Finalmente, estoy aqui!

Mexico es increible, extraordinario, fantastico, maravillosa, y muy emotivo

Mexico City was fascinating - politics and fiestas on the street in the main square (El Zocalo - like trafalgar square, but flat and with the tower in the middle replaced by the hugest flag you ever saw). I loved walking around - I didn't realise I had been waiting for this so much, but it feels very much like "I'm finally here". Asia, Africa, Australasia and the USA were great preparation, wouldn't have missed them for the world, without them I wouldn't be here now, like this, eyes and ears open, soaking it all in like a sponge. It's noisy in the youth hostel, but I didn't mind, or not until about 1am anyway ... The Spanish I know is just waiting to come back to the forefront of my mind, I have pauses and gaps and fumble for words and tenses, but have read more than the headlines, and talked politics with Mexicanos as well as ordered food and bought bus tickets ...

El Presidente, Vincente Fox, right-winger who broke the Institutionalised Revolution Party's 70-year stranglehold on high office five or so years ago, has just sacked the procurator general of the capital city, who had brought a trivial prosecution against the city's left-wing mayor, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador which would have prevented him from registering to stand against Fox in the 2006 presidential elections (which Obrador could well win). This came about after six weeks of popular demonstrations, all conducted "in a proper manner", which Fox could no longer ignore. Much of it happened in the Zocalo.

Last night was the penultimate night of the 21st festival of the Centro Historico - a fantastic performance in the Zocalo of North-African/French/Arabic/Rap mestizo musica from Clotaire K and friends finished with huge fireworks - the atmosphere was pretty good! And Sunday is May 1st, of course - a real shame we won't be in the Zocalo for what will be a huge party/demonstration.

But as of this evening we're in San Luis Potosi instead, where my grandad grew up (I think! Fellow Hintons, please help me out with this if I have it wrong - or if you know when and where exactly he lived around here).

In the hotel in Mexico DF, a guy who worked there asked why we were going to San Luis (there are other much more turistica places in this general area) - I told him it was because it was where my grandfather was a boy - he wasn't particularly interested and we carried on talking about living in "el DF" and working in the USA. This is not what normally happens if I tell someone where my granddad was born and raised ("Mexico!? Really??!") - it is interestingly different to be somewhere where everyone's granddad is from Mexico.

Earlier that day we looked around the National Anthropological Museum - I found it hard to look at the old stuff, magnificent as it is (and even more so, as a Canadian we met said, because none of it is stolen from some other country). Something like "they have all this culture, and they never told me?" (though I don't think my grandfather put a whole lot of effort into making his children proud of their Mexican connection, as far as I can tell) - and the real sadness of the destruction of the 370 cultures here before the Spanish, too. But upstairs there is the same size space again filled with the artifacts and cultures of present day Indian towns: the survivors, which raises the spirits. And standing in the most colourful gallery, soaking in the brightness and joy in the images, I realise I'm looking at the peyote-influenced art of the indians who live in the north of San Luis Potosi state (did I mention my Mexican relatives are collectors and namers of new kinds of cactus?) - and a day and a half later, here we are, in SLP itself.

And you know what they did here, to welcome this gang of Coventry travellers? They only put on a festival (like every year), which we knew nothing of until we got here, with tonight's star turn one of Mexican young people's favourite bands, Inspector - which turns out to be an excellent ska outfit, who have clearly (from the music) done their homework listening (as well as to the Jamaican originals) to the Selector, the Specials - Coventry's biggest celebrations of multi-racial danceability and anti-racist politics, and the defining music of my youth, now imported into mestizo Mexico with songs like "Latino Rude-Boy" ...

And the food is good too. And this is only day three.

Mexico is some country.

- Mark