Cowboys and indians

I´m writing this in the town of Merida, the main centre of the Yucatan peninsular, another old colonial place similar to Valladolid, but bigger and with more traffic.

It was also a major centre during Mayan times. When the Conquistadors arrived the buildings they saw reminded them of the Roman remnants in the Spanish town of Merida, so that´s the name it got stuck with. I´ve not seen any evidence of it yet, but apparently many of the old townhouses and churches here were built with stone from the demolished temples and pyramids.

I´ve not had a good look round yet, but it´s a very pretty sort of place with leafy squares full of the noisiest birds I´ve ever heard in a town. Their evensong easily trumped the din of the afternoon traffic and the noise of the policemen´s whistles, who direct the cars even though there are traffic lights on every corner.

I´m staying in a little hotel recommended by Ian, who was here last year. It´s owned by a Mexican artist and all its winding corridors and collonaded courtyards are stuffed to bursting point with art and antiquities. It´s a surreal place, I´m sure I´ll have more to say when it´s sunk in a bit.

After filing my last report in Valladolid yesterday I went for a beer at the bar round the corner only find that I was the only person there. I asked the waiter why it was so quiet. "Ah," he said. "Today is the town fair. Everyone is there." Although it meant losing his sole customer, he told me how to find it.

The first thing I saw on arriving were ranks of temporary cattle sheds full of the biggest beasts I have ever stood eye-to-eye with. I´m not sure what breeds they were, but they had gigantic humps of fat on their backs, like camels.

Around the livestock were stalls selling everything you could need for life on the ranch: machetes, chicken feeders, branding irons, saddles, cooking pots, rope and milking machines. There were also stalls for the wives and kids selling sweets, toys, shoes, clothes, jewellery, paintings and rugs. Anyone who has been to an English agricultural show like Moreton-in-Marsh or The Three Counties would get the picture.

The main difference is that these weren´t farmers as we know them, but rootin-tootin cowboys come in from the sticks for their annual get-together. They were the real thing - with cowboy hats and cowboy boots and thumbs in the pockets of their cowboy jeans. Bow-legged and weather-beaten, they could have just stepped out of the Cripple Creek Bar Room.

Most of them were camped out with their cattle, their hammocks tied to the feed troughs and wedged precariously between the giant animals.

Now these fellas needed some entertainment, so what else would be on the main arena stage than - yes, you´ve guessed it - a transvestite show.

Three fat Mayan drag queens shaking their bra tassles and grass skirts were whipping the whooping crowd into an absolute frenzy. The cowboys were loving it, and the competition to get up on the stage was intense. Once there they would be humiliated in front of their cheering friends by the compere, made to jive dance with one of the transvestites and then "accidently" pulled down onto the floor where simulated humping would take place.

They couldn´t get enough of it. When the drag queens had finished their act (I think they were called Las Muchasas) an old style comedian came on in a loudly-striped suit and bright yellow banana-shaped boots and started telling dirty jokes. The sort of thing you´d expect cowboys to like. But oh no. They weren´t having any of it - the mood turned sour, tables were banged, beer cans started landing near the stage and the funnyman (who bore an uncanny resemblance to thingy off the Royle Family) huffed muttering off the stage.

After a few tense moments a compromise was found in the prodigious shape of a plump blonde woman in a skin-tight red leather cat suit who belted out a medley of Mexican pop, which seemed to please the cowboys, who started to dance with each other.

Worried that they might break out with the lassoes and rope me in I wandered off to a food stand for a tray of chips, with cut-up bits of sausage, which I´d noticed everybody else seemed to be eating. Now, I´m uncommonly fond of tomato sauce, and in my view chips are nothing more than a vehicle for transporting ketchup from plate to mouth (damp cloth also works, but it´s not very civilised). But I have never seen such a chip-to-sauce ratio as that doled out by the bloke at the counter. I couldn´t even see the chips. Just as I was marvelling at this wonder of the culinary arts he got out the chilli sauce, and sank the chips even further. But more was to come in the form of double cream dolloped out in a thick layer over the whole. It was quite remarkable. Just finding a chip was like raising the Titanic. Jolly nice though, if you like that sort of thing.

It´s just coming up to nine in the evening here, so I´m off for a beer. I´ll have to try and be sensible because tomorrow I´m up early to do tour of four or five nearby Mayan sites.