Ok, pour yourself a nice drink and get comfy, this is a long one…. but a good one!

I’ve been in Mexico for about a month and I’m on a night bus from Mexico City heading south towards the Guatemalan border and have decided to make a small, dusty town on the way there a convenient place to jump off and relax for a day or so, the name of which I can’t really mention for reasons that will become apparent a bit later on.

By my calculations I should be arriving there around 10am the next morning. But probably due to four weeks Tequila abuse it turns out my calculations are totally wrong and half asleep I fall off the bus in the pitch black at 5am. Not exactly the best time of day to turn up looking for accommodation, but after knocking on two or three doors I eventually find a cheapy place I can throw my bag down and get some shut-eye for a few hours.

The town itself, in the state of Chiapas, isn’t exactly much to look at, but according to my book there’s a nice canyon nearby that I’m quite interested in seeing while I’m here, so I’ll probably end up staying here a couple of nights. That’s the plan anyway.

Having had a little nap I start walking towards the local bus station, reading my travel book as I bumble along the pavement. Just as I flip my book around trying to work out where the bus to the canyon leaves on the map, a motorbike pulls up beside me and a friendly voice says, ‘Do you need any help?’, in seemingly perfect English. He introduces himself as Tony and although his intentions seem good I’m a bit wary of strangers at the moment having just had a bad experience in Mexico City a few days earlier, where someone on the street with similar supposed good intentions ended up being a real pain in the arse, who I couldn’t get rid of and he followed me everywhere. It all got a bit scary in the end. But anyway, I explain to Tony I want to get the bus that goes to the canyon and he informs me, ‘You’re in the wrong place, I’ll take you there. Hop on’, so throwing caution to the wind I’m all of a sudden on a complete stranger’s motorcycle flying down the street like a rocket. With no helmet. So much for being wary.

A few minutes later he drops me off at the side of the road that to me doesn’t exactly look like a bus stop, but he tells me it should be here in the next few minutes and not to worry. He then grabs my Lonely Planet book, pulls out a pen and writes down his name and telephone number, saying, ‘Give me a call if you’re bored tonight, we can go out with my friend Alex if you like’. And with that he bolted off down the street on his bike …. like a lunatic.

For a few minutes I did wonder if he had played a joke on me as there were no bus stop signs or anything, but true to his word about ten minutes later the bus turned up and with my terrible grasp of Spanish managed to convey to the driver that I wanted to be dropped off at the canyon.

The canyon was awesome actually. Small fibreglass speed boats took us up these very narrow gorges with sheer rock faces all around. There were rare exotic birds flying above and even crocs in the river. After a few hours there I hopped back on the bus and headed back to town.

It was about 6pm and as I sat there in my crappy little room with a tiny box tv that played only Spanish speaking tv channels I toyed with the idea of whether or not I should call Tony. Faced with the prospect of a boring night in and in the spirit of “say YES to everything” I gave him a call. And here would start probably the craziest week of my life ……

Half an hour or so later Tony arrived with his friend Alex, who although couldn’t speak anywhere near as good English as Tony, seemed like a pretty nice guy too. Tony explains he’s just had some photos developed of them playing with their new toy that they’d just acquired recently; a machine gun! They’d taken the gun out into the desert and been playing around shooting at stuff all afternoon and taken some photos to show friends.

Still not having quite digested what they were showing me, Tony explains that we are about to go to Alex’s parents house who, now aware of my existence, have invited me to their house for a meal with the whole family.

If there’s one thing I have learned during my few weeks in Mexico already, it’s that the Mexican expression of Mi Casa Su Casa (my house is your house) is more than just something people say here. This was not the first time after having barely met a Mexican stranger for the first time that they would introduce me to the whole family and invite me into their home. I love this about Mexicans. In my experience Mexicans could be the friendliest nation of any I’ve been to around the world. And I’ve been to a lot.

