now has a modern, studenty feel. I could not, however, enjoy exploring the old town: I was there on a Saturday afternoon and it is genuinely the most crowded place I have ever been. I suppose this is inevitable when a city with an attractive centre expands too quickly for the infrastructure to keep up. On Sunday I made my way to another church of expats; this was made difficult by the closure of many roads for a cycling event (Sunday closures like this are common in Latin America). I met some nice people and enjoyed the service: it was truly bilingual, with English and Spanish sometimes alternating on a sentence-by-sentence basis. After church I went to the expansive Bosque los Colomos, where the Japanese Garden was a particular highlight (as an aside, apparently Japan once tried to buy the Baja California peninsula from Mexico to give itself some leverage over the USA ahead of the Second World War. I'm not sure if this is true but there's certainly evidence of cultural exchanges around Mexico.)

I was in Guadalajara for one reason: to take a flight to the South. I had not taken an internal flight like this before and I was hoping to treat both of my bags as hand luggage. This presented me with the problem of smuggling my penknife through security. In an effort to disguise the blade I wrapped all of my metal possessions around the knife and secured them with electrical tape – to my amazement, and alarm, this worked. I was not so successful, however, with actually getting to the airport. My usual bus station strategy of seeking help from as many people as possible let me down: I asked one too many conductors and found myself bundled onto an inappropriate bus. The conductor obviously hadn't realised that when a tourist asks for the "airport", they mean the terminal, not the god-forsaken stretch of motorway on the far side of the perimeter fence. By the time I realised my mistake I had given myself a walk of several kilometres. I had a similar problem when I touched down at Tuxtla Gutiérrez airport: emerging into a beautiful, and noticeably more humid, evening I looked around for transport to the city. There was none, because the airport is very small and in the middle of nowhere. A single stretch of barbed wire was all that separated the airport access road from a field of cows. I trudged towards a junction in the hope of picking up a collectivo before nightfall. "It's nice to be met at the airport," I said to myself, "Just not by cows."

The Sweaty South

Marimba night in Tuxtla Gutiérrez.

This is the biggest part – you've seen nothing yet.

The southern state of Chiapas has had a turbulent history. As independence movements surged across Latin America it briefly considered becoming part of Guatemala. When Mexico achieved independence its first act was to subdue Chiapas by force. I've often wondered what it must have been like for the soldiers in the new Mexican army: having thrown off the shackles of their colonial masters they immediately marched south to defeat a very similar independence movement on their own turf. Chiapas did not go quietly and most of its contemporary history has been violent. At one point the government relocated large numbers of indigenous groups to Chiapas, ignoring those who had lived there for millennia. In the late 20th Century the Zapatista Army of National Liberation was born, a complex fusion of Marxists and indigenous groups. Chiapas was a no-go area for tourists as recently as the noughties but, for better or worse, it's now extremely popular with them.

I arrived in the capital, Tuxtla Gutiérrez, at night and was given a warm welcome at the rooftop bar of my hostel. The next morning the mountains which separated the city from the Sumidero Canyon were clearly visible. I visited a coffee museum and the botanical gardens, where I was struck by the sheer variety of endemic plant species. I also caught several marimba performances in the city's plazas. The marimba is a large percussion instrument, comparable to a xylophone but with an individual soundbox for each note. It is usually played by three people and combined with brass and other instruments; local people salsa the night away, especially at weekends. The origin of the instrument is unclear: it's either indigenous, brought over by the Spanish, or a hybrid of the two.

The highlight of my visit to Tuxtla, however, was my tour of the Sumidero Canyon. It started with a boat ride upriver to where the canyon juts onto flat ground like a wall. It's thirteen kilometres long and, in places, one kilometre high; it's home to birds, monkeys and American Crocodiles, some of which I managed to photograph. There were many interesting formations on the sheer rock walls and someone had put a shrine to a saint in one of the caves. The canyon opened out onto a beautiful lake where pelicans skimmed the water's surface. After boating through the canyon we had lunch in the Pueblo Mágico of Chiapa de Corzo, which is known for its handicrafts. After that we piled into minibuses to ride to the viewpoints above the canyon. Since it was May the views were obscured by haze, but we could still enjoy the sight of sight of mighty eagles, much diminished by distance, wheeling below us.

The collectivo journey from Tuxtla to San Cristóbal de las Casas took just over an hour but the two cities could not be more different. While the former is very modern the latter was, to me, a more touristy version of Patzcuaro: all colonial buildings and funny streets. In Tuxtla I couldn't sleep without air conditioning; in San Cristóbal, more than 2000 meters above sea level, I had to ask for an extra blanket. The city has been an important junction for backpackers for some time. Every night, from about ten o'clock, groups of them walk the streets with big bags on their backs and determined expressions on their faces. They are inevitably on their way to catch a night bus to the Yucatan Peninsula, Oaxaca State or even Guatemala (I did not join them – night buses are my least favourite means of transport).

The hardest thing about travel is, for me, the social pressure, or "fear of missing out", which I feel on arrival at a new hostel. Everyone seems to have loads of friends already; they've all got more energy than you and they all speak better Spanish (the Germans also speak better English). This anxiety is misplaced, of course, because by your second evening you've made a lot of friends yourself and you're in a position to extend a welcome to the next road-weary traveller to hover uncertainly outside the communal area. I went through this process on arrival at my hostel in San Cristóbal, a beautiful old school building on one storey and with a large central courtyard (a lucky find – I had not booked ahead). In the centre of the courtyard was garden of sorts with a feeder to attract the resident hummingbirds (known in Spanish as Colibrís). One morning two travellers, one Irish and one Austrian, pulled chairs into the sunny part of the courtyard and started seeing to each others' dreadlocks. Watching from the shade, pen hovering above diary, I felt that this, too, was a little slice of history. A few days later I celebrated my 31st birthday with a traditional barbecue cooked by one of the Argentinian volunteers at the hostel. Between the nine of us we represented nine different nations; our ages ranged from 18 to 83.

I lingered for a long time in San Cristóbal, enjoying its churches, markets and murals. I went to the Museum of Amber, which contained both natural preserved flora and fauna and handmade jewellery. The translations on the labels of the former described them as "shapes from nature's whimsy". I took a collectivo a little way out of town to Parque el Arcotete, a mountain park which is home to a cave with a river running right through it. A thunderstorm started while I was exploring the cave systems above the river, and the sound of it echoing off the rock walls was awe-inspiring. Upstream I sat in a meadow and must have seen at least twenty different species of butterfly and dragonfly. Later I played a game of chess at the Centro Cultural del Carmen and met José, a guitarist who was playing duets with a double bassist (they had a great arrangement of Libertango by the Argentinian composer Villa-Lobos). José invited me to listen to his solo set at a bar that evening, where he was delayed by a passing parade. This parade was "not very cultural: more about the drinking", as Arturo would say: it consisted mostly of backpackers and had some silly connection to the full moon. They made a lot of noise and it was a relief when José was able to resume playing.

