A WEEKEND ROAD-TRIP IN CHIHUAHUA

The Mexican state of Chihuahua is home to the most dangerous city in the world, a small yappy dog favoured by rich Hollywood socialites and the worlds 28th highest waterfall. This weekend I saw the latter whilst steering clear of the former, on a 400+ mile roadtrip with the wonderful Claudia, who asides from her initial suggestion to pick me up at my hotel at the ungodly hour of 6AM on a Saturday morning, turned out to the ideal travel companion.

We climbed waterfalls, stood on wobbly rocks perched precariously on the edge of canyon precipices hundreds of metres up and talked politics, Mexican history, the British royal family and of course, how there is nothing a Scotsman likes to do more of an evening than sit at home counting his pesos. After almost five weeks in Mexico, any remaining preconceptions and stereotypes I had of the country and its people were blown away by my wonderful travel companion.

Chihuahua state may have its problems, but it also has spectacular scenery to match anything I have seen around the world, and with low entry fees and no loud tourists, a natural landscape on a par with any of the national parks of the USA.

If Mexico gets on top of its current problems with gangs, drugs and political corruption, I think Chihuahua could well become a much more popular tourist destination for extranjeros than it currently is. Fortununately, I got here before the coach-loads of noisy Gringos start to arrive.