After meeting Alex’s parents we all ate and talked round a big family table, Tony translating for everyone. It was nice. Over the next hour or so I get to know a good bit more about Tony, Alex and his family and they had make me feel very welcome in their family. It turns out Tony is son to an ex ambassador of some sort and Alex’s family seem to be the fairly well-to-do owners of a restaurant empire in the area, specialising in chicken mostly. After that the boys and I say farewell to the parents and head into town.

We drop into a couple of bars on the main strip in town then head to a nightclub. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many beautiful women in such a confined space before, it was incredible. It seemed like there were Salma Hayeks in every direction I looked. Every single person in there had dark brown hair and as we walked though the crowd with my sun-bleached blonde hair, blue eyes and standing about a foot taller than every other male in there, I felt a bit like Dolph Lundgren.

By now the beers are flowing and the shots are being fired down at an alarming rate. Before I set off on this backpacking trip about 3 months earlier I wasn’t exactly a big fan of tequila, having puked on it more than any other drink, but I think I was beginning to build up a fairly good tolerance to it now. Well, I think I’m building a pretty good tolerance to booze in general actually. I’d guess of the 3 months I’ve been travelling so far I’ve been drunk pretty much every night apart from maybe 6 or 7 nights. Bit scary really, but you’re only young once hey?! And I’ve got a brother in case I ever need a kidney anyway…..

During the evening Tony and Alex, who seem to know absolutely everyone in this place, especially the girls, are introducing me to everyone they bump into. It’s starting to get late and we’re all a bit worse for ware, especially Tony. In fact it looks like he’s one of those people that generally isn’t very good friends with alcohol really and his whole demeaner is starting to become quite aggressive. At some point he insists I come and meet another female friend of his. By this time I’d kind of had enough of being shown around like a show-pony and told him I didn’t want to. He then told me I had to come with him, but I told him ‘no’ again. He now has a big grumpy face on him and almost looks like he’s foaming at the mouth. He grabs my arm to pull me in the direction of this girl he wants me to meet and I snap it back from him. He stands there physically shaking then tells me he’s going to hit me. I lean towards him, stick my chin out, point to it and say, ‘Go on then!’ Still trembling he replies, ‘Naaaa I’m not going to hit you. I know where you live. You know I have a gun. I’m going to kill you tonight’. He was right, he knows where I live and he has a gun. A fucking machine gun. I didn’t think this through. What was I thinking? For all I know this little shaking man standing in front of me could be the most dangerous Mexican bandit in the country. Not really knowing what to do next at this point Alex returns from somewhere and in his poor English asks if I’m ok, while Tony stands at the side with a big sulky face. I tell Alex that Tony has just threatened to kill me to which he says, ‘Don’t listen to him, he asshole’, then proceeds to give Tony a right royal dressing down in his own language, to the point where Tony almost looks like a little naughty boy being told off by his Dad. At that exact moment it becomes apparent that of these two buddies Alex is the boss, the alpha male, and Tony his subordinate. Having felt the wrath of Alex, Tony still at every opportunity for the next half hour looks over at me, points an imaginary gun in my direction and whispers ‘bang bang’ under his breath with a somewhat menacing smile on his face. Alex catches him doing this one time, shouts at him again and says to me, ‘let’s go, we take asshole home’. Yep, I’m all for that.

Outside the club it becomes apparent that we’re not getting into a taxi to take pissed-up Tony home, noooo, we’re getting into Alex’s car. He’s not exactly stone cold sober himself, but unlike Tony he’s at least not threatening to kill anyone at the moment, but he really shouldn’t be driving. I would learn that it’s not that unusual at all to drink and drive in this part of the world. Thankfully, if that’s the right word, I’m drunk enough myself to not really care that I’m getting into a car with a pissed-up driver, so we slump into the car and drive off, with Alex still giving Tony a mouthful in the back seat as he sits there like a little naughty schoolboy. We eventually pull up outside Tony’s house who proceeds to slowly climb/fall out of the car, giving me evil looks the whole time. He assures me he’ll be seeing me very shortly and as we pull off he points his imaginary gun at me one last time and mouths ‘bang’.

