I did it! I caught up!
In the wake of my trip, I have experienced all the emotions toward you. I am angry at you. Furious even. I am sorry for you in a benevolent and somewhat condescending way. I miss you. I love you. I want nothing to do with you. Sure I contemplate my role, my complicity, what I could’ve done differently, what I would do next time. But it feels like the only question is whether you were lying to yourself or to me. And in the end, the answer doesn’t change much. The mistake I made was believing you and frankly, I don’t want to not have that in a partnership. I have no interest in “unpacking” anything with you because you won’t be able to be honest. There’s a weird part of me that still wants to be on good terms with you and I’m kinda just hoping it goes away. Cause why on earth would I befriend someone who has done what you have without so much as an apology or acknowledgement of breach? You’re not even asking my forgiveness, why would I extend it unsolicited in yet another olive branch of unwanted vulnerability.
Work this week has been extra busy due to flooding in some counties in southern Oregon plus a bit of catch up from my absence. I also owe a bit of catch up to you all.
One: Lea and I are booked for Machu PIcchu!!! That’s right in September we’re going to walk for 4 days really high in the air, arriving at dawn triumphantly (or perhaps with staggering steps) at Machu Picchu. In celebration of which I walked the stairs in my building twice, ran them twice and went up & down sideways one time on each side. There is work yet to be done.
Two: I have registered for my first course in grad school in Global Development Practice through Harvard Extension School. It is fully remote, so I can stay here, and starts at the end of June!
Three: I am taking Spanish classes!
Four: Leo has a new school and they teach him tricks!
It is spring in Mexico City. The rains haven’t fully come yet and it’s a little tricky to tell, but there have been thunderstorms and hibiscus blooms. Fortunately it’s still not very humid and the smalls rains that come give warning and only last an hour or so in the late afternoon/early evening. And my understanding is that even in the wet season it follows this pattern. While the rain may be more intense than in the northwest, scheduled rain for only part of the day with a blue and sunny morning sounds like a heavenly wet season.
Leo and I went on a mini walk on Saturday in search of coffee and a Petco. I’ve found a new favorite coffee shop and roaster called Almanegra Cafe and it’s a nice little over a mile walk from my place. They have excellent coffees from all over Mexico and actually also have some internationals, kinda just the heavy hitters, Colombia, Ethiopia, Sumatra, but still. The staff there are very into what they do and very slow and very kind and somehow never have lids for to go cups.
After, I dropped Leo off at school and took off towards centro for some errands. Mission today included check out Victor’s Artes Populares, Deportes Ruben (need some trekking poles), Mercado San Juan Pugibet, and the large artisan market of La Ciudadela. Wandering through this part of the historic center reminds you that something’s of it is a bit past tourist reach. Because it was Sunday, the tianguis markets extended everywhere. Tianguis are open air, usually tent with a table style, markets. They vary wildly in caliber, products, and size. I’m honestly not sure if I meandered through several or if this one just winds up and down various roads.
So the thing about Mexico, and also about my Spanish, is that when embarking on an enterprise, a 50% success rate is a resounding win. It’s an amazing perspective shift. Most of my day, most of my life has been in part measured by accomplishment against time. Efficiency is a way of proving value in American culture. Here I am forced to slow down, in part because google is not as reliable, in part because I don’t speak this language, and in no small part because I don’t have the same methods of transportation at my disposal. So I can’t just run and grab 30 lbs of dog food and walk back over a mile. It gets delivered. It will show up sometime between 2pm and 9pm. I can’t guarantee that the hours posted online of a business are remotely accurate. It forces you to let go in a way. It’s such a huge shift and honestly a burden lifted, demonstrating productivity on the daily is exhausting. I suspect it’s also bad for one’s mental health. I can’t yet fully see the impact of this forced slow down and redefining, but I can say it feels good.