José (left) at the Centro Cultural El Carmen.

Perhaps my favourite building in San Cristóbal was the Casa Na Bolom, a grand residence on the outskirts of town. In the early 20th Century it was home to a European couple who would now be described as ethnographers, environmentalists and political activists. The house contains many objects from their work; their primary interest was in the Lacandon people (or Hach Winik, as they called themselves). This indigenous group live so deep in the jungle that the first few hundred years of Spanish rule largely passed them by. Helping them to maintain their independence became a priority at Na Bolom, and the artefacts there give a fascinating insight into their culture. Here's a Lacandon myth I found particularly interesting: a god once fashioned a wooden stool for himself and showed it to another god, who was cooking. The second god thought it would be hilarious to turn the stool into an animal and watch it carry the first god around. Thus was born the armadillo.

My biggest excursion from San Cristóbal was to the mountain town of Chamula. I had been told it was a place where the indigenous culture was very much alive and tourists had to adhere to a strict code of conduct – taking photos in the church, for example, could lead to permanent confiscation of the offending camera. I took a collectivo to the turnoff for the town and was faced with a huge concrete archway reading "Bienvenidos al Pueblo Mágico de Chamula". There was no one else around; the only movement was the literal dust cloud being thrown up by my rapidly retreating bus. I felt a sudden sense of foreboding, as if I was about to enter the Fey World or something. Taking a deep breath I passed under the archway and followed the hairpin bends towards town, camera safely stowed at the bottom of my bag. I was soon reassured by the familiar sight of whole chickens roasting over charcoal. Less familiar were the outfits of the men: despite the heat each wore a long woollen tunic and carried a hat and staff. The colour of tunic (white or black) and style of hat and staff seemed to denote which village the man came from. It was market day and the men had assembled on a platform while the women saw to the buying and selling. The unassuming white and green church, the Templo de San Juan, stood at the far end of the market.

I bought my ticket and stepped into the darkness of the church. There were no pews, and the floorspace was divided in two by cabinets containing effigies of just about every saint in Mexican Catholicism. There must have been over a thousand candles burning, but they were releasing so much smoke it was still gloomy inside. The biggest, meltiest, droopiest candles were reserved for spaces on the floor, which was otherwise completely covered in a carpet of pine needles. Family groups stood or knelt at these candles, their heads bowed in prayer. They brought offerings with them: in recent years water has been replaced with a cheaper alternative, Coca-Cola. For music they had a small tinny speaker playing such Christian classics as Silent Night and Rudolph, the Red Nosed Reindeer. I didn't witness the most interesting of the San Juan practices: the in-situ sacrificing of chickens. San Juan, if you hadn't guessed, is one of the more striking examples of Catholicism adapting and mixing with indigenous religions in the Americas. Although it sounds weird to write it down, actually being there felt perfectly normal. It was, as I reflected while sitting on a bench in the market, just ordinary people going about their ordinary lives. As if to reinforce this point, a toddler at whom I had been quietly giggling suddenly stopped whatever adorable activity he was engaged in. He looked at his family and pointed at me in a "Look at that man, isn't he funny" kind of way. I couldn't deny that in Chamula I was, indeed, strange.

I left San Cristóbal expecting to take the road north to Palenque, so I was surprised when the bus set off south-west, towards Tuxtla. We were on a "three sides of a square" type journey, and I managed to gather that the direct road had been deemed unsafe. I wondered if this was related to a recent drug-related shooting I had heard about. A film was showing on the bus's entertainment system: something about police busting up crime gangs. It did not lighten my mood: suddenly, after so much success, it seemed the naysayers had been right about Mexico after all. Should I have stayed safely behind the Wall? I later found out that this diversion was routine because the Mexican government was not "fully in control" of the road in question. Gangs connected to the cartels sometimes set up blockades and rob tourist buses – I think this technically makes them brigands. We stopped at a military checkpoint – the first of four – where my passport would have been taken out of my sight had I not kicked up a fuss. The diverted bus route did turn out to be a brilliant tour of the mountains of Chiapas, or at least it would have, had the next film on the entertainment system not been Disney's Raya and the Last Dragon. Talk about divided loyalties.

(Talk about a divided paragraph. Don't worry, we're nearly at the end.)

After a loop through green and banana-ey Tabasco State we arrived in Palenque and I booked a tour for the following day. My bus picked me up at 5 am and we set off into the Lacandon Jungle. It was proper jungle, with Tarzan-style vines hanging everywhere. Every so often the silence would be broken by a sort of wave of insect song or the roars of sparring Howler Monkeys (the loudest land animals in the world). We transferred onto boats for a journey down the Río Usumacinta (meaning "howler monkey") which forms the border between Mexico and Guatemala. I felt a long way from civilisation and it was nice to imagine the ethnographers from Na Bolom making journeys like this themselves – the river is still the only way to access the ruined Maya city of Yaxchilán. The main buildings of the city occupy a hill which would once have had a commanding view over a great curve of the river; now, having been reclaimed by jungle, everything is obscured. After disembarking at a beach our first sight of the city was a very green stone wall emerging from the vegetation. The site is not huge but is incredibly atmospheric; its inaccessibility means that it is not crowded with tourists. There were a number of small houses, temples and stelae (stone blocks carved with mythological figures and records of royal successions). A beautiful, wonky and overgrown staircase led to an extraordinary building at the top of a hill. Its roof was adorned with a huge stone lattice, which would once have been visible for miles around.

Our pilot with Guatemala (left) and Mexico (right).

We returned to the boats and headed to our lunch stop. My Mexican companions complemented me on my choice of "Pollo con Mole Negro", which was very nice. I didn't tell them it was the only option I had understood when the driver had read them out in the morning. Afterwards we jumped onto a different bus for the journey to Bonampak (I was lucky: the road is sometimes impassable in the rainy season). The change of bus was a condition of my visit: part of the Lacandon's agreement with the Mexican government is that anybody arriving on their land does so on their transport. A young man joined us and started telling us about the site in Spanish, his second language. Bonampak felt very different to Yaxchilán, but equally dramatic. It is dominated by a much neater stone staircase, punctuated by several small buildings. Inside these are the world's finest surviving Maya murals. These show brightly-coloured gods, kings and musicians taking part in ceremonies. I could not see the second room because I had fallen foul of that most famous of Lacandon traits: their strict timekeeping. Perhaps if I had understood our young guide better I would have used my time more strategically, but I couldn't complain. The Lacandons, like many in Mexico, Beliz and Guatemala, are not descendants of Maya: they are Maya, and Bonampak still holds a spiritual significance to them. Several villagers were selling souvenirs as we returned to the bus, with their children, clad in simple white tunics, running around at their feet.