Bit of a disappointing end to the night I thought, but Alex had other plans. He apologises for ‘asshole Tony’s behaviour and suddenly declares ‘NOW we party!’ and with that we zig-zag to the nearest strip club! To be honest I could have done with going home myself, neither of us really needed anymore booze and Tony had somewhat put a bit of a dampener on the evening. But Alex was just getting going. It’s a bit hazy the next hour or so, but at some point not a million miles from sunrise Alex drives me home and I collapse on the bed fully clothed.

BANG BANG BANG ……. in what seems only a few minutes later there’s a loud banging on the door with someone shouting my name. It scared the shit out of me. In that exact moment I’m not sure where I am or what time it is or anything. The banging and shouting at the door continue and suddenly memories of the previous night all come flooding back. Tony had got pissed off with me and threatened to kill me and now he’s at my bedroom door as promised, banging with all his might and shouting. Still drunk, I think to myself, well, if he’s got a machine gun on him and he really wants to kill me so much then a little wooden door isn’t going to stop him, so accepting the inevitability of the situation I calmly walk to the door, turn the key and open up. Tony brushes straight past me and walks into the room. I’m quick to notice the lack of any gun shaped object about him as he spins round and with a friendly smile says, ‘Come on, get changed, we’re meeting for breakfast in half an hour’. I’m obviously quite relieved to see that he no longer wants to kill me, but say anyway, ‘Errrr you said you were going to kill me last night’, which he brushes off instantly with, ‘Yeah sorry about that, anyway, go have a shower and I’ll pick you up in half an hour’ and with that leaves as quickly as he arrived, leaving me to fall back onto the bed to try and process everything that has happened for the last 24 hours.

To be fair I could have done without getting up for breakfast that morning, having had about 4 hours kip at most, but after a bite to eat I started to feel a bit better. After that the lads tell me they know a better place for me to stay than where I was so I packed up my stuff and they help me move.

Seemingly having no say in the rest of the day ahead of me, Tony tells me ‘Ok now you have to come and meet Alex’s cousin’. When I ask why they both seem to just stare at each other and start smiling. Some sort of private joke I assume, but with nothing else particularly planned that day I agree and we jump in Alex’s car and head to his house where his cousin is now waiting. I had for some reason naturally assumed that they were referring to a male when they talked about a cousin, but there on the sofa sat one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen. They present to me cousin Maria, not just any old pretty Mexican beauty, but the current Miss Chiapas, and soon to be entering Miss Mexico. She was lovely. I had some photos taken with her, just in case she ever becomes Miss World, and we arrange to meet her again later that day.

She couldn’t speak much English, but we all went out for a meal at night and as usual poor old Tony spent the evening translating for everyone. Not sure why I called him ‘poor old Tony’ there, bearing in mind the twat threatened to kill me not 24 hours earlier. Anyway, Maria was intrigued about my little island and the fact I used to travel the world playing table tennis. I explained that I had been lucky enough to play against some of the world’s very best players including a Chinese player called Chen Xinhua who at his height was ranked no. 4 in the world. She tells me about her modelling business in town and that she goes to the local university with Alex’s younger brother. After a pleasant evening we drop Maria back at her house and I thank the boys for a nice day and tell them I better get back to the hotel as I will be leaving for the Guatemala border first thing in the morning. Without any further ado they both tell me that that’s simply not going to happen and inform me we’re going out on the piss again, right now. And who am I to argue with two lads with a machine gun and a cousin that might be in Miss World soon?

So we go out, hit a load of new bars, get introduced to every female they know and I continue to walk around like Dolph Lundgren. Thankfully Tony doesn’t turn into a psycho and by the end of the night, which once again ends in the wee small hours, we end up in another late night strip bar. This time its Tony driving shitfaced and before getting to my place we drop Alex off at a very attractive girl’s house. As we drive home Tony tells me Alex has lots of girls like this around town he can call on anytime and he does this all the time. Absolutely battered on tequila for a second night in a row, and relieved no semi-automatic weapons were involved, I crash on my bed and look forward to a nice long kip.

