FRIDAY 2 APRIL



Good Friday. I was picked up at Mexico City airport by a bloke called Edgar. He was holding a sign that said "Karlos Piklington". Edgar's cab was quite battered. He had a dog, but not a dog that I would have expected a man like Edgar to have. It was a Chihuahua called Jack. It was hyperactive. If it wasn't jumping all over me and trying to have it away with my arm, it was coughing up hairballs. The problem with Chihuahuas is they have bulbous eyes, so it looked like it was choking even when it wasn't.

Edgar put his stereo on and said he'd play me some traditional Mexican music. It sounded quite upbeat and reminded me of the music my mam used to have blaring out of the caravan in Wales. He told me the song was about drug dealers in Mexico – something about a car that is found in the middle of the road with the doors open and the passengers have had their heads cut off and blood is oozing out of the car. I don't know how the story ends, as his dog was coughing up hairballs again and I couldn't hear what Edgar was saying.

After a few miles Edgar pulled his car over and told me he wanted to show me Santa Muerte. In English this translates as "Saint Death". It was a glass box about the size of the small kiosks you get outside tube stations selling chocolate, crisps and fags. There were no crisps in this box, but there were fags, along with a skeleton dressed in robes surrounded by booze. The poorer people and criminals of Mexico who are not very religious but not quite atheists either worship Saint Death. I've never thought about it before, but I suppose bad people might need someone to pray to, too. As we looked at the skeleton, a car with tinted windows pulled over for a few seconds. The men in it bowed their heads before skidding off again.

We drove on to an Easter festival that Edgar said it would be worthwhile my having a look at. I saw people acting out some Bible story on a stage watched by hundreds of people. I heard choking, but it wasn't Edgar's dog this time. It was coming from a man who was being hanged. Mexico loves violence so much it could just be something to keep the crowd interested before the Jesus bit happens. Kids aged two and three were sat on their dads' shoulders so they could see the hanging acted out.

I wandered off around the market, where I found a woman selling dead crickets. Ricky used to buy them to give to his pet salamander, but it was locals who were knocking these ones back. I'm not sure how long a bag of crickets should last – I don't know the recommended daily allowance – but one old man whom I'd expect to see sucking on Werther's Originals couldn't get enough of them. They were cheap, so maybe it's the low cost that attracts people to them. Or should that be "locust"? Oh, never mind.

SATURDAY 3 APRIL



I haven't seen wrestling since the 1980s. I used to watch it with me dad on Saturdays – Big Daddy and Giant Haystacks and the rest. It was a good thing to watch as a kid as it was never that violent. It was just two sweaty, old, overweight men pushing and shoving each other until one wanted to stop to get something to eat. Mexican wrestling was different. Ricky was right. They do dress like superheroes.

I met Sandy, the woman who ran the wrestling arena. She took me through photos of the wrestlers she looked after. She had all shapes and sizes. Something for everyone: El Porky, a little chubby fella who looked like Russell Grant; midgets; big women and sexy women. Sandy took me to meet the wrestler I'd be training with. His name was Shocker. He was built like a brick shithouse. I asked if I could get a midget fighter, but Sandy said none of them was around today.

I explained to Shocker that he would have to be careful with me, as I did my back in when I was a kid by trying to kick my height and landing on my arse, my wrist is also weak from a crash I had, and I've got a trapped nerve in my leg. He didn't really seem to be listening, which was a worry. He gave me an outfit to wear. I looked a mess. I decided to name myself Shocking.

I did some weights and about 45 minutes in the ring with Shocker and two other fellas. I felt so sick. I'd eaten some marshmallows earlier – not the greatest pre-fitness food – so that combined with being thrown around was not a good idea.

Karl, aka 'Shocking'. Photograph: Rich Hardcastle

Shocker was a year older than me, but I felt a lot older. I had to stop, as I was exhausted and dizzy. I was trying to get out of the ring when one of the wrestlers grabbed me and sat on me while wrapping my legs around my neck. I felt helpless, like a deer slowly being eaten by an anaconda. The only memory I have was how the wrestler's balls that were thrust into my face left a saltiness on my lips. At first I assumed it was from the tacos, and then I realised I'd not eaten any that day.

I stayed and watched Shocker fight. He was with two other wrestlers: the Blue Panther and El Porky. They won. The crowd loved El Porky. It must annoy Shocker when he trains so hard and eats so well to then have to fight with a bloke whose main exercise is to the fridge and back.

Off to bed now because I'm knackered. The Mexican altitude makes everything tougher and more tiring. I reckon I could have beaten Shocker if I was on my own turf.

MONDAY 5 APRIL



We flew to Cancun today to get closer to Chichen Itza. On the way to the hotel we stopped off at a graveyard. I often have a walk round graveyards when Suzanne and me go away for the weekend. This one looked a lot different. It was really colourful. The graves were painted in blues, yellows and reds. They looked more like the beach huts you get in Kent. And the whole family seems to get buried together – some of these graves were bigger than the flat I used to live in. I like this. Andreas, who has been with us during filming, told me they have a thing in Mexico called the Day of the Dead. It's a celebration of death where everyone has a day off to remember friends or family, and in Mexico with all this violence I'm guessing there is a lot of remembering to do. I like the Day of the Dead idea. We have a day dedicated to eating pancakes, so why not have a day for the dead?

TUESDAY 6 APRIL



I met a man called Eugene today who took me to meet some charros. Charros are Mexican cowboys who do horse shows. I wasn't looking forward to it. I never played at being a cowboy even when I was younger. I didn't even wear jeans until I was about 17 as I didn't think they were comfy.

Eugene took me to a market before going to the ranch. He bought me lunch – rabbit in a spicy sauce. He had the rabbit's head. He said it was the best part, as you get the brain. I didn't bother fighting him for it.

