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Army raids Islamists in Lebanese city, 11 die
2007-06-24 12:02:00
TRIPOLI, Lebanon, June 24 (Reuters) - Lebanese troops stormed a Sunni Islamist militant hideout in the northern city of Tripoli on Sunday, killing seven of them, including a woman, while battles raged on at a nearby Palestinian refugee camp.Security sources said one soldier was killed and 14 were wounded before a 10-hour siege of an apartment block reached a bloody climax. Militants killed a policeman, his 4-year-old daughter and a relative who all lived in the building.The standoff, which began shortly before midnight, was linked to 36-day-old battles between the army and Fatah al-Islam militants at the Nahr al-Bared camp just north of Tripoli.Two floors of the five-storey building were blackened and burned in the fighting. Holes from shells, grenades and bullets punctured its facade. A pool of blood lay on the pavement.
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Flights, Insect Bites & Google Sites
2006-12-02 15:25:05
Finally booked my flights after days of hassles and stress on the internet. Had problems with my profile on the opodo site - each time I found a flight the site lost the details as soon as I tried to pay. Eventually got round the problem by creating a new profile.Despite this I'd recommend Opodo - it has a far wider choice of available flights to and from Mexico than the other sites (eg expedia, travelocity etc) - especially if you plan to arrive and leave from different cities. The secret is to force the search engine to find flights it initially claims don't exist. So if you do a multistop trip and it claims there are no available flights then on the rejection page that comes up force it to search for specific airlines (option at the bottom of the page - eg Air France) - suddenly it will turn up possibilities it and other sites normally ignore. You can also force it to find new flights by specifying which time of day you want to fly. It's worth fiddling around with as you can m...
More About: Google , Flights , Site , Sites , Light