Back on the main road our driver turned to us and asked who wanted to watch a film on the big TV screen. Everyone else – I'm not exaggerating – lifted their hands and cheered, so I pressed my face against the window and, in the gathering jungle gloom, thought about the Maya. In their heyday they were a collection of city states with such complex interrelationships they make A Game of Thrones look like a picnic. Several hundred years before the Spanish arrived the Mayan cities, but not their culture, collapsed. We're still not sure why this happened, but one possible explanation has a certain appeal to me: in clearing ever-increasing swathes of jungle to support their ever-increasing population, the Maya may have realised they risked causing irreversible damage to their environment. Perhaps its wishful thinking to suggest that they chose to go back to a simpler, more village-orientated lifestyle, but even so there's possibly a lesson for us here. As a bit of a tangent, I'd like to point out that American civilisations were not as technologically backwards (that really feels like the wrong word) as they're sometimes portrayed. Although the Maya didn't have them, metallurgy and wheels both existed on the continent. The latter are not much use without roads, and roads are hard to build in mountains and jungles, so perhaps it's unsurprising that the only wheels I've seen were on an artefact which was actually a child's toy. One thing the Maya did have is writing, and this posed a bit of a problem for the Spanish colonists. In order to justify their atrocities towards indigenous peoples they had to portray them as savages. So they set about "re-educating" the Maya scribes and destroying every Maya book they could get their hands on. Three survived. Three. Three books. If there's one thing this trip brought home to me it's the sheer scale of the histories and voices lost to the European land grab. If the Spanish come across badly in this story we can be sure that things would have been at least as bad under the British or another colonial power. I'm not sure if that's much of a defence, but what do I know? I'm just a backpacker.

I had one more set of ruins to visit: those of Palenque itself. These are much tamer and more touristy than Yaxchilán and Bonampak, but still breathtaking. On arrival at the site I was confronted with a steep hill covered in vegetation: an unexcavated temple. To date less than a quarter of Palenque has been excavated and it was interesting to be see part of the city as it would have appeared before work began in the 20th Century. Palenque had a ball court, a royal palace complete with tower, and some truly immense temples – no cheating by running up the side of a hill here! One of the most spectacular temples is the tomb of K'inich Jabaal Pakal, better remembered as Pakal the Great. Maya kings liked to equate themselves with gods, so Pakal's sarcophagus shows him curled in the foetal position and emerging from a seed in the style of the god of maize. It also has a jade likeness of his face which is one of the finest examples of Mayan art in existence. Visitors can't access the original but the site's museum has an excellent replica, as does the Museo Nacional de Antropología back in CDMX. After my visit to Palenque I walked down its nature trail and thought longingly of my upcoming dip in the pools of the Roberto Barrios waterfalls.

Throughout my time in Palenque the heat was excruciating. On the second night I abandoned my bed in favour of a yoga mat on the floor with two fans over me. I remember waking up in the middle of the night and attempting to have a cold shower, only to find the "cold" water getting warm after a few seconds. I also fought a losing battle over my breakfast cereal with an army of Small Ants (the Medium Ants and Big Ants were significantly more peaceable). I was not the only one struggling: passing one of the few other groups of backpackers I heard one say to another "That's his third ice cream this morning." I jumped on the earliest air-conditioned bus I could. I went back to Tuxtla the long way around then changed for a bus to Tapachula, Mexico's southernmost city – a journey of fifteen hours in total. At about 11pm I checked into a hotel.

I woke up late. I watched some Mexican TV. I turned my air conditioning on, then off, then on again. I ordered a pizza. I had planned to do nothing other than relax on my final day, but Mexico had one more surprise in store for me. In venturing onto the balcony to watch the approach of the evening's thunderstorm I met my neighbour, Rodrigo. He told me his story: as a young man he had spent ten years working in the USA. It was hard work and he never had the opportunity to learn English: even the American taskmasters spoke to him in Spanish. Nor was the work steady: a job for someone "from El Salvador" was, he told me, easy for someone from that smaller country to obtain, whereas those "for Mexicans" are hotly contested. At some point, his passport and papers were taken from him. He met and fell in love with a woman from Guatemala; they married and had a son. His family was all he had left but they were now in Guatemala and refusing to tell him exactly where. He was trying to find them, and he asked me if I thought it would be easy to cross the border. I told him, sheepishly, that for a tourist like me it probably was. I didn't know what to say to Rodrigo. He seemed harmless enough but it was possible his wife had good reason to hide from him (the position of women in Mexico is – how can I put this – complicated). I had set out to find out what life was like Beyond the Wall and it seemed, in Rodrigo, I had succeeded. The evening with the students in Chile suddenly seemed a long time ago.



The next morning I crossed a bridge over the Río Suchiate on foot and entered Guatemala. I had been in Mexico for nearly three months and had left much undone. It was a shame, for example, to have flown straight over the mountains and beaches of Oaxaca. I was already devising two more three-month tours: one around the Yucatan and Caribbean coast; the other across the desert and up the Baja California peninsula for a spot of whale-watching (both tours would, of course, have to include a visit to Arturo in León). The latter presents the possibility of arriving in the USA in some style: by crossing the physical Wall into California.

Thank you for reading this article to the end, especially if English is not your first language. Thanks also go to my proofreaders and to Jubal. There are probably some factual inaccuracies here so, as ever, please do point them out if you see them. I have changed all the names of individuals. Mexico has stayed with me, and I do expect to go back. No wall lasts forever.

That's right, and the victory condition is who controls them. I agree, "town" would have worked for me.

A bit more travel and my new-found talent for "squeezing" https://masterofolympus.wordpress.com/2024/03/19/diary-59-something-nandeck-this-way-comes/

I see your point about cultures being "fuzzy", and different "heirs" to it having different ideas. Regarding the game I mentioned, I've stretched the truth a little in that it's actually a medieval fantasy world, but one in which castles definitely functioned as they did in our world. Fans of the world would expect them to be called castles. I think the designers would have found combat getting bogged down if players were reluctant to leave their own castles and assault others.

