Oaxaca

Hotel with no car park? No problem. Just ride through reception and park outside your room.

Traffic

Mexico has a pretty good motorway network, but they're toll roads and they're expensive so nobody uses them. The result is traffic like this.

Teotihuacan

The pyramid of the sun, the third largest pyramid in the world, contains an estimated three million tons of stone and was built in AD100 without the use of metal tools, pack animals, or the wheel.

Guanajuato

Guanajuato was founded when silver was discovered in the area. For over 250 years the region produced 20% of the world's silver.

Tunnels

The river flowing through Guanajuato was diverted through a series of tunnels running under the town. Following a series of floods the river was dammed and the tunnels are now used to as roads.

Zacatecas

The inside of Zacatecas' cathedral, in contrast to the outside, is really rather plain. Presumably the stonemasons had lost interest or died of old age by the time they'd finished the outside.

23 degrees north

Just before crossing the Tropic of Cancer I was stopped by a policeman wielding a radar gun. I hadn't been speeding, and he wasn't after a bribe, he just wanted to have a chat about my bike.

Copper Canyon

Copper Canyon, and the surrounding canyons, are deeper than the Grand Canyon and cover an area four times the size.

Creel

Home of the odd-shaped rock.

Guaymas

A delay in leaving Santa Rosalia meant it was dark by the time I arrived in Guaymas. One of the crew gave me directions to a hotel in town which involved doing a naughty left turn. Its obviously a popular naughty left turn as there was a policeman lying in wait to catch people. He pulled me over and after going through the pretence of him showing me the ticket he was about to write out and me asking what the fine was he decided instead to ask for some money for a drink. After I'd given him 100 pesos he was my new best friend - leading me to the hotel (and waving me through a red light in the process) and then giving me directions for the way out of town the following morning.