Karl meets his lunch. Photograph: Rich Hardcastle

When we got to the ranch I met the main men, who were brothers. They wore the proper cowboy kit and showed me some of their skills, from lassoing to doing a skid on a horse.

I was given a horse called Espanner. It was so well trained it almost second-guessed what I wanted it to do. Eugene gave me a small whip to speed the horse up, but whenever it got a glimpse of the whip it bolted. I wanted to give the whip back to Eugene, but every time I tried, the horse saw it and bolted.

After an hour or so of trotting and learning a few tricks, Eugene said the charros would like to celebrate my progress by drinking some tequila. I've never been a fan of it, but I said OK, as I didn't want to be rude. The charros turned up with a huge bottle and poured me a big one – with a worm in it!

Eugene said I was lucky to get the worm and that I should try it, as it is very tasty. I said I'd eat half if he had half. Before I'd finished saying that, he had eaten his half. Now I was left with half a worm, which in a way is worse than a full one. "Do you chew or do you just swallow?" I asked.

Eugene said, "Of course you chew. And you try to figure out the flavour and everything… You can't imagine how expensive a couple of hundred grams of this is at a restaurant. In the most expensive area of Mexico City they are, like, £50 at least… They are known to be an aphrodisiac."

I finally swallowed.

THURSDAY 8 APRIL



I met some Mayan people today. They are the ones who built the Wonder years ago. They lived in the middle of nowhere in huts made of straw and bamboo shoots. One of them, a guy called Luis, didn't live in the village any more, but had family who did. As I arrived, his uncle was setting off to get some honey. We decided to go with him. I just thought we'd be nipping to a local shop until I saw a big pole with an axe strapped to the end. We'd be getting the honey from a wasps' nest.

We walked towards the wasps' nest. I heard it before I saw it. It sounded like there were thousands of wasps in it, but Luis said there would only be a few hundred. I was still worried. I said I'd like to get the wasps' nest for his uncle so I stood on an old wall and stretched as high as I could to hack away at the branch that held the nest. It was about the size of a basketball. Just as I got close the wall collapsed, and I went arse over tit while trying to keep hold of the 20ft stick with the axe on the end. Luis's uncle took over. He climbed the tree and dropped the nest. He told me not to worry, as wasps always fly upwards. He sounded certain, but I don't like taking things for granted. It would only take 10 or 20 mental wasps to decide they were sick of people ripping their nests down and I'd be done for.

Luis's uncle picked up the nest and all the wasps had left. He gave me some of the wasp honey. It was tasty. We took the nest back to their hut, where the family stripped it. There was Luis's uncle, two big women, a grandma and about five kids all in the one hut. They made me eat some wasp larva in a tortilla wrap. I didn't want to eat insects before I came to Mexico and now I'm eating them before they are even bloody born.

In return I gave them a packet of Monster Munch and a chunky KitKat. They seemed to enjoy them. I think they got the better end of the deal.

Luis wanted to take me for a swim in a cenote. This is a big hole, about 150ft deep and full of natural water. I'm not a fan of swimming, but thought at least if I went I wouldn't have to eat cockroach sorbet or whatever else they'd found under a rock.

I enjoyed today.

FRIDAY 9 APRIL



I was up early this morning to see the Wonder. Jamie, the producer, wanted me to see it without tourists everywhere. But I couldn't see it, as we got there so early it was still pitch black. We wandered around in the dark for 30 minutes trying to find the Chichen Itza and eventually found it once the sun came up. I may as well have had a lie-in. I didn't have a guide today, as Jamie decided I'd get all the information by listening to an audio guide on some headphones.

It's an odd one, the Chichen Itza. It was built by the Mayan people for sacrifices and ripping people's hearts out. Not exactly Alton Towers, is it?

Considering that the Mayans live in huts made from bamboo and straw these days, it seems a bit over the top that they built such a big, strong structure as a place to cut off heads.

The Chichen Itza is just a pyramid with four sides, with stairs on each side leading to some kind of bungalow on the top. Thinking about it, all those stairs defeat the idea of the bungalow.

I tried to imagine what it would be like on the day of sacrifice. The audio guide didn't talk much about how the head-cutting was done, but I imagined crowds gathered at the bottom and the head being cut off at the top and rolling down one of the sets of stairs. It must've been a bit of a gamble for a spectator picking a staircase and waiting. It would have been better if they had gone for a helter skelter-type design, so no matter where you stood everyone would see a rolling head.

The tourists started to enter around 8am. I noticed tour guides getting groups of people to clap in front of the pyramid. It creates an odd echo. The guide said the pyramid was designed to make this sound, as it's like the cry of the quetzal, a sacred Mayan bird.

I wandered away from the tourists and found another cenote like the one I swam in yesterday. The audio guide said this would have been the Mayans' main source of water. Some say these holes where made by meteorites that hit earth millions of years ago. Apparently the cenote was another place they sacrificed people.

I was looking into it when I noticed I was surrounded by lizards. Big ones. I gave one a bit of one of my Hobnobs. It seemed to love it. It ended up eating two. I realised then that I had swapped lives with a lizard on this latest trip. Here it was eating my Hobnobs and there I'd been eating crickets, worms and wasp eggs. It's odd to think the Mayans have probably never tried a Hobnob, yet this lizard has.

This is an edited extract from An Idiot Abroad: The Travel Diaries of Karl Pilkington, published by Canongate on 23 September, £16.99. To order a copy for £15.99 with free UK p&p go to guardian.co.uk/bookshop or call 0330 333 6847. The accompanying TV series begins on 23 September on Sky 1 HD and Sky 1