I'm curious to hear your thoughts on cultural appropriation in game design - would you say the same rules apply? I'm no expert on the Total War series but I know the Three Kingdoms game - set in 3rd and 4th century China - was seen by some as an attempt to woo Chinese gamers. Did Creative Assembly, which is based in the UK and Australia, have the right to make this game? I don't know if they hired experts from China itself, but is this compulsory these days?

Another thing for game designers is keeping the mechanics consistent with the setting. I played one board game where the castles had a negative defensive value - they only served to make the attackers stronger! It lost me at that point.

Beyond the Wall – Part One

By rbuxton

Which wall? Trump's wall.

In 2017 I visited my brother in Chile. After travelling together for a bit I set off alone and soon made friends with some European university students. They were involved in the university's International Society, which put on cultural events. I was invited to "France Night", a pleasant evening in which two French students talked for half an hour about their country's history and culture. "Mexico Night", on the following evening, was completely different. There must have been at least thirty Mexican students pulling out all the stops with food, music, games and a Zapateado dance show. I was struck by how good-natured, proud and interesting the people were. In that moment I realised how insulting the then-US president's rhetoric was – insulting to both Mexicans and those crossing it from other Central and South American countries.

A young organillero plies his trade.

My new-found interest in Mexico was strengthened by conversations with other backpackers over the next few years. "We spent a month just sitting on a beach eating tacos," said one, "It was amazing!" I realised that I was extremely ignorant about Mexico: like most countries in the world, it only gets mentioned in the UK news when something "bad" happens. From its portrayal on TV I had assumed it was a vast desert where drug- and people-smugglers roared around in dark trucks. So perhaps the "wall" I was now determined to overcome was more mental than physical; a product of my own biases and misconceptions. I finally touched down at the airport in Mexico City (henceforth referred to by its modern sobriquet, CDMX) in March 2023, with no plan and no onward flight. This time, my brother was not there to meet me.

I'd like to make one thing clear: Mexico is not a "developing" country. It has great infrastructure, huge cities and a booming tech scene. The streets of CDMX follow a grid layout – perfectly intuitive for most of the world's population but strangely confusing to the British. Music is all around, often coming from the Organilleros – an army of smartly-dressed musicians pumping away at organs and doffing their caps for change. They sometimes rub shoulders with busking saxophonists, while efficient recycling trucks whizz by and traffic wardens whistle to keep everything under control.

During one outing in CDMX I jumped on a double decker bus with another (male) backpacker. After a few minutes people started nudging us and pointing at the floor, but our Spanish was too basic to grasp what was going on. It turned out we were standing in the "women and children only" part of the bus, an area taking up most of the ground floor and demarcated by pink handrails (which were yellow elsewhere). In weighing up the pros and cons of this system, I felt, one could cover many of the gender and equality issues which have been thrown up in the UK in the past decade or so.

My favourite public transport story, however, comes from CDMX's metro. I was standing by the doors of the carriage with a young man to my right. He was seated and had very stylish hair, moulded into some complicated shape and looking wet as a result. Suddenly a few bubbles whizzed past us accompanied by a cry of "Cinco pesos!". What on Earth was going on? Looking up, I saw one of the many one-item salespeople who ply their trade on the metro; his product was children's bubbles. He had a neat trick: by holding the bubble wand towards the stream of air from a fan he could literally bombard his potential customers with his wares. Unfortunately for my neighbour the wax holding his hair in place was quite attractive to bubbles, so several stuck without him noticing. I didn't have the confidence – social or linguistic – to point this out to him, so I'm pretty sure he was still wearing them when we emerged onto street level a few minutes later.

In venturing beyond the Wall I got a little more than I bargained for. In reading this, you will too. You have been warned...

Around the Capital

I had decided to ease the culture shock by making my first stop in Mexico the small town of Tepoztlán. Getting there was not too much trouble but in order to find my hostel I booted up Google Maps. I was charged £72 for the privilege, having missed the text message from my network which said something like "Welcome to Mexico, we've turned off the data roaming cap you sensibly set yourself, wasn't that helpful of us?". On top of this I was struggling with the heat, the jet lag, a sore throat (probably my fault) and a bad back (definitely my fault). When I arrived in Tepoztlán a light dust was swirling through the cobbled streets and saloon-style doorways; some sort of festival was going on and a man in a skeleton costume waved at the local tourists. Mexico, it seemed, was not holding back.

Tepoztlán, it turned out, is turned out to be a "Pueblo Mágico" (magic town), one of several hundred in Mexico which have done much to preserve their heritage. Its old buildings, murals and mountaintop Aztec temple no doubt contributed to this accolade. I spent a day acclimatising and shopping around for a big sombrero to replace the weedy cap I had brought from the UK, eventually choosing one made of straw (the material of the peasantry; posher sombreros are of felt). The next morning I rose early to climb the mountain before the heat set in. The path was beautiful and led to some brilliant views; the temple wasn't overly interesting but the wheeling clouds of Mexican Eagles certainly were.

From Tepoztlán I backtracked to Cuernavaca, capital of Morelos state and an important cultural centre. It had some interesting churches and a nice cathedral but otherwise didn't hold much for a backpacker. The city's most interesting site is a squat castle built by the conquistador Hernán Cortés in 1528 (making it perhaps the oldest Spanish building in Central America) but it was closed during my visit. Like Cortés (well, kind of) I now turned my attention to the Aztecs' Tenochtitlan; Frida Kahlo's Ciudad de Mexico; Instagram's CDMX.

The Aztecs (technically the Mexica) chose the location for their city based on the omen of an eagle killing a snake while standing on a cactus; this image still adorns the national flag. The location was a lake, so they developed a land-reclamation system involving plants grown at the water's edge. This gave them a handy system of canals which helped the city become very efficient. When the Spanish conquered it, they built their city directly on top. I'm not really sure what this means, but the result is that the centre sinks by about a foot every year. This, combined with the tectonic activity of the area, has led to some buildings sitting at a jaunty angle. Over the next few centuries the city expanded into the surrounding mountains at a frightening rate; by 2005 it was (by one measure) the second most populous in the world. Recently there have been many efforts to address the social issues associated with such growth, including an extensive cable-car network.

I stayed in a hostel a few blocks from Zócalo, the city's main square and venue for both political demonstrations and free concerts. It's surrounded by beautiful examples of Spanish colonial architecture, including universities and a cathedral. Latin America in general is home to some amazing architecture which might look vaguely familiar to those of us who've visited Europe. These buildings tend to be on a significantly smaller scale, and this could be due to practicalities like sourcing materials, the aforementioned tectonic activity, and the desire to erect colonial status-symbols speedily. They helped form a national identity as independence movements swept the region, and I imagine the conversations going something like this: "You can't be your own country when you don't even have fine, neo-classical buildings", "Oh yes we do!"

