i was living in la la land, west hollywood with some distant relations. they set me up with a girl who was stunningly attractive, she was taking me out for dinner and wore a white dress. we sat next to some one called george peppard and  george segal who was wearing his pjs and smoking a cigar. i was dressed in tight black jeans and an andy warhol's bad t shirt i bought with me from london.

later she drove me around the city, showed me the sights. those days were good, i liked being a stranger in a big new city, i liked america but then something weird happened.

the family i stayed with lived in a residential area and often the kids would play on the streets outside. because kidnapping of children was so common i would be asked to sit outside on the wall and keep an eye on the local kids. adults would take turns to do this, and although i was not really an adult i found it quite disturbing that this could be the norm.

later as i considered my plans i decided i would travel down to south america via mexico city. 

when i told my american friends my plan they all said, 'no, don't go, it's far to dangerous.'

it was a chorus of responses, the same mantra and the more i heard it the more my resolve to go. mexico for some reason was the badlands but i figured it couldn't be any worse than a society where children are kidnapped off the streets in front of their own homes on a regular basis.

i heard lecture after lecture on the dangers of travelling alone into mexico, it was endless and up until i purchased my ticket and clambered aboard the bus i could hear their voices. i guess being 18 and somewhat a contrarian i found myself heading south. 

a mistake had been made, the bus i had booked was not the normal bus that delivers you straight to mexico city, it was not the american bus it was the mexican bus. jammed packed with farmers, workers and old women the journey took three days and because we had left during a long weekend and public holidays my travellers cheques could not be cashed. i was stone cold broke and trapped between a very large woman who spoke no english and carried a chicken and a goat on an overcrowded bus filled with mexican workers who i gathered were returning to mexico after working in the usa illegally. 

the bus left tijuana and spluttered its way along the high way until it turned off at a dirt track and i found myself in the middle of nowhere. outside small shanty towns passed me by, poor brown faced children stared at the bus, some ran along side it, occasionally when we stopped at some random spot to take on a passenger children would stand outside offering bracelets and trinkets to buy, some had slices of fruit and coke cans but i was now equally as poor as my fellow passengers. 

about three hours south we went through what is the real border into mexico, most think tijuana is the border but it's not really. the official checkpoint i endured was a small shack which we all had to disembark and then attend an inspection. it was in reality the place where the returning mexican workers pay the border police cash so they can return into mexico and visit their families. i was asked a few questions, they couldn't quite understand why i would be on this bus and not the express. my naivety and english accent amused them and i guess they found me somewhat of a novelty, they laughed and muttered in spanish, passed around my passport and then let me back on the bus.

fortunately i had a book, john fowles 'the magus' which i stuck my head into hoping the time would pass.

around about the second day the passengers all started to take an interest in me, where was i from, why was i here, where was i going. i spoke through an english speaking man who translated for me to the amused crowd. when they realised i was from england they all seemed very impressed and the women all started to offer me food, boiled eggs, bits of fruit and some milk, someone poured nuts into my hand from a huge bag of mixed nuts they carried. to be honest i was somewhat overwhelmed by everyones generosity. 

eventually i made it to mexico city, an amazingly artistic and beautiful city. i stayed right in the centre and travelled around the underground train system exploring the place but my fave spot was the art gallery, the best i have ever seem, it was magnificent. these people took art seriously.

in the centre i was in awe of the wonderful architecture of zocalo built upon the aztec city of tenochtitlan. i didn't know it at the time but this was the largest square in the world and as i stood there i could hear it's history whispering to me. but what i did not hear was the future.

mexico, i found, my mexico was brilliant, friendly people, poor and generous, over hospitable and filled with a rich culture and tradition. it was clean and safe and not what it was about to become at all. i never saw anything to indicate in a few years mexico would shift gears and turn into a kind of hellish inferno of drug cartels and terrible corruption and crime. 

i got as far south as mexico city on my travels and then had to return back to the usa as i needed to get back to the uk. another crazy adventure for another time. but mexico stayed with me, i brought something off it back deep inside me. and when i read about the el narco culture that exists it feels so sad that such a rich vibrant country and people could decent into this type of exploitative evil all because the american middle classes like a little white powder up their noses. 

imagine if drugs were legal, mexico would be a free country again.