Ten years ago, while travelling around California, I hopped on the trolley from San Diego to Tijuana and spent half a day in the border town. Since then, I have been wanting to return to see much more of Mexico. It is impossible to 'do' Mexico in a two-week holiday and it was really difficult to narrow down my itinerary when so many places sounded fascinating but I still managed to see a lot of the country.

When I was researching my trip to Mexico, I was pleased to find that Mexico City had plenty of the third-wave specialty coffee coffee bars I love so much. Mexico is a favourite coffee-bean region of mine — much of it is grown in Oaxaca and Guerrero, closer to the coast, but there are a lot of great varieties in DF (when I visited Cuba in 2005, much of the best coffee was exported, leaving only poorly-quality beans for the Cubans). 

If you're in Oaxaca for a few days and love the city's food, I would definitely recommend that you take one of the cooking courses offered by many of the restaurants in the town. I booked a four-and-a-half hour class with Oscar Carrizosa of Casa Crespo, which cost US$65 and which was great fun.

One of the main reasons I wanted to come to Oaxaca was because of its rich culinary heritage; they have at least seven varieties of mole — a rich, dark, smoky sauce — alone, and whether you choose a casual comedor in one of the markets or one of the fine-dining restaurants in town, it's hard to have a bad meal. Here are some of the foods and drinks that I tried.

After a long but often scenic bus journey from DF, I arrived in Oaxaca on Wednesday night, just as the heavens opened. I decided to walk to my hotel, despite the rain, as I thought it would help me to get my bearings more quickly.