Easter celebrations in the Zócalo.

I spent much of my fortnight in CDMX exploring the old buildings, which now house museums and the like. I took the metro to the neighbourhood of Xochimilco, or "Little Venice", where colourful boats ply the green-fringed canals which are all that remain of the Aztecs' waterways. Another trip took me to quiet Coyoacán, where I was hoping to visit the house of the famous artist Frida Kahlo. Unfortunately it is so small that it gets booked up for weeks at a time, so I had to content myself with the house of her friend and neighbour, Leon Trotsky. It was here that the Soviet politician and his surviving family members sought refuge in 1936, and here that he was assassinated in 1940. You can stand on the spot where his final struggle took place (CDMX was home to many contemporary Russian exiles during my visit, mostly men my own age fleeing Putin's draft.) I also visited the museums of Modern Art and Anthropology; the latter would really require two full days to understand both its Aztec artefacts and its dioramas about the indigenous groups who co-existed with the Spanish. I made several visits to the vast Chapultepec park, a forest in the city centre on the site of a famous battle between Mexico and the USA. I once got lost there in a graveyard and had to be led out by a local teenager who carried his bicycle between the tombs.

I spent three Sundays at an Anglican church near Chapultepec, which served some of CDMX's expats and digital nomads (the city almost irresistible to the latter due to its climate and amenities). On arrival I was confronted by a pie chart showing the ethnicities of its members, and was surprised to see Nigerian in third place (after American and Mexican). It was nice to be able to relax there and chat to people who had called the city home for most of their lives. Semana Santa (Holy Week) was approaching and on Palm Sunday we paraded around the church equipped with crosses and, for some, bagpipes. Easter Saturday found me back in the Zócalo watching a huge display of music and dancing, accompanied by a sermon from a very charismatic woman, who spoke so fast I could only really pick out repetitions of the phrase "pueblo de Dios". I had been advised to stay in CDMX over Semana Santa because, as in many countries, holiday destinations get very booked up. The city, Zócalo concert notwithstanding, was comparatively empty and I had some nice relaxed walks around the centre.

My first excursion was to the mountain Pueblo Mágico of Mineral del Chico. It was very nice up there among the pine trees but it was so hard to reach by public transport that I only had an hour there and had to spend much of that time on the toilet. My trip to the ruins of Teotihuacan was rather more successful. This vast site of stone temples, walkways and marketplaces was one of the largest, and most cosmopolitan, cities in the world in the 1st Century AD (so cosmopolitan, in fact, that it's not clear if it was the Olmecs or Toltecs who built it). What is known is that the Mexica, arriving in the region about a millennium after Teotihuacan's decline, believed it had been built by gods and modelled Tenochtitlan on it. The so-called pyramids of the Sun and Moon dominate Teotihuacan's skyline and are connected by the wide, temple-flanked Avenue of the Dead (we're not sure about any of these names, by the way). The pyramids would have had structures at the top, perhaps of wood, but were not used for human sacrifice, a practice which was mostly confined to the Mexica in the 14th and 15th centuries. More subtle are the stone animals, pillars painted with deities, and houses which show a cross-section of the building techniques used throughout the city's history. It was very hot and I was fortunate to have a sombrero to protect me from the sun, though it was dwarfed by those of the souvenir-sellers.

I had a blast in CDMX, but it didn't feel that way the whole time. I was preoccupied with my money, which was supposed to last nearly a year, and Mexico was significantly more expensive than I had expected (I had unwisely used my India trip of 2011 as a budgeting reference). I was also overwhelmed by the sheer size of Mexico and the fact that I was right in the middle. It turns out that having the world as your oyster is more than a little daunting. One day, sitting around in the hostel nursing an upset stomach, I was on the verge of booking a flight to Colombia when I received a WhatsApp message on a group which had been defunct for more than two years. It was an old travel friend asking where everyone had got to and the answers came back as follows: Mexico, Belgium, Tenerife, Canada and Mexico. It turned out that my American friend Henk was just a few hours away by bus! I mention this extraordinary coincidence because I had first met Henk under very similar circumstances; sometimes lightning really does strike twice.

The American and the Mexican

So it was decided: I would set off Northwest for my rendezvous with Henk, stopping off in the cities of Querétaro and San Miguel de Allende. The former is Mexico's fastest-growing city and its tech capital. On my first day I stumbled upon a crowd of people in traditional costumes, including rattling anklets, dancing to the beat of drums. I visited a number of churches and the Santa Cruz convent. The convent forms the terminus of the city's impressive colonial-era aqueduct, indicating how important these institutions were in the operation of early Spanish settlements. The bus journey to San Miguel de Allende was dramatic and afforded great views of the city and the famous pink church tower of La Parroquia de San Migeul Arcángel. Another famous site in the city is the house of Ignacio Allende, one of the leaders in Mexico's war of independence (1810 to 1821). The city is no stranger to war: it was a front line during the 16th century Chichimeca War and had to be abandoned several times before the Chichimeca leaders were bought off by the Spaniards.

Finally I reached Guanajuato, surely one of Mexico's strangest cities. This arid mountain town experienced a "silver rush" in the 16th century and was soon producing 30% of the world's silver. There was no planning so buildings popped up wherever they could; thanks to the region's wealth many of them were very grand. The result is a maze of staircases and alleyways giving out to cramped squares and neo-classical façades. With space at a premium the roads are all in tunnels below street level; I felt like Indiana Jones as I approached by bus. The city is popular with backpackers and international students, who are drawn here from Guadalajara by the promise of techno music and cocaine.

I met Henk on the steps of the market building and we caught up over pork sandwiches with plenty of offal. We donned hard hats to explore one of the mines and visited the church where some of its silver ended up. We joined a walking tour organised by one of the volunteers at the hostel and wound up at the museum of the artist Diego Rivera (husband to Frida Kahlo). We hiked up to a viewpoint where my sombrero was nearly lost to a gust of wind; Henk helped me to attach a chin strap. We spent several evenings at the statue of local independence-era hero El Pípila, from which we could watch the sunset picking out the many colours of the city. In the hostel we ate sopes, a kind of thick tortilla, and drank mezcal, a smoky cousin of tequila which is also derived from the agave plant. I did not visit the city's most famous attraction: a museum of naturally preserved corpses, exhumed and displayed in glass cases. My reluctance to visit surprised many Mexicans; their relationship with Death is certainly different to my own.

The finest busker in León, if not Mexico.

