Hotel minibuses wait for new arrivals and women hold up notices of “Rooms”. The hordes on shore wait impatiently until the last car is off and then move in a tidal wave up the ramp. This area is besieged by American film units which like to take advantage of the constantly clear, high altitude light and desert scenery – not to mention cheap Mexican labour. There is even a permanent film set at Tepehuanes, some 10 miles to the west.GETTING THE HELL OUT OF THERENot that difficult really as you’ve landed on, or at least very near, a motorway – Highway 45 to be precise.

There is an international airport in Monterrey, near the Mexican/ American border some 300 miles north.. TINY ISLANDS in blue seas with cheap little ferries bobbing around between them: yes, the Cyclades really are that easy to negotiate. Mind you, it wasn’t as easy to get away from the Greek woman beside me who was staring gloomily into her sick-bag. Nor to get past the dozens of backpackers lying full-length in the gangway, unaware of the feet so close to stepping on their upturned sleeping faces.

Temperatures currently average between 22C (74F) and 33C.REASONS FOR HANGING AROUNDTo star in a Spaghetti Western. This week’s random co-ordinates chosen by the computer are:

25 18′ N 104 27′ W
FIRST REACTION”Meep! Meep!” There goes Wile E Coyote on his eternal quest for the pesky Road Runner …COUNTRY AND REGIONYou are in north eastern Mexico, some 300 miles south of the American border.NATURE OF TERRAINWith the Sierra Madre on the western horizon, this area is a combination of desert and mountain.NEAREST SETTLEMENTRodeo, a farming town (wheat, corn, cotton) on the Nazas River, less than 25 miles south.POSSIBLE HAZARDSThere is a genus of white Scorpion, unique to this area, which has a sting that is frequently fatal.USEFUL LANGUAGEMost people will speak English, and Mexican Spanish is generally easier to understand than the European variety – with slower pronunciation and no lisp.TAKE ME TO YOUR LEADERPossibly a contender for the leader with the longest name, President Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Len.LIKELY WEATHER CONDITIONSThere is little rainfall in this area, except in the higher mountains where frost is a threat to farming. In the small town of Kamariotissa, for example, the taxi drivers are “curt, even surly” while in Paros a “very thin old woman .. turned on us a disturbingly evil eye”. Was it that bad?The book is good on historical anecdotes, and it is not without atmosphere, though I suspect that we do not need 400 pages of it.Rating: 4/10The Paris of Joyce and Beckett (London Irish Literary Travel) by Brian O’Shea and Sean Donlon. Five itineraries are detailed, each of which begins with a little scene- setting.”It is summer 1920,” begins the first walk, “and Joyce, after a hard afternoon’s work at the Bibliotheque Nationale, is enjoying a leisurely journey back to his flat…” We then get instructions of how to follow his route, passing Notre Dame where Joyce “often attended vespers”, stopping off at his favourite cafes.Take this with you on your next Paris trip.Rating: 7/10. Available by post for pounds 2 from London Irish Literary Travel, 29-41 North Road, London N7 9DPStrictly for the specialist, this is a pamphlet (30 pages long) written in homage to two Irish masters. But while obviously lacking the practical detail of a Rough Guide, it does not match the cultural information of a Blue Guide.It is really rather a slow, undemanding read, with comments about cafes following seamlessly from passages about church interiors.

There are few concessions for the younger traveller.”The trouble is that Mykonos,” declares the author, “is now all too accessible … the town has become a well-organised machine for absorbing tourists’ money.” Which is presumably an old-fashioned way of saying that Mykonos is, in fact, the most popular of all the Greek islands.Quite a few of the author’s more inconsequential observations seem to have survived the editor’s knife. Maps, too, are somewhat thin on the ground, considering the large number of islands under discussion. She covered 6,000 miles of cycling through the nine new provinces of South Africa, visiting both impoverished villages – of whites as well as blacks – and the luxurious homes of the very rich.The book is written in diary form and rambles somewhat. It also has a much harder, more investigative edge than your average travel book. But then the special situation of South Africa seems to ask for it.Rating: 7/10The Companion Guide To The Greek Islands (Companion Guides, pounds 16.95) by Ernie BradfordThis belongs to an older school of guide book, with large quantities of text and not a single telephone number or price anywhere in sight. South From The Limpopo (Flamingo, pounds 7.99) by Dervla Murphy

The great thing about Dervla Murphy’s travel books is that you know that her own decision – as a sexagenarian – to cross the country on a bicycle is not the main story.