Internet Delays
2006-12-02 15:25:05
Meant to start booking flights but the internet site is down. Meantime here's a few pics of what I look like - 1st is in San Sebastian in Aug 2003, 2nd is in Barcelona Sept 2003 and 3rd in Barcelona Aug 1st 2005 - my 30th birthday.Details of the 2003 trip are still online in a previous blog at: Spaintrip 2003And more details about other trips including Argentina and elsewhere can be found at my personal vt page which I've just added to the links on the top RHS of this page
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Nice Break
2006-12-02 15:25:05
Just back from a very relaxing very long weekend (Wednesday-Sunday) at Grasse, near Nice in the South of France. The town is famous for its perfumeries, but to be honest I spent very little time exploring the area outside the residence we were staying at because it was way too blissful to make the effort! Swimming pool, kitchen, balcony, amazing views, good company and some of the best food I've eaten in ages. Swear I must have put on kilos.It also meant the opportunity to play LOADS of drinking games including Mafia, Wink Murder, La Di Da (with several squashed madeline/fairy cakes as a result), The Vegetable game, Trotsky and many others - good revision for Mexico I hopeThe weekend was organised by an old university buddy called Martin who used to head up the team developing a sequel to Tellytubbies but since has gone it alone as a freelance photographer for reasons too complicated (and far fetched) to detail here. He's very talented - and has been booked to do a couple of magaz...
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Not Good
2006-12-02 15:25:05
Just read the news that the strongest hurricane ever recorded is heading towards the Yucatan coast. Hurricane Wilma (bbc) Hurricane Centre AdviceThe predictions are that it will change course but recent history suggests forecasts are pretty innaccurate when it comes to judging where these storms will hit.Parts of Mexico, Cuba and Florida are being evacuated. Preparations are also being taken in Jamaica, Nicaragua, Honduras and the Cayman Islands. Isla Mujeres (just off the coast by Cancun) is reportedly one of the most at risk places. Meanwhile MTV have cancelled their big Latin American Award Ceremony that was planned to take place in Cancun. Tom Cruise was also planning to marry Katie Holmes there in a few weeks so guess that may also be postponed.The storm is category 5 - and raging at up to 175mph/280kmph. It's the 21st storm and 12th hurricane of the season.In the UK the hurricane isn't a big news story yet - here's hoping it dies down and never makes land.UPDATE:The hurr...
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Destruction
2006-12-02 15:25:05
Will post more later but needless to say the news from the Yucatan isn't good. The hurricane stalled over Playa del Carmen and Cancun causing major damage and a number of deaths. Casualties seem to have been limited by a co-rodinated evacuation and use of storm shelters.Isla Mujeres suffered badly - there are reports the island is now divided in three parts by the water. However resorts south of Playa del Carmen seem to have got off lighter with some hotels reporting that they will reopen for business in just over a weeks time. Presumably it will take longer to fix things in PdC and Cancun.Flights to Cancun are scheduled to restart around 27th Oct, but it all seems a bit up in the air. TV here in the UK has shown pictures of basic rations being handed out as well as all the expected pictures of devestation.The manager of one of the PdC resorts has posted a series of pics showing the kind of damage at the following link: Playa del Carmen post-WilmaI haven't had a chance yet to dec...
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Life's A Beach
2006-12-02 15:25:05
One of the pleasures of travelling is the chance to experience unusual foods, and there's been plenty of opportunity in Mexico. So far highlights have included mole negro (chicken in a savoury chocolate sauce) wrapped in maize leaves, cream of squash soup, several quesidillas, crunchy thick freshly cooked tortilla chips served with HOT salsa lime and salt, a cocktail of freshly caught octopus, pan de los muertos (bread of the dead), a chilli and pineapple paleta (pictured - basically an ice lolly made of pineapple chunks in a frozen chilli sauce - not nearly as nice as the strawberry version which includes whole strawberries in frozen strawberry cream - yum, yum, yum) and grasshoppers (which strongly taste like grass at the end of summer - which isn't surprising when you think about it). The grasshoppers were crunchy and to be honest after 3 or 4 I'd had enough - but they´re popular in oaxaca - fried in chilli and eaten on their own or wrapped in a tortilla with lime juice. You c...
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Deep Down in Silver City
2006-12-02 15:25:05
I knew things were getting desperate when I realised I was laughing out loud at an American comedy that was so ´good´ it was never released on dvd, let alone the cinema, in the UK. The film was Repli-Kate (university student clones cute girl by mistake, teaches it how to behave only to discover he´s created a sex-addict beer swilling beauty - and he prefers the original.... OK I´ll stop right there). By this point I´d been travelling for approximately 20 hours including a few hours stop-off at Chihuahua bus station. I´m still not sure if the film is an undiscovered gem or whether my brain had started to short circuit. The only other stimulation it had had in the previous few hours was a stunning sunrise over the Mexican desert and some truly tragic Mexican music blaring out of the driver´s stereo a couple of rows in front of me. Eventually the bus pulled into its destination - Zacatecas, Mexico's elegant and prosperous city of silver. The city´s existence came about by what was un...
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Paradise Restored
2006-12-02 15:25:05
Leaving Guanajuato for my last destination, Playa del Carmen, meant mixed feelings. Ever since 2004, when I'd first considered travelling to Mexico, I'd always planned to make a trip to PdC, lured by its crystal blue waters, pristine beaches and the promise that it isn't yet overdeveloped like Cancun. Hurricane Wilma rearranged the trip, which in retrospect was fortunate (for me) as it meant I went west from San Cristobal rather than spending over a fortnight in the Yucatan and another week in Spanish school. But internet message board postings suggested that by this point PdC and other parts of the Yucatan had been patched up so here I was on my way. But the same time I was increasingly aware that the end was not far off. I planned to spend several days chilling out and not doing very much so the time would probably speed by. I didn't realise that these last five days were destined to be some of the busiest and most fulfilling yet.But first I had to get to the Yucatan peninsul...
More About: Store , Paradise , Stor , Para , Rest

Mexico DF
2006-12-02 03:25:11
About to leave Mexico City after a couple of excellent days here.I arrived on Thursday night after a long series of flights to be met with a storm! Looking out the plane window the weather resembled something I´d have expected from Glasgow rather than Latin America. The taxi driver promised me they were experiencing freak conditions as a result of Hurricane Wilma and it wouldn´t last long. After dumping my bag at the hostel I was too knackered to check whether he was right and quickly passed out.I woke, checked my watch (it said said 10am), jumped out of bed, showered and ran down the stairs to head out.The hostel was silent and I figured the other residents must all be on Mexican time already. It was only when I got to the exit and saw it was pitch black outside I realised I´d failed to reset my watch. Duh!Several hours of sleep later I made it out and started exploring the city. My original intention was to take a 30min recce and then return to the centre and take a bus tour. In...