Henk's interest in Mexico went far beyond the charms of Guanajuato: he was living in León to further his footwear business. León is Mexico's capital of leatherwork and not on any tourist itineraries (it's worth mentioning it was the only place in the country I encountered anything resembling unfriendliness.) Henk and I arrived by bus and went straight to a small factory to inspect their latest boot prototype (more accurately it was just a part of the boot; the city relies on thousands of cottage industries specialising in the different parts of shoe production.) There I met Arturo, Henk's friend, landlord, and business partner, who acted as interpreter. We spent that afternoon, and many others, roaring from factory to factory in Arturo's small red "bocha", or Volkswagen Beatle. It was fascinating to get an insight into the leather industry and to begin to understand its importance, culturally as well as commercially, to the people of León. That evening I was also introduced to pulque, a thick alcoholic drink which has been distilled from the agave plant for at least two thousand years, and cumbia music, which is almost ubiquitous in Latin America.

Henk took me to a leather market where skins of cows, snakes, crocodiles and more could be bought. I was interested to find out that Iran is the world's biggest exporter of snakeskin. I asked one man where he had bought his elephant hide and he did not answer – I suspect this was not due to my poor Spanish skills. We also visited the city's triumphal arch and the church of El Templo Expiatorio, which was built in the 1920s. I'm no architecture buff but I could see this church was very different to others I had visited: built in a neo-gothic style it had the colouration of a Battenberg cake and eschewed fancy decorations in favour of simple stained-glass windows. Every evening, sunset would bring out brides-to-be and their entourages to have photos taken in advance of their weddings. I ventured into the extensive catacombs, which had a number of rooms dedicated to different saints. I was surprised to find them very brightly lit – how could anyone sleep? I also took a couple of buses to a big lake for some birdwatching.

It is impossible to overstate the generosity of my hosts. Despite often using his house as an Airbnb Arturo invited Henk and myself to stay for free for two weeks. Henk is a brilliant cook and would sometimes wake me up with pancakes before taking me to the local market to buy fruit and vegetables. Arturo invited me to Sunday lunch with his extended family, most of whom lived locally. There I met his sister Mariana, who had worked as a nanny in the USA. Her host family had given her a Scrabble set as a parting gift but she had not found enough English speakers to play it – until now (unfortunately we never got around to playing in Spanish). Henk and some of his friends, also one-time landlords of his, took me to a karaoke bar, where we – what's the word – surprised the local people with our renditions of Johnny Cash and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. The bar "ran out of beer" that night, so we drank a lot of mezcal. At one point Henk asked me if I thought we were in a richer or poorer area than that of the cumbia bar. I guessed it was richer and more middle-class. How could I tell? Let's just say there's a correlation between physical appearance and affluence in Mexico which is depressingly familiar to those of us from the UK.

Henk left to attend to business in the USA and Germany, and I lingered. Over the next few days I encountered a number of people with very inspiring ambitions, some of which I'll reproduce here:

"I work in the leather market but I'm hoping to train as a teacher."

"I've been invited to Spain to do an interview on TV about my beauty products."

"I'd like to turn this place into a seafood restaurant, like the one outside of town. They have shrimp tacos there. Come on, let me show you!"

I have not covered half of my adventures in León here. They culminated with my desperate attempts to clean the bathroom on my final morning before my host returned from a friend's house. I had rocked up at 2 am the previous evening and blocked the sink with my vomit. Too much information? Let's get back to the backpacking.

From León I did two day trips, the first to Aguascalientes. I looked around some nice churches and the Museum of Death, which contained historical and artistic pieces relating to Mexico's fascination with all things morbid. I considered spending the evening at the city's famous festival, but since it was, in Arturo's words, "not very cultural: more about the drinking" I decided to give it a miss. A longer trip – and a night in a hostel – took me to Zacatecas, the northernmost city on my trip and situated where the Central Plateau gives out to semi-desert. It's another old mining town but, unlike Guanajuato, it has enough space for the grand buildings to really stand out. The most interesting site was the "Mina el Edén", or Eden Mine, which has some beautiful caverns running for several kilometres, and a train. The name is both deceptive and cruel: hundreds of thousands of indigenous people were killed while working as slaves in the mines, and in the associated wars with the Spanish (many African slaves would later share the same fate). While walking the streets of Zacatecas I stumbled upon an open-air display of traditional music and dancing. As far as I could tell it was actually a cultural exchange of sorts: the dancers were from a university in the distant state of Oaxaca (woh-ha-kah). With the exception of a terrifying dance on stilts most dances were calm affairs of ten or so couples in traditional costume. One seemed to tell the story of the Spaniards' arrival in Mexico: the dancers acted out some domestic scenes, gradually giving way to joyful twirling. Towards the end the "lead" woman took up position in the centre of the stage, squatted down and flapped her skirts around. Eventually she laid an egg, which her partner promptly ate, to much applause.



This is part one of a two-article coverage of rbuxton's adventures. You can read part two by clicking here.

You can also read about rbuxton's previous Accidents in Andalucía, or discover more travel writing from other Exilian members via our travel writing index.

That would be great - I don't actually know how to do that. According to Duolingo I have no friends. I'm on Spanish, how about you?

Happy Cyril and Methodius Day! It's an extra session of Duolingo for me today.

Thanks Jubal I'm glad you liked it. Thanks for pointing out my front-loading of descriptions, I hadn't really thought of that. I suppose I was aiming to write a standalone short story which morphed into clearly a small part of something much larger. This happens to me a lot, so you're probably right I can afford to put more meat on the bones. Keeping the Scribe's physical appearance a mystery was a deliberate decision.

That will be an interesting read, and would give you a good understanding of the entire region at that time. I thought of going into the mysteries of the city's founders in the article, but in the interest of brevity I settled for a (?) next to the first mention of them!

Getting back in the game. Travel writing to follow soon I hope https://masterofolympus.wordpress.com/2024/01/20/diary-58-the-sponge/

[On Three Kings' Crag]

After contributing to 2023's chain writing I was itching to write some more. I found myself daydreaming, once again, about an earlier chain writing project. I was second in the chain on that occasion, so at the time I was writing the setting of the story was not fully fleshed out. I knew that the writer after me would need to build upon my last sentence: "I'd rather we die before they take our tongues." But who were "they"? The writer after me came up with something original, exciting and terrifying. Fast-forward to last year, however, and I remembered that I did have a spark of an idea - a different idea - for who "they" might be. In blowing on this spark I created the following story. I don't think this is really in the spirit of chain writing, so my original intention was to keep the first two sections unaltered. As my story ballooned in size, however, I realised I would have to rewrite them to be more consistent with the narration style I had chosen. It's worth noting that I was backpacking at the time, so I think the main character's preoccupation with language and culture may have been a reflection of my own. I hope you enjoy reading and I would be interested to hear your thoughts. 

