(This photo looks very “I’m-a-bold-and-intrepid-person-doing-bold-and-intrepid-things” but I’m not particularly, and I want you to know that climbing onto that promontory was scary and I did not like it, and that that smile is a rictus grin of fear. Ok.)

This past winter, I escaped the gloom and fog of Northern Germany/Switzerland/Europe for the gloom and fog of northern Mexico, except that there is no gloom and fog in northern Mexico, wheeee! I was there, ostensibly, for writing, to search out some rather obscure secrets for CLANDESTINE. But I was also there to visit friends and experience something completely new to me, and I did. I wandered the screaming lanes of Mexico City, swam in skeleton-infested cenotes in the Yucatan, went to a Mexican wedding that felt rather like the royal nuptuals of a small kindgom, climbed mountains, wandered into caves under Mayan ruins deep in the jungle. . . .

I’m going to post thirty million pictures here, and try to make it more or less chronological, and by order of the city I was in, and I hope you enjoy!

Let’s start with…

Monterrey

Monterrey is a huge, industrial city in the north of the country with brightly-painted slums standing shoulder to shoulder with glittering skyscrapers, lively family parks right next door to the abandoned mansions of vanquished drug lords, and all of it nestled in the midst of some truly beautiful mountains.

The view at the top of my favorite hike, a trail to an abandoned cable car station high above the city. (If you follow me on Instagram you probably saw this view about seven thousand times.)

I was informed that this is a table full of hands belonging to the Virgin Mary.

Mexico City

I loved Mexico City. It has a big expat community, and lots of lovely bookstores and museums and parks. I bought The Razor’s Edge at one particularly enchanting used bookstore, and found a note inside from the year I was born, thanking a schoolteacher for teaching the writer of the note how to read.

One of the bookstores in Centro was absolutely scrambling with cats. Perhaps they were the owners.

Puebla

My favorite city I visited in Mexico. Sort of a cross between the sleepiness of Merida and the bustle of Mexico City, and packed with interesting corners to discover.

This beetle looks like it’s plotting adorable vengeance.

The Yucatan Peninsula

Ruins, jungles, colorful cities, blue, blue water. . . .

Guadalajara

Great food, and lots of artsy things and people. Also, the wedding capital of Mexico, the birthplace of tequila, and the location of the wedding mentioned at the beginning of this post, which could be a whole twenty blog posts on its own but which I save for a book.