BANG BANG BANG ….. oh for fucks sake, not again! It’s Tony at the door. Doesn’t that guy ever sleep?! With one eye still half closed I shuffle my way to the door in auto-pilot and let him in. Like he wasn’t even out the night before he says fresh as a daisy, ‘Come on get ready, you’re playing table tennis this morning, get up’. Surprised and confused by his comment I respond with, ‘WHAT?!’. He then goes on to explain that, following on from what we had been talking about the night before with Maria, Alex had arranged with his younger brother’s university that I could do a demonstration that morning with any and all students that wanted to attend and play against me. Finding it difficult to believe what my ears were hearing and still half drunk and tired all I came out with was, ‘But I haven’t got my bat with me’. Of all responses I could have come out with that was a strange one. In hindsight a straight, ‘Fuck off I’m knackered’ would have been a more natural one. Tony anyway comes straight back with, ‘Don’t worry we’ll get you a bat on the way there. Come on, you can’t let Alex’s little brother down now, the whole school is waiting for you’. Amazed they could do this without even asking me I try to explain a few times that I’m both hungover, tired and never play without my own bat, but this seems to fall on deaf ears and with the nagging memory of a machine gun at the back of my head I very reluctantly give in and start to pull myself together in what was no doubt going to be a very loooong day.

Having bought a cheap, useless bat in town on the way there we arrive at the university and the first thing I see on the wall is a big poster saying something to the effect of ‘Main hall today – Demonstration by World No.4 table tennis player’ and my name. My eyes widen, my jaw drops, I turn to Tony and Alex and shout, ‘World no. 4?!?!? I told you I had once played against the world no. 4 ….. not that I was the world no. 4!!!’ which they brush off with, ‘oh they won’t know that’. If I could have asked Scotty to beam me up at that exact moment I’d have been gone in a flash. Tired and hungover, using a bat you’d find in a kindergarten, I was going to have to play student after student for two hours in front of the rest of the school and various teachers and dignitaries. I tell you, I wish I had that fucking machine gun at that moment, I’d have gunned the bastards down and scarpered.

But …. they say when you get dealt lemons, make lemonade. For the next two hours, stinking of booze, I beat every student I play against and even the lovely Maria has come down to watch too with her mum. When it was all done the whole family seemed to be so grateful that I had made an effort, particularly Alex’s student brother who all of this would have reflected on very favourably at the university. After the last match I was thanked by the headmaster and presented with a t-shirt and a small gift followed by a round of applause from the whole hall. A terrible experience had been turned into quite a day, and the new family I had been accepted into now seemed to love me for what I had done for them.

In the evening my two nutty friends made it clear we were going out on the lash again, so it looks like my journey to the Guatemalan border will be delayed yet another day. I get changed and we head out in Alex’s car and find a place to eat in town. We talk quite a lot about Maria who they tell me is sort of single, but that there is a much older married guy hanging around her they both dislike greatly. A total coincidence, but as we are leaving we bump into her with this guy they don’t like, we say a quick hello and then get in the car. As I sit in the back seat Alex and Tony are clearly having some sort of serious discussion, I’m guessing about Maria, which seems to get more and more heated as they continue. As we start to drive Tony turns around and explains that Alex is very protective of his cousin so they had just decided to teach this guy who is trying to date her a lesson, and have a ‘bit of fun’ at the same time. He tells me to just sit tight and watch.

We drive around the corner, wait no longer than about sixty seconds then drive back to where we had just bumped into Maria and her guy who are now just pulling out in his car. We suddenly swerve onto the wrong side of the road and head straight towards him head-on, making him jam his brakes on and we screech to a halt just inches from his bumper. Tony and Alex jump out of the car, slamming the doors behind them and run over to this guy’s car, shouting and hitting the bonnet and windows as they hurl abuse at him like maniacs. Everyone around there just stand and watch as other cars pull up and are forced to stop with our two cars blocking the whole road. Alex is right up in this guys face on the driver’s side of the car, in a total rage, screaming. He has a beer bottle in his hands which he is waving around frenetically and then suddenly smashes it on the windscreen with all his might. I can’t understand a word they are saying and I can only imagine he was making it very clear to stay away from his cousin or face the consequences. The poor guy looked understandably scared stiff as the two of them continue their attack. With one final punch to this guy’s car they jump back in our car, smoke the tyres reversing, do a handbrake turn and smoke the tires again as we speed off down the road, with the two of them howling with excitement and laughter and high-fiving each other. It was all pretty intense, but there was more craziness to follow.