On Three Kings' Crag

The North Wind raged atop Three Kings' Crag, chilling me to the bone. Having left both clouds and rain behind, my companions and I now battled to keep our footing on the treacherous path. I was close to exhaustion: the thought of being whisked off the face of the crag and hurled to join my ancestors was by now quite appealing. I held on, however, bracing my axe against the rock and putting one foot in front of the other. If my companions and I could not find the strength to throw off the storm how would we throw off our oppressors? I had promised them we would find our answer on this forsaken rock; I hoped I was right.

After what seemed like an age the dark bulk of Kelgar's Rest loomed out of the night above us. My heart leapt to see a faint light glowing from within. Kelgar's rest was the smallest of the Crag's three barrows, long since hollowed out and plundered. It was clearly occupied again. I signalled my companions to leave the path and picked my way over the rocky ground; ordinarily it would have been a simple walk to the barrow but the battle with the wind took us to the limit of our strength. With a sigh I heaved the shaft of my axe against the crude door and knocked.

"Who goes there?" asked a voice, muffled by stone.

"A friend," I replied, "Perhaps we can speak inside? We are freezing to our bones out here."

"Who knocks?"

"I am Ren. With me are Monok, Turin and Pey: three men with only one tongue between them."

The door opened and I ducked inside to find a young Southern woman, weathered beyond her years, standing in the glow of a fire. She was looking past me and I shifted awkwardly along the stone wall to allow Turin and Pey to enter. They greeted their kinswoman in their traditional way – foreheads touching – and I allowed myself a moment of pride. I had promised Turin and Pey – tongueless, scarred and loyal to the last – that we would reach Kelgar's Rest and in this, at least, we had succeeded. The woman was whispering alien words to them and they murmured in response, almost as one. With a start I realised that two small children, a boy and a girl, were staring at me from behind their mother. Caught unawares I struggled to remember my manners, and eventually decided to bow my head to them.

"Isil vai," I stammered, and they responded in kind.

With our formalities complete I looked around the barrow, our promise of shelter. Furs lined a ledge creating a seating area and there was some rudimentary cooking equipment on the floor. A haze of smoke filled the air; the barrow's walls did not allow it to fully escape. One would have to be mad to choose such a place to raise a family; mad or desperate. I was interrupted in my thoughts by Monok heaving himself through the low door and pulling it shut behind him. Turin, Pey and I joined the children on the floor, wriggling our backs to find comfort against the stones.

"I apologise," said the woman, turning to me, "I am Surimay. You are welcome to shelter with us tonight, but you'll find no food here."

"We have plenty for us all," I said.

"How can you bear," growled Monok, "To shelter in a tomb?"

"It will be our tomb before midwinter. We have nowhere else to go."

Monok had the courtesy to look abashed, and the children watched him in confusion.

"I'd rather we die," Surimay continued, "Before they take our tongues."

"What if I told you we come bearing hope?" I said.

Her expression did not change, but she looked to Turin and Pey, who nodded. "Go on," she said.

I hesitated: my plan was too far-fetched, too incredible. I had persuaded Monok, Turin and Pey to follow me but even now they seemed doubtful. If I spoke of my plan now perhaps I too would fall into doubt.

"If you'll permit me, Lima," I began, adopting the formal title for a Southern woman, "I would prefer to show you. The object of our quest lies at the Ruiner, barely an hour's journey from here. I would be grateful if you would accompany us tomorrow."

"Very well," she said, "It will be distracting for the children."

"Wonderful!" I cried, "Now, my friends, I believe we have some salted meat left?"

Our meal that night was a curious one: despite Turin and Pey's muteness they held a conversation of sorts with our hosts. Monok and I were unable to follow and, though he was used to eating in silence, I felt uncomfortable. My thoughts strayed, as they often did, to the children I might have had and the peaceful life I might have lived. I was relieved when the time came to stretch out as best we could on the barrow floor. The little girl took her brother in her arms and sang softly to him. Surimay, however, had rolled away, stiff as a board. Her silence struck me as odd: surely it was she who had taught her daughter to sing, just as her mother would once have taught her?

*

We woke to find the storm had passed and a fresh, cool wind had taken its place. The sun hung in a brilliant blue sky as we traversed the crag. Below us, mountains rolled into hills as far as the eye could see. I laughed at the sight: how smooth and inviting the landscape looked, yet how steep and difficult had our journey been! Most of my attention, however, was directed towards the children (the boy's name, I had found out, was Vin and the girl another Surimay). They ran ahead of us as we approached Ulrich's Rest, the largest of the crag's barrows, and returned, laughing, to take our hands and show it to us. Though built in the same way as Kelgar's Rest it was now only ruins: the remains of the circular wall gave the children something to climb on and hid tiny flowers among its stones. I let myself be taken in by their games; they taught me their names for the flowers and laughed again as I tried to repeat them. Eventually, with a big sigh, Monok looked at the children and pointed along the crag, towards the cliffs. Seeming to understand his meaning they agreed to continue the journey – provided Monok carried them. We set off again in high spirits.

With a start I realised Surimay was missing. Looking over my shoulder I found her trailing the party, her face hidden by a long scarf. I hung back to speak with her.

"The children have taken to the mountain," I began, "In a way I could not. Too cold and lonely for me!"

"They are happy to see our cousins," she replied, thoughtfully, "As am I. Thank you for bringing them with you."

"They were only too eager to come. It was they who guessed who you might be, when we heard rumours you were here."

"You have not come to take us to safety." It was a statement, not a question.

"Perhaps," I hesitated, "Perhaps if the children – "

"And who are you, Ren?" she interrupted, "Who are you to play games with children? To speak of hope but refuse to share it?"

"I am sorry. My father is the Lord of Komorr. I have helped him to shelter some of your people in our home." She said nothing, "We do not agree with what is being done, Surimay. You must believe me. I do not agree. My father is likely dead by now. As the four of us left Komorr it was surrounded, besieged."

"You chose not to fight?"

"It was hopeless," I sighed, "Monok would have stayed, I know he would. But we still held some hope. Here, on this crag."

The path had narrowed to a ravine, and Surimay went ahead of me. She climbed swiftly.

"Surimay?" I said, "I do not know what I will do, or think, if we find nothing at the top."

"We are close," she replied.

We emerged from the ravine in a hollow near the summit of the mountain, where sheer walls sheltered us from the wind. In the centre was the barrow of the Ruiner, a king so ancient and terrible his true name had been forgotten. The walls of the tomb were long, sharp rocks, stacked together like spearheads in a smithy; each would have required a score or more to lift. I felt the hairs on the back of my neck rising against my will. This was a good place to hide.

