nature

Mexico – 8th December 2025

Travel

Despite the melatonin tablets I was awake early, and (after dunking myself in suncream and mosquito spray) headed out for a run, didn’t have a route in mind, just thought I’d try and keep near the beach and see where I ended up.

Even at 8am it was crazy hot and humid, but a little breeze off the calm blue sea helped a bit. I nearly stepped on what I thought was a stingray, turns out it was a horseshoe crab. Apparently these scary looking creatures have been around for over 450 million years, that makes them older than the dinosaurs!

Keeping a close eye on where I was putting my feet I cracked on along the shoreline, ducking in through the mangrove forests when my way was blocked, studiously ignoring the naked bloke standing in the sea (thankfully quite far out). Two iguanas gave me a little heart attack when I disturbed their sunbathing around a corner, noisily scampering for safety. Lots of roads and paths were flooded, not sure if from rain or the super high tides (it’s a full moon), the whole island is pretty much at sea level, everything is built on stilts.

A pink flamingo just looked at me, completely not bothered by the sweaty white person jogging slowly past.

I was cooling down nicely in my air conditioned hotel room afterwards until there was a power cut, oh well, time for breakfast anywhere. Arnaud had a local spot in mind, obviously.

“What’s a homlet?”, for some reason I assume he knows everything because he can speak Spanish, I really have turned my brain off. “A very masculine egg dish”, fair enough.

I was tempted by the special cake, divorced eggs, and a side helping of champion eggs, but decided that I was just being silly, and went for huevos rancheros, a big cold jug of passion fruit juice and a black coffee. Delicious.

No bloody wind again, so we decamped to the Las Nubes hotel beach club, good internet, sun loungers, cold beers and a bit of shade. Could be worse.

It was 200 MXN for the sun loungers, and we had to spend at least 1,000 (about £40), confident that we’d easily get through that with some beers and snacks we settled down to get through some admin. As well as checking the wind forecast approximately every 5 seconds.

We were on our fourth beer when a cheeky looking racoon appeared in front of us, and set about helping himself to our neighbours lunch. No shame whatsoever, just sat up on his hind legs and started picking bits off the table. They gently shooed him away, so he went around the back and started to rummage through their bag. Proper beach entertainment!

Arnaud reminded me of a conversation we had with someone trying to sell us a kayak excursion yesterday.

“Three island tour? Mangrove kayak? Punta mosquito lunch trip?”

“No thanks, we’re here for kitesurfing, got any wind?”

“Kitesurfing? So expensive, you could have three of my tours for the price of one hour of that!”

“Naa, we’re ok, just need to wait for some wind”

“Waiting for wind, waiting for wind, you could spend your whole life waiting for wind, and then what? Where is your life? Nothing, just lying around waiting! You should go on a tour with me”

We’ve got the waiting process pretty well nailed I reckon, but we did start to think about booking something if the weather doesn’t sort itself out. In the meantime we went to find a different hire place, and see if they had any more local wind intel.

Johnny from the Holbox Kitesurfing school had windy.com and windguru.cz up on his monitor, the same pages we’d been glued to all afternoon, and we all went through everything together in great detail. “Thursday looks good at the moment, maybe tomorrow, possibly Wednesday too”, that’s the sort of upbeat information we wanted. He’s got plenty of kit as well, feeling bouyed by the good news it was time for an early supper, breakfast was a very long time ago.

Fish, ceviche and a grilled fillet, salad with rice, warm tortillas, squid with garlic, eye watering habanero sauce, couple of margaritas. Sitting at a counter watching people go by, this felt like a pretty dammed good way to round off the afternoon. Both feeling decidedly dozy now, so back to the hotel for a late siesta, maybe a nightcap on the rooftop bar later, although the huge black cloud slowly enveloping the island might call that off. Hope it brings some wind.

Japan – 18th October 2025

Travel

Flight was fine, just long. We didn’t sleep much, not really surprising I suppose, just a nap really. It landed early which was nice, not too long through immigration and then into the taxi that Trix had been dreading for hours…

I explained through the magic of hand gestures that she can get car sick, and he drove very smoothly and nicely. Phew! Lovely route (once out of the industrial part of Tokyo) along the sea and then a long winding road up through thick green forests to a small town near the top of a mountain.

Found the hotel, dropped our bags and freshened up then headed up the funicular railway to the top of the mountain (via a coffee shop for caffeine and eggs). Slow walk down the mountain through some super pretty mossy green gardens and a museum of pottery.  Stopped for a late lunch of (much larger than expected) rice and tempura, then thankfully our room was ready, early!

I got straight into our private onsen, super hot, deep, wide, with an amazing view over tree tops and mountains. You can hear water gushing below the hotel, which is sort of hanging off the side of a mountain. It’s really peaceful.

Early dinner at 5, lots of sashimi and wagyu, then Trix went off to her NYC call and I finished off supper only own.