Looking back I think I re-acted quite calmly at the time, as if this sort of stuff happens all the time in my life. I asked them if they ever get in trouble for stunts like this, and Tony explains, ‘We can’t get in trouble here, we’re untouchable, the police can’t do anything’. I chuckle to myself in the back seat, which Tony sees and says, ‘What, you don’t believe me? Alex stop the car, I want to show you something’. We pull over, get out of the car and he points to the front of the car and says, ‘Look, no plate. The police know they can’t touch us, we are rich and powerful, that’s why we don’t have a plate’. We get back in the car and I take what he has said as just a bit of bravado, which he clearly picks up on again and starts talking to Alex in Spanish, who is driving. As we continue down the main strip in town we see a police car sitting on the side of the road with two policemen inside. Tony turns round, giggles and says, ‘watch this’ ……. Alex slams the anchors on with the car screeching to a halt right in the middle of the road, next to where the police car is. With both windows down they start screaming like banshees, laughing and taunting the policemen as they burn out the tyres, spinning round and round in circles, with smoke and the stench of rubber filling the air. I can see the policemen starring at the two of them and looking down at the registration plate, which I now know doesn’t exist. The traffic has come to a halt on both sides of the road while these two nutters have their fun, but the policemen do absolutely nothing about it. Still laughing and shouting we straighten up and steam off down the road at warp speed. Alex is punching the steering wheel with excitement as Tony turns to me, smiles and says, ‘You believe me now hey? Untouchable!’

The night is still young and we spend the night as usual trawling the bars, meeting their friends and, as seems to be tradition, ending up in a strip bar. On the way home we drop Alex off at yet another stunning young girl’s house and I crash at my place, a bit worse for wear.

The next morning I am invited for breakfast with Alex’s family, Maria and her mother. We discuss what happened the night before and incredibly they all agree that what Alex and Tony did was right. With Tony translating for everyone as normal, they all decide that I would be a much better boyfriend for Maria and that I should stay here instead of continue travelling south. Brushing aside for a moment the shock and joy that they appear to be pairing me up with this beautiful Mexican model without doing anything myself, I tell them that I am on a planned journey and even if I did stay what would I do for work; I can barely speak more than about 20 words in Spanish. Alex’s father chirps up, ‘You could run a guest house’. With that they all seem to express what a great idea that is. Confused as to what they mean Alex grabs his car keys and says, ‘Lets go, I’ve got something to show you’.

A few minutes outside of town, in a quiet little area, we pull into a little dust track that leads down to a nice house surrounded by palm trees and a swimming pool in front.

We walk inside and the place is basically empty. Alex explains his father owns it, but it’s been empty for years. It’s become quite clear that Alex’s family must be pretty rich. He’d mentioned earlier that they own a few ranches in the area and their chicken restaurant empire seems to be doing very well too. And now it seems they’re rich enough to have empty properties lying around the place also. We sit down at the kitchen table, pretty much the only furniture in the whole house. Tony then explains, in total seriousness, that Alex’s family would like me to move into this place and run it as a hotel or backpacker hostel. It takes a few seconds to sink in what they’re saying. In the space of an hour or so they have basically handed me on a plate a Mexican model, a house and a business if I stay. This was all starting to get a bit surreal, but quite exciting too. In my private life my real father has had very little to do with me or my growing up, but he once sent me a letter when I was about 18 and in amongst all the bullshit about why he’s never been around he said, ‘grab every opportunity in life by the throat’, which truly is a wonderful piece of advice to anyone. You never know when opportunities will come at you in life, but when they do present themselves you must absolutely jump on them, ’cause they may never come around again. What was happening to me here was almost too much to believe, but it was happening. I had a lot to think about. The lads drop me back at my hotel for a bit of a rest, but my mind is all over the place. And if I thought the last few days weren’t crazy enough then it was about to go into overdrive.