Frontier Lands
2006-12-02 03:25:11
Bleary eyed I arrived at Los Mochis station to get my ticket, five minutes before the ticket office was due to open.It appeared several others had camped out there overnight to ensure they´d get a seat. Half an hour later the ticket booth operator finally turned up - Mexico time!As advised by the LP I asked for a window on the right hand side (ask for the left hand side if coming from Chihuahua) to guarantee the best views. The first hour and a bit of the ride, up to El Fuerte, allowed views into the back of several people´s houses with wild pigs, chickens and other animals all running around their backyards as the sun slowly rose. Then the first hint of the Barranca del Cobre (Copper Canyon) as mountains appeared on the horizon through a vista of catcus plants. The Ferrocaril Chihuahua al Pacifico boasts of being the world´s most scenic railway journey - and most of the other passengers sharing the first class train with me were late middle aged or retirees attracted by the promis...
More About: Land , Front , Tier , Frontier

The Thin Line
2006-12-02 03:25:11
Last day in San Cristobal and time to move on. Lasting memories that didn´t make the previous entry include a cd shop where the owner offered to burn copies of the discs if I thought the price of originals was too much, pavements with sidewalks several feet above the road (during the wet season the rainwater runs so deep that several streets effectively turn into rivers), a wonderful exhibition by a local artist whose pictures spilt over the canvas and onto the frames, finally finding a decent cup of coffee in `el museo de cafe` run bv a co-operative of local farmers (there´s going to be a diatribe about the difficulty of finding a decent cup in a later entry), drinking cheap wine in the hostel before going out and a seemingly endless choice of shops offering the same swiss army knives - I cracked and got a small black one - still looking for a use for it a fortnight later.The next stop was Los Mochis - the gateway to the Copper Canyon. I needed to catch a couple of flights to get t...
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Zapatista Land - Waterfalls, Ancient Cities & UFOs
2006-12-02 03:25:11
After calm days of not doing very much on the coast the past five days have been quite a contrast. I arrived in San Cristobal de las Casas after a 13hr overnight bus ride from Puerto Escondido. From sea level to above the clouds - the last few hours of the ride offered dramatic views of the valleys as we rose higher and higher up from Tuxtla Guttierez into the mountains high up into the skies. They were considerably more atmospheric than the terrible Steven Seagal film the bus company inflicted on us for the first couple of hours of the ride. I swear the Mexican bus companies source out the worst possible DTV drivel they can to inflict on the gringos who ride primera clase - and unless you have earplugs of a walkman there´s no escape as the sound is blasted around the bus. It´s a suprise more drivers don´t deliberately drive over the cliffs in desperation. Anyway back to SCdlC - the town is reminiscent of Oaxaca - lots of narrow streets arranged into a rough grid like pattern. But ...
More About: Cities , Water , Citi , Land , Waterfall

More trips and big lips
2006-12-02 03:25:11
Coming towards the end of my first full week in Mexico. Just back from a second meeting with my intercambio in Oaxaca - most of which was dominated by translating Leonard Cohen songs from English to Spanish to help her understand what they meant. Head scratching stuff.It´s been a busy week. Have spent most of the time out of school with 2 sets of friends - a couple of girls I met in Mexico DF who arrived in Oaxaca a day after I did: Sarah, on her gap year from England, and Maria a photographer from Norway, who are travelling together.Also John, a Texan who´s been my classmate at Solexico, who flew off home this morning after a long night out last night that took in a show by Mexico´s official salsa champions at a local club, several drinks at the bar La Divinia including the obligatory shots of tequila, and finally a visit to a very cool club called Elefante where we danced to the latest latino pop hits til the very early hours.The fourth friend, Felipe, is also from the school and ...
More About: Lips , Trip , More

Dias de los muertos
2006-12-02 03:25:11
Have been in Oaxaca for a few days now and am really enjoying it. Such a contrast to Mexico DF and my first taste of the Mexico I´d heard described.It´s a small town in a valley surrounded by mountains. The historic centre is laid out in a gridlike pattern which should make getting around pretty easy, but I seem to get confused at least every 15mins, though am now slowly discovering which way not to go.The school I´m studying at (Solexico) is smaller than previous ones I´ve been to. The advanatge is smaller sized classes (3 people per teacher in mine) and a quite close knit group of alumni - we´ve met up most nights by random chance wandering the streets and ended up going out til the early hours of the morning. I´ve been put in the most advanced class which is generally revision which suits me fine. If I were wanting a more demanding advanced course I´d probably consider changing schools, but as a laid back way to tune up my skills and get some language practice without too much ho...

