Travel Writing Library

We sit, just a friend and I at the edge of a deserted road, edging closer to the bushes lining the road, desperately trying to stay in the shade.

You'd have thought the gnarled, snaggle-toothed old man in his tiny wood-and-tin shack was several days' trek from the nearest village, such was the aura of isolation about the place.

Loitering outside the austere concrete monolith that were the police headquarters, instinct told me we should be lying low. Instead, we were trying to draw attention to ourselves while hopping around on the...

“You won’t get a room,” Brenda says, shaking her head. She taps her immaculate red nails on the steering wheel and, for the first time since getting in the cab, her smile wanes.

Mexico Valle Nacional at four in the morning was silent save for the chirping of a cicada and a dog barking in the distance. We cycled south over a mine field of deep rain-filled potholes and crossed the Cosomoloapan River.

It’s a jawbone, the crunch beneath my hiking boot. A HUMAN JAWBONE! And there are still teeth attached. It is a grizzly reminder of why I’m here and to distract myself I focus on the colourful strings of prayer flags flapping around me.

“You won’t get a room,” Brenda says, shaking her head. She taps her immaculate red nails on the steering wheel and, for the first time since getting in the cab, her smile wanes.

Mexico Valle Nacional at four in the morning was silent save for the chirping of a cicada and a dog barking in the distance. We cycled south over a mine field of deep rain-filled potholes and crossed the Cosomoloapan River.