The night before I remember hearing a plane overhead in the middle of the night. I was tired and no doubt drunk, but I do remember thinking that was unusual to hear a light aircraft at low altitude in the middle of the night. I didn’t think that much about it at the time, but this was all about to be explained. Alex and Tony arrive at my house late afternoon all excited with a big padded envelope in their hands and start to open it in front of me. Inside are two Mexican passports which they open and point out that they have no ID photos in, rather a little open window. Tony tells me with glee, ‘The false passports have arrived!’

Confused I ask him what he needs those for and this is where our relationship suddenly takes a whole new direction and feeling. Tony explains that although both himself and Alex come from wealthy families, they want to start making their own money. And there chosen way of doing this is drug smuggling! They have apparently set up a big $50,000 drug deal that will be going through soon and they need two fake passports in order to set up a bank account where the money will be deposited. I stare at the pair of them blankly and Tony asks if I believe him. For all the words I could use to describe these two guys, liars is not one of them, they have been true to their word about everything they have told me so far, so why should I not believe them now? He’s quite definitely sitting there with two pretty convincing fake passports in his hand for a start. He tells me that they were brought in by a small plane in the middle of the night last night that also had all sorts of other illegal contraband and the plan was that after landing the pilot would torch the plane to destroy all the evidence. I told them I had heard a plane during the night and Tony says it was probably that one that brought their stuff in. I’m still confused and desperately don’t want to believe these strange, but kind hearted guys are going to get involved in the drugs world. Why put yourself in that danger when you’re not stuck for money anyway? They assure me it won’t be dangerous at all and insist it will be easy money. With that we get in the car and a short while later stop outside a house in the suburbs of town. Alex gets out and talks with a very attractive girl and I assume it’s just another of his many concubines on tap, which it is, but this one he explains works in the bank they are going to use for the deal. She’ll be setting up the bank accounts and turning a blind eye to the false documents when it all goes through. I commend Alex on his fine taste in bent bank clerks, but plead with them both to not do this. They don’t need to do it, they could end up getting involved with the big boys, put their families in danger and who knows, end up dead maybe. But they are adamant that they need to set off on their own in life without their families help and that this is a good and easy way to do it. On the way back to town Alex pops into a shop and comes out with the local daily newspaper whose front page story was to the effect of, ‘Burned out aircraft found in field’!

At some point Alex gets a phone call from his brother’s university headmaster whom I had met yesterday, to say he’d like to meet up for a chat. So we go by his house and he thanks me for the demonstration the day before, clearly unaware that I was both dead against it and stank of tequila the whole time. He tells me he could potentially offer me a job at the university teaching table tennis if I did ever contemplate moving to Mexico. I thanked him for his kind offer and said I’d think about it.

I’m not a religious person, but I did start to look up to the skies and wonder what the hell was going on. I’ve got new friends, a model girlfriend I haven’t even had a date with yet, a house, a business and a coaching job that have all been given to me. And Alex has now just given me the keys to a motorcycle I can use around town whenever I want. Nagging at me on the other side of my head however I’ve got machine guns and drug smuggling.

In the evening the guys put all their cards on the table to try and make me stay in town, but, even if it is going against the principal of jumping on life’s opportunities, I’m pretty sure my destiny lies elsewhere and I tell the lads I just can’t do it. Maybe if they hadn’t been doing this drug deal then maybe I’d have thought about it a little harder, I don’t know. We drink a few quiet beers in a trendy little bar in town and they make one final demand on me. They tell me that in a few weeks time, if all goes well, they should be $50,000 richer and wherever I am on my journey they will pay for me to fly back to Mexico to join them in attending Miss Mexico, where cousin Maria will be representing the state of Chiapas with the whole family in tow. They say they’ll kit me out with a tuxedo and everything and we’d have a fantastic night. It was hard for me to say no to that so I agreed and actually got quite excited about it. Their only demand was that I call Alex’s father’s telephone number collect-call every Sunday at 7pm to let them know I was ok. And so we all shook hands and clinked our beer bottles together.