I See Dead People
2006-12-02 03:25:11
City of culture, city of live music, sweeping hills and ornate monuments. But let`s get straight to the point - Guanajuato is perhaps most memorable for its dead. High up on the outskirts of central Guanajuato is Mexico´s strangest tourist attraction - El Museo de las Momias. It`s also one of the most popular if the long lines of wide eyed visitors present on the day I visited are anything to go by.The Museum houses the remains of over 100 of the city´s citizens exhumed from the local graveyard between 1865 and 1979. Mexican law used to state that if death dues were not paid in full within a few years of your death your body would be dug up from the ground to make space for a wealthier neighbour. When they started doing this in Guanajuato they noticed an odd thing - the bodies were coming back preserved - it seems the ground contains the perfect chemical mix.Now at this point you might think cremation would be an option, or at the very most a brief scientific investigation before th...
More About: People , Dead , Dead People

Missing Links
2005-09-04 20:27:00
Carried on adding and tweaking the links on the page. Posted a link to the Lonely Planet's Thorn Tree site (one of the best general mexico message boards out there) and have seen the number of hits on the site rocket - even got my first comment.I'm keen to add any other useful links so if you have any please leave a comment here or email me at the contact listed under the Links bar.Have also posted tons of extra bus links to the transport column - rather than detail what each of them represent I'd refer you to Larpman's excellent new site:Larpman's Guide To MexicoIt has full details as well as lots of other useful info.Going to book my plane tickets tomorrow. Opodo is going to offer £20 off any flight anywhere in the world tomorrow morning (Monday 5th September) - and will have further offers every Monday this month. In the past such offers quickly run out - they only give discounts to a limited number of customers - so it's worth logging on quickly if you're planning a tri...
More About: Miss , Sing , Missing , Missi

Forum Farce
2005-09-01 19:47:00
Have been extensively using internet message boards to find info - the lonely planet's 'Thorn Tree' is particularly good - and spotted the following which made me laugh:How many subscribers to an online message board does it take to change a light bulb?Answers:1 to change the light bulb and to post that the light bulb has been changed14 to share similar experiences of changing light bulbs and how the light bulb could have been changed differently7 to caution about the dangers of changing light bulbs27 to point out spelling/grammar errors in posts about changing light bulbs41 to correct spelling/grammar flames6 to argue over whether it's "lightbulb" or "light bulb" ...another 6 to condemn those 6 as anal-retentive2 industry professionals to inform the group that the proper term is "lamp"27 to post URL's where one can see examples of different light bulbs12 to post to the group that they will no longer post because they cannot handle the light bulb controversy4 to suggest that po...
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Let The Booking Begin
2005-09-01 17:08:00
Still to buy flights - opodo is promising some kind of monday special sale so holding off til then. But have booked the first hostel and contacted a couple of lannguage schools for quotes so does finally feel like it's all starting to have some basis in reality.Went off last night to the Edinburgh Spanish-English group (9pm every Wednesday at the Cambridge Bar on Young Street just off Charlotte Square) - a great place to practice speaking and make new friends. Got chatting to a guy called Andre from Valencia who's been over here for 5 months to improve his language skills. He's a bullfighter back in Spain and will be going on a tour of Mexico next year - not a bad chat up line for his first trip to Latin America.Meantime have been in touch with several friends from my last trip to Argentina and 2003 Spanish tour and am hoping to see them at a party in London next month which I'm sharing with my sister. Quite an effort to keep in touch with even a few of the old travel buddies bu...
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Mapping It Out
2005-08-30 19:24:00
Planning to start booking flights later this evening. Meantime here's a map of Mexico.At the moment the plan is to fly to Mexico City and then head along to the Yucatan visiting several places en route. So far Oaxaca, Veracruz, Merida, San Cristobel de las Casas, Palenque and Playa del Carmen all make the list but nothing's concrete yet.
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Countdown Commenced
2005-08-24 18:09:00
Have got permission to take the time off work so serious planning for the Mexico trip starts now. 5 and a bit weeks to take in Mexico City, Oaxaca, the Yucatan and some of the spots in between. The plan at the moment is to do 3 weeks of study at Spanish schools interspersed with backpacking, but nothing is confirmed as yet
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