I stepped towards the barrow, hoping that my companions had not noticed my hesitation. I walked into the shadows between it and the rock wall, my heart hammering in my chest. I was looking for the entrance to a cave – it was likely to be hidden, but would its resident have viewed the barrow as deterrent enough? It was dark on the far side of the hollow and thick moss grew on the wall. Too thick. I reached out and it yielded to my touch like a curtain.

"Here!" I cried.

My voice echoed around the hollow and I thought, at first, that it was growing louder. I was wrong: as the last trace of my voice faded away another replaced it, ancient and terrible.

"Who," boomed the voice, "Who disturbs me in my home?"

My fear turned to excitement: we were the first people to hear the voice of a Scribe in generations! I looked to my companions, faltering between rock and barrow, and smiled.

"I am Ren Komorr," I said to the wall. There was no response, so I turned again to the others, "Monok, your name. Your full name."

Monok gave it, then Surimay gave hers. She also spoke for the children, Turin and Pey. We held our breath, and eventually the Scribe spoke again.

"Enter."

As I hesitated once again, Monok strode forward and clapped a big hand on my shoulder.

"A Scribe on a mountain of dead tyrants," he said, "I'll admit I thought you mad."

"Mad we are indeed," I laughed, "To consider going into this cave. I can go alone."

A quick glance showed me this would not be the case: the children, clasping their mother's hands, did not seem frightened, and Turin and Pey were already preparing torches from their supplies of firewood. Monok peeled back some of the moss as we waited.

"It is narrow," he said, "Single file."

"Take the rear. We'll keep the children in the middle."

Turin pressed a lighted torch into my hand and nodded. I led the way through the moss and into the cave.

My torch seemed to throw more shadows than light as we twisted and turned through the cave. The sound of running water grew louder as we descended, and the air grew warmer until it felt almost humid. After a short distance we entered a low cavern with a pool of water on one side. At our feet and above our heads strange plants forced their way through cracks in the rock. They grew almost straight up or down, with leathery leaves clinging tightly to a thick stem. On each stem was a fruit, like a small red apple. Behind me, I heard Surimay scold one of the children for reaching out to pick one. Her voice seemed muffled by the damp air. Against one wall we found a clue to the Scribe's way of living: a small wooden box, which contained a number of harvested fruit.

With our curiosity sated we continued into the passageway at the far end of the cavern. After a short descent it opened again into an antechamber with a heavy wooden door against the far wall. The Scribe's unearthly voice came again.

"We shall speak alone. Leave your weapon outside."

My hands shook as I leant my axe against the wall. I felt I couldn't stop, couldn't slow down. I could only nod to Monok as he took the big iron latch in his hands. He swung the door towards us and I stepped through.

The cave beyond the door was very different to the one I had left behind. Flames burnt in braziers in the walls and lit up a red-tiled floor. Scrolls were stacked against both walls: some old and crumbling, some much newer. The corridor curved sharply to the left so I could not tell how far this trove of knowledge stretched. As I was wondering if I should walk further the Scribe spoke to me.

"Ren Komorr," it said, and then appeared to wait for me to respond.

"Yes, my lord Scribe," I said, "Please accept my apologies for this intrusion. Long ago you told my ancestor of this cave. We have believed – hoped – that you did so in case we needed to find you, needed your help."

"You are mistaken."

"Without the Scribes we are desperate," I said, a lump forming in my throat, "The land knows only war; there is no justice or peace anywhere. I come on behalf – mainly on behalf – of the Southerners, who have been crushed and oppressed all this time. It started with tongues –"

"Enough," interrupted the Scribe, "The ones you call Southerners: they are the practitioners of the Aural Histories?"

"Yes, my people fear this skill may be comparable to your own." I winced at my foolishness: surely it was a mistake to compare the power of humans, any humans, to that of a Scribe. The Scribe, however, did not show any sign of offence.

"You have come to ask my help, forgetting that my people have tried to placate humanity a number of times over the centuries. You revert to violence without fail. I will not leave this place; your concerns are not mine."

"My lord –"

"My answer is no, Ren Komorr. I would, however, take the two children as my apprentices."

My head was spinning with rage and disappointment: had the creature no compassion? Why ask for the children? I had not heard of the Scribes sharing their knowledge before. A more immediate issue, however, weighed on my mind.

"What of their mother?" I stammered.

"I have no use for her."

"It is not for me to –"

"Then bring her to me!"

With the Scribe showing impatience at last I turned and pushed open the door through which I had entered. I had not thought to compose myself and as my companions rose from the ground they saw the disappointment on my face.

"It wants to speak with you," I said to Surimay.

Monok, stoic in his new role, opened the door for Surimay and she stepped quietly through. I sunk to the floor of the cave and closed my eyes. I don't know how long I sat there for, but Surimay's audience with the Scribe was certainly longer than mine. At one point, I thought I heard her singing. Monok, stronger than I, would later relate how the children sat hand in hand, impassive, as they waited for their mother to return.

Surimay opened the door with a quiet dignity and beckoned the children to their feet. I marvelled at her steadiness, her lack of emotion, as she whispered to them. Finally, after kissing each on the forehead, she stood with the children and gently pushed them towards the door. Monok frowned, disbelieving, and Surimay had to ask him twice to close the door behind the children. It was too late: silhouetted in the corridor, the children had begun to turn and saw us standing, unmoved, in the chamber, closing the door between them and their mother.

*

I remember little of the return journey. We must have passed through the cave and ravine in silence. By some instinct we paused at Ulrich's Rest and I told my friends of my conversation with the Scribe. Monok said something encouraging. As we set off again I remembered my axe, standing forgotten in the cave. Useless now. As evening drew towards us we settled down once again amongst the stones of Kelgar's Rest; Surimay did not join us. Monok was restless, and after a few minutes he made for the door.

"Monok..." I began.

"It is too easy, Ren," He said, without turning, "Too easy to be alone at times like these."

With that, he disappeared through the door of the barrow and left us in darkness. We lit the fire and waited. When Monok and Surimay returned, her eyes were red.

"Now," She said, "I hope you will forgive my poor hospitality yesterday. Tonight it is my turn to cook us a meal."

I prioritised zoom when I bought my Panasonic DMC TZ70, but turns out it's not much good for macro shots. Could hardly focus on small things. How long was your trip in total? You appear to have seen a huge variety of wildlife in a relatively short time.

This was a very interesting read and I liked the focus on the wildlife! What were you taking your photos on? I thought of Colombia twice while reading this: Bogota's Museum of Gold also has very early gold crafts, and the Tatacoa Desert contains striking rock formations.