Sadly the internet is a bit…crap, and she had to bail out of the call. Such a shame after all the preparations and organising, but sometimes life throws a spanner in the works and you just have to roll with it.

We chilled in the bar for a bit, then went for a leg stretch (without Billy, very odd!), had an ice cream, then chilled for a bit before both collapsing into deliciously comfortable beds, the first time we’d laid down since we got out of bed in London, which felt like a week ago.  Both asleep almost instantly.

Japan – 24th October 2025

Travel
Steps: 7, 017
Miles kayaked: 3.86
Hours on trains: 2.5

Decided I was allowed a day off running today and had a lovely lie in until 6:30, ok maybe 7. Packing was easy at least, we’ve only been getting out what we need for each hotel, although we do seem to have accumulated enough extra stuff to warrant buying another suitcase before we head home.

Healthy breakfast, of course (you can ignore the fried chicken part, it was completely offset by a huge mound of salad and vegetables!), then we just needed to drag ourselves and our cases through rush hour Osaka to the mainline station in time for the 10:01 Shinkansen to Hiroshima.

This time we remembered to stock up on onigiri and water before we got on the train, it was only a 90 minute journey but gotta keep those energy levels up!

Actually the real reason was that we didn’t have much time after arriving to drop our bags and get ourselves down to near Miyajima island for the main activity of the day. Trix was grumbling about getting a taxi and thankfully we found the hotel really quickly and were back on a train platform with loads of time in our pockets.

Leaving the station at Maezora the exit gate flashed red and made a slightly unhappy sound when I scanned my IC card. I figured that it can’t be anything important or it wouldn’t have let me through, but of course as everyone and everything here is so polite it was telling me that I didn’t have enough money to complete my trip.

Ooops.  A young schoolboy caught Trixs attention, and with his courtesy (and google translate) he helped us charge up our cards at the machine, and re-scan them (to happy green bleeps).

“Is this a group activity?” Trix asks as we walk the short distance to Paddle Park, she wasn’t keen on the idea of sea kayaking at all, I’m not sure what answer will make her feel better.  “Um, yeah, I think so”, I actually had no idea.

It was just us and the guide, a super friendly and kind guy who owns the place. He got us all kitted up, we carried two canoes down to the sea and we were off, none of that health and safety nonsense.

The weather couldn’t have been better, bright blue cloudless sky, slight breeze, calm water. Trix was at the front of our two person canoe and set a strong rhythm, “Wow you’re fast” the guide calls over, I’ve got sweat in my eyes but just keep paddling, this can be my exercise for the day.

The O-Torii is huge, over 16 meters of wooden shrine rising up from where it sits on the seabed (it’s so heavy it’s not even buried in the seabed, can’t have been easy to balance 60 tons just right). No surprise that it’s a UNESCO world heritage site, and is as beautiful as it is impressive. 

We can see throngs of tourists on the shore, but it’s just us bobbing around out here, taking a few moments to rest our arms and admire the view.

“Do you want to go to the busy tourist beach with all the souvenir shops?” Kuboto-san calls, we wobble our heads and shrug, international sign language for “not really”.

“There is a local beach over there, it’s quiet and we can get a drink and some food”, that sounds much more like it. We beach the vessels and only slightly damp settle ourselves around a table set in a shady wood with views over the bay, small local deer wander around, thankfully they don’t seem to be the biting kind.

“Oh look Trix, I can get a beer and they do fried chicken, I think we earned a little snack?”, she grins at me and, well, we didn’t really have lunch, and supper is a long way off. Maybe it’ll come with a bit of green garnish.

The paddle back is easy, “downhill, we’ve got the tide with us”, sea bass jump nearby, sprats flicker through the surface as we weave through an oyster farm, the platforms made of bamboo.

“Oyster season started on the 21st, Trix do you like oysters?”, I can hear a noncommittal sort of noise in front of me and we all laugh, “Have them as a topping on okonomiyaki later!”. I’m looking forward to trying the local speciality (savoury pancakes) but not today, Friday is katsu curry day!

Kuboto-san opened his business in 1996, so he’s been doing this for nearly 30 years. Annoyingly he looked younger than me despite being 56! In the off season he surfs over on the other side, in the Japan Sea, or heads to Hokkaido to ski. He’s calm, gentle and seems genuinely content. Hiroshima has a large international community… just saying….

We just catch a local train back to town and finally actually check into our hotel. Our room is lovely, on a corner of the 16th floor, calm and quiet. We’re only here for 2 nights so there isn’t much point in unpacking much, so we have a brief chill and head downstairs to the hotel bar.

It’s definitely time for another beer, and Trix needs to catch up on some sketching, everyone’s happy.

Not hard to find a good spot for supper, it even comes with salad (sort of, just cabbage really, but it is green!).

Little wander around after eating and back to the room to wind down before bed (with ice cream, and beer, it’s only 7:30pm…).