My departure from this town continues to be delayed time after time when every night they would pick me up on my supposed ‘last night out’ and we’d end up slaughtered in some strip bar and then finish the night dropping off Alex at one of his drop dead gorgeous lady friends, for which he’d always ask for my marks out of 10 if I saw them. But those extra days were quite nice actually as I got to know both Maria and the whole family quite well by the end of it. I felt like I’d really been accepted into their family with open arms and these two loveable rogues that acted like two rock stars in this town had introduced me to all their friends too. It was going to be hard to walk away from this lot for sure, but I would hopefully see them again in a few weeks when I return for Miss Mexico.

One day I told the lads that I really had to leave the next day. I was only supposed to be in this town two nights and I’d now been there for about a week. We all made a promise that tonight would be the last night and Alex told me to be ready for 6pm. I hoped the craziness was over but they both had one more trick left up their sleeves.

At 6pm sharp I hear a knock at the door and with a hop and a skip I open the door. Alex walks in and says in his broken English, ‘We come get you at 7, but look outside’. I follow Alex out the door and as we stand there a big taxi pulls up in front of us. The door slides open and one after another five beautiful girls in varying degrees of undress climb out and stand in a row looking at me smiling as if they know me. I suddenly recognise that they are five of Alex’s lady friends I have seen him with during the week. Not only that I actually think they’re the ones I gave the highest marks for!! He says, ‘Leaving present. Which one you want?’. Suddenly I was faced with a scenario you don’t exactly experience every day in life. In a world where I would normally fall for a girl with a nice smile and sunny disposition I just panicked and pointed at the one with the biggest tits….

I’d like to say that this is where the story finishes. On a high note. But I’m afraid it doesn’t. We have one big party on that last night and I beg them to take care of themselves, to reconsider their new business venture and to look after Maria for me. So that maybe in the not too distant future I can come back to this town and maybe pick up where I left off. But for now I have my own destiny to follow, I need to get to the Guatemalan border and then keep going south aaaaaall the way to the southern tip of South America. I promise I will keep my side of the deal and call them every Sunday no matter where I am to let them know I’m ok and then if all goes well maybe I’ll come back for Miss Mexico.

Next morning they take me to the bus station and wave me off. It actually felt quite emotional, I’d become quite attached to these two lunatics. The following evening I’m almost killed by a poisonous snake in my room at the Guatemalan border (that’s another story …), but a week later, as promised, I call them from Costa Rica and in a brief one minute phone call I tell them I’m ok and they tell me they’re ok, end of phone call. A week after that we have a similar call from Panama. A week after that I try to call from Ecuador, but I can’t get through. I then ask the operator to try for me and she says she can’t as there seems to be some sort of block on that number. Hoping it’s just some sort of technical issue I try again exactly a week later at 7pm from Peru, but the same thing. The operator tells me there is some sort of ‘federal block’ on the number and my heart drops. That sounded serious, federal block. I try one more time a week later, but still can’t get through. To this day I don’t know if they moved house, changed number or more likely the big drug deal was busted and Alex and Tony landed themselves and their families in a whole world of trouble. I don’t return for Miss Mexico, I never hear from the boys, Maria, or the families ever again. I have the addresses, phone numbers and real names of the people I talk about in this story in my little red address book, but to date, all these years later, I’m not sure if I want to know what really happened afterwards. I hope the telephone number that stopped working a few weeks later was just some technical problem with calling from South America. I’d like to think they all eventually got married, had children and lived happily ever after. I’m content to leave that week of craziness in my life as one wild roller-coaster of a ride. Those two guys lived their lives like princes in this dusty, little Mexican town and had everything in life they could possibly want. I hope they didn’t ruin all that.

As to what my destiny would have been like if I’d stayed or returned a few months later I’ll never know. All I do know is, at the time, I was convinced my true destiny lay elsewhere on my planned journey south to the southern tip of South America.

Two months later in Cuzco, Peru I would meet a girl I have now been together with for over twenty years.