Oaxaca has to be one of the most intoxicating places we’ve ever been. Alive with intense vivid colours and vibrant live music. I guess it helps to be here during Guelaguetza, or Los Lunes del Cerro (Mondays on the Hill), an annual indigenous cultural festival held on the last two Mondays of July and bringing…

It’s easy to get lost in Merced, the largest of Mexico City’s markets and its commercial hub since the 17th Century. There are countless twisting and confusing passageways densely packed with whatever is the specialty of that particular corner  – we plunged into one narrow alley and entered the artificial flower section which led, not entirely…

“It’s like fishes” said our taxi driver as we lurched along the clogged arteries of downtown Mexico City. “Is your name Gomez?” asked Anthony, looking at his license plate. “No. Victor. Gomez is my last name.” “Are you brothers?” “Yeah, that’s right. Brothers.” And on we travelled to the Museo Soumaya – which does indeed…

It’s not difficult pretending to be a local in Juarez when the neighbourhood you’ve lucked into is so well appointed and welcoming. We’re in a loft on Havre, the heart of what’s called the Zona Rosa where all of the streets are named after European cities – Londres, Hamburgo, Niza, Florencia, Marsella, Varsovia, Liverpool….to name…

The omnipresent Frida. We naively thought we could saunter up, buy a ticket and wander around Casa Azul on a quiet Tuesday morning, surely it wouldn’t be that busy. However, the cult of Kahlo is alive and well, where the queue to buy a ticket went around the block (and some) – and the queue…

I find it fascinating to think that the heaving heart of Mexico City sits on top of possibly hundreds of pyramids, temples and palaces of the sophisticated Aztec capital Tenochtitlan, largely destroyed by Cortes and his gold-hungry (and self-interestedly righteous – Ant’s bit) Spanish Conquistadors in 1521. Pounding the streets of downtown as we were…

What a glorious smash of cultures, both ancient and modern is Chapultepec – the good, the bad and well, the truly tacky, wacky kitsch. It’s a kaleidoscope of colour everywhere you look – from mono-eyebrowed Frida Kahlo puppets to the ubiquitous Mexican wrestling masks, there’s everything here you pretty much would run a mile from….

Day 2 Mexico City and we’re really easing into local life – exactly what we hoped for. We’ve taken a loft on Calle Havre, a quiet tree lined street in the Zona Rosa. Ants reckons that the bird song in the trees sounds exactly like a snippet of Art Garfunkel’s The Waters of March, ‘a…