Best Laid Plans

Before we´d even taken off from Heathrow the 3 1/2 hour delay caused by what no nervous flyer wants to hear "electrical failure" - meant that we would miss our connecting flight to Monterrey. The upshot being that after a 13 hour journey, we got to spend the night in a very plush hotel in Fort Worth, Texas, with a fist full of meal vouchers to keep us going, courtesy of BA. In the morning we bid farewell to the kind of 5* luxury our budget won´t allow, stocked up on food with the last of our coupons and finally made it to Monterrey a day late.

We had been a little apprenhensive about what to expect from Mexico and Monterrey in particular as in recent months the much documented drugs wars have extended their reach into Monterrey and it was recently included in a list of cities the US Government advise against travelling to. Our apprehension wasn´t lessened by meeting Rosendro and Alejandro - 2 locals returning from the US and Argentina - who filled us in on the dangers and their own experiences including 2 kidnappings. Their list of ´no go´areas made us wonder what would be left to do in Monterrey and when we told them where we were staying they were insistent that this was a bad neighbourhoodand even offered to put us up. We declined, saying we´d see how we got on for 1 night and move in the morning if necessary. Luckily it has been this kind of friendliness and genorosity that has characterised our time in Monterrey rather than any violence or bad experiences.

Our hostel, Monterocco, turned out to be perfect for us and Maurizio the owner, couldn´t have been nicer, giving us loads of advice and information and reassuring us that we wouldn´t end up being the lead story on the evening news. Even aside from the drugs war and despite being Mexico´s 3rd largest and richest city, Monterrey is not particularly well established on the tourist map, especially amongst Europeans and we didnt see a´signle non-Mexican tourist despite staying there for almost a week. This is a real shame for tourists as it´s such a fantastic city with an endless list of things to see and do. It´s true that there are definately parts of the city to be avoided, especially after dark and we did feel a bit intimidated at times - the massive police presence alone gives you a feeling of unease and we regularly saw convoys of heavily armed and balaclava-ed police patrolling the streets.

We set out hesitantly on the first day hoping to visit Chipinque National Park in the mountains which encircle most of the city, however recent forest fires meant it was closed. The fires were no surprise as the temperature, particularly on the first couple of days, was incredibly hot, much more so for the time of year apparently and it reached the mid 40s - far too hot for a couple of pasty Brits!

Instead we spent the day at Parque Fundidora which is a former steel factory complex which has been turned into a huge urban park where middle class Monterreyans (´regiomontanas´as they´re known) seem to spend their weekends. It was also ´Children´s Day´ - there seems to be a ´Day´ for most things in Mexico - and it was really busy with lots of events. The Park also includes an arthouse cinema and we watched an old Mexican comedy and felt a bit embarrassed as the English subtitles were turned on just for us, although we didn´t need to as there was a lot else going on - it is apparently quite normal for people to wander in and out, have a chat and tend to crying babies while a film is showing!

Xander and I were really surprised at the quality of the museums, particularly the Museo de Historica Mexicana (no translation needed!) and the Museo del Noreste (North East) and the city has obviously put a lot of money into the exhibits. And into employing cleaners, there seemed to be a ratio of 1 cleaner to every visitor and they followed us around cleaning anything we touched!

The museums are generally reasonably priced but even better, there is free entry on certain days which we took advantage of in a rare on the ball moment. Other bargains in Monterrey are the brilliant, albeit tiny, Metro system, a bargain at 30p a ride and Sundays are free travel all day, something we only discovered when trying to buy tickets and the station cleaning lady came running over shouting at us to stop!

On our last night we splashed out on a culinary treat for which Monterrey is renowned - baby goat known as ´cabrito´. This is a popular dish but is supposed to be particularly good in Monterrey because of the quality of the grass in the region.

We weren´t really sure what we were ordering so left it up to the waiter and were brought 2 enormous platters piled high with goat meat and served with an assortment of side dishes and the ubiquitous tortilla. The taste was amazing, like the most tender roast lamb and we left Monterrey like a couple of stuffed pigs.