STRIP CLUBS - MEDICAL PROCEDURES

MATAMOROS/BROWNSVILLE: MARCH 13
Lunch with the newspaper editor takes a while. I reach the frontier town of Matamoros in early evening - easier to cope with border formalities tomorrow morning. Matomoros is an interesting town. I had expected streets of strip clubs and massage parlors. Cheap sex has been supplanted by cheap medical treatment. Clubs and massage parlors have given way to hospitals and doctors' surgeries.

COYOTES AND ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS

TO BROWNSVILLE, USA: MARCH 13
Edward James was a wealthy and eccentric Englishman. He spent much of his life designing a series of interconnected follies and having them built in the lush forest near Xilitla. I am an Englishman and vaguely eccentric. I am not rich. I don't stop in Xilitla. I do reach Ciudad Victoria. I find a room on the cathedral square and relish a final prawn cocktail in Mexico. From Ciudad Victoria to the border at Brownsville is one vast flat field of sorghum. The field is 200 miles long, God knows how wide. Rains are late. I read, over breakfast, that farmers are in panic.
I take a break midway to the border. A middle-aged Mexican admires my bike. He is editor/owner of a local paper. He invites me for lunch. We discuss bikes, politics, the border. Smugglers of illegals into the US are called coyotes. US$1,500 is the fee for smuggling an illegal. The fee carries a guaranty. The US Border Patrol catches an illegal, the Immigration Department returns him or her to Mexico. The coyote takes him across again and again and again - until successful.

A LAST VISIT TO THE CARTER BAR

JALPAN, SIERRA GORDA: MARCH 12
I am heading for the US/Mexico border at Brownsville. I will cross tomorrow. Today the road north climbs up through the Sierra Gorda. I look down on clouds for the last time in Latin America. A dry
stone wall divides a small paddock of rough grass. The wall ends at a fast-flowing burn. Broad-leaf trees grow on the banks. Pines grow further up the slope. Wall, burn, trees, the quality of the hill grass, all are reminders of the Scottish Borders - even the wet mist. The US lies ahead. The US frightens me. It is foreign territory in all but language. I long to be home...

ONE MORE POSSIBLE HOME

JALPAN, SIERRA GORDA: MARCH 12
On this journey, I have walked the streets in so many towns, made friends, imagined how life would be, what street to live on, which house would be closest to perfection. Jalpan would be a fine place. It is the right size in which to become accepted, has a great climate, beautifuil architecture, wonderful country, good fishing. My bag is packed. The bike is loaded. Staff join me for a photograph. One more farewell.

JALPAN CHURCH DETAIL

JALPAN, SIERRA GORDA: MARCH 11
Share a table in the late evening at the hotel with the owner and his wife, her sister and brother-in-law.
I will miss Mexico. I will miss Latin America. Some weeks, most weeks, I have spoken only Spanish.
We change character when we change language. We have history in our native language; we have absorbed prejudices from the cradle on. Those of our own nationality recognise from whence we come and judge us by the opinions they presume we hold. Shifting into a different language frees us. I am a nicer person in Spanish than I am in English. I am less self-conscious, less defensive, less aggressive in my arguments, curious of others rather than judgmental.
This evening we talk of the US Presidential race. We hope for an Obama victory.
The sister says, “They will never elect him...”

OLD MAN FOR THE TRASH HEAP

hotel owner

JALPAN, SIERRA GORDA: MARCH 11
I have spent much of the day writing in the hotel. Why am I so tired? Tired is a misnomer. Exhausted is an understatement.
Being away ten months and on the road, vulnerable on a small bike; seemingly endless series of packing and unpacking; at night, trying to recall in each new hotel room which direction the bathroom is and where the light switches are – all of that is counterbalanced by warm, interesting, kindly people, by superb country and wonderful buildings.
So why so exhausted?
By nature, I am an optimist (aged 75, only an optimist would attempt this ride). Holding on to one's optimism is hard. Country to country, the endless tales of coruption are depressing, the belief so many have that the system is too entrenched, that there is nothing anyone can do, that even trying is to waste one's life. Yes, exhausting.
There is a further factor: my editor/publisher is in adminsitration (bankrupt used to be the word). I had a three book contract. The first of the trilogy was due for publication in May. I had a young enthusiastic intelligent editor. Yes, I am suicidal...

TOURISTS ARE RARE

JALPAN, SIERRA GORDA: MARCH 10
Tourists are rare this month in the Sierra Gorda. Mexicans arrive for Easter week. The road over the mountains may scare people from the US – and lack of beach. This evening a married couple sit at the next table in a taco place round the corner from my hotel. They are in their late fifties to early sixties. He is a University Professor. His field is Urban Studies. They visit Europe regularly. This is their first visit to Mexico. The wealth of historic architecture surprises them. I am surprised by their surprise.
The Professor and his wife have flown direct from a New York winter. They are very white. He immediately questions me on racial attitudes in Mexico. The US obsession...