On this particular outing I actually successfully found all the locations (with a slight accidental detour for Mercado San Juan de Belen) that I was looking for and that, in and of itself, can be a feat. Now… unfortunately Victor’s Artes Populares was closed. They are supposed to have really excellent and unique crafts at an affordable rate. But now I know where it is and honestly it’s narrow street was charming. Deportes Ruben was maybe the biggest failure, while I found it, I could not find hiking poles nor could I get anyone to help me. I’ve noticed that when I’m unsure in Spanish I speak more quietly, which given how cramped and crowded it was, didn’t do me any favors. While a lot of products were stuffed behind the counter, they did seem to at least have a display and I couldn’t find one for my poles. So after about 20 minutes of dithering, I abandoned my cause and drifted on to the mercado.
Mercado San Juan is a traditional market and where you go if you want fancy stuff, like Napa Cabbage, Chinese long beans, rhubarb, imported cheese. I’d been before, but hadn’t really taken the time to explore. In retrospect, a weekend might not have been the day to do this. The market was packed. I did meet a very kind and quick spoken (which I completely deserve) produce man, who went and found hoja santa for me and had some gorgeous bulbing fennel. He also advised me to come early in the morning and buy fish from stall 87, it’s down the way and then 3 up on the left.
Now laden with fennel, banana peppers, jalapenos, heirloom tomatoes, a mini watermelon, and herbs, I made my way over to La Ciudadela, a sprawling crafts market. Ciudadela is “organized” by aisles, in that they have and they are labeled at on end of the aisle. It’s a relatively low building, narrowly escaping claustrophobia and I’m not actually sure they label the aiseles in both directions. Vendors have their own shops, and while there’s generally a theme to a shop, that’s not guaranteed, nor the degree of orderliness. My mission was simple, replacement unicorn pig. While I remain incapable of walking directly to the shop, I did navigate my way there in significantly less time than anticipate, only to find that they had no unicorn pigs.
On my walk home clouds grumbled over head and sheets of lightening filled the sky. Having never lived anywhere with frequent thunderstorms, I find this exhilarating. Made it home just in time to miss a massive, albeit brief, downpour. Rainstorms here have all the pluses. It’s warm and intense, like tropical climate, but they still seem to clear the air, functioning as a release in tension, like in the northwest. We’ll see if a full rainy season diminishes the charm I currently find in rain here.
There’s a small record shop called Venas Rotas Discos (Broken Veins) down the street, specializing in punk/goth/metal/industrial aka music Kerry listens to. So despite my lack of a record player, I’ve been eye balling it with curiousity. One night I noticed they had a show, so I started following them on Instagram. That is one of my moral challenges As much as I’d like to reject all META products, restaurants, shops, shows, all these things function on Instagram, even more so here than in the states. Long story short, there was a show Saturday night and it was $2.50 and 3 blocks away from my house. Very low barrier to entry. It’s a tiny venue, reminds me of Portland, a space rather than stage, people awkwardly crowded in. Since we’re in Mexico, the band that was supposed to start at 8pm started at 9:30p. I am getting better at being here cause I didn’t bother wandering over there till 9. There was definitely someone’s mom filming in the very center front. It was kinda heart warming. For the most part it was one of those crowds who kinda just stands there and films or takes photos. They were surprisingly good. I love how there is no dress code for punks in Mexico.
I wound up leaving at 11pm, before the second band went on, which was a little unfortunate cause that’ s who I’d wanted to see, but I was tired and had to get up early the next day for a hike.
This hike, organized by the same group my others, was out in Tlalpan in the Ajusco range and a visit to two neighboring volcano craters, Xitle & Xictontle. We drove for a little under an hour before arriving at an extremely modest house where Diego, a local botanist, was waiting to lead us through the craters. My spanish to english plant identification skills have improved dramatically. First we walked a short distance to Xictontle. Not much is known about this defunct volcano, it’s monogenetic (means it formed from a single eruption) and no one knows when it exploded. The crater is filled with plant life and hard to make out. You cannot go down into the crater of Xictontle. The forest is home to pines, madrones, a wild relative of marigolds, pineapple sage, what appears to be some kind of currant, agave, thistles, palms, short clumped grasses, and occassional tomatillos.
Xitle, on the other hand, exploded between 1600-2000 years ago and is estimated to have erupted for roughly 70 years. The resulting lava flows destroyed the city/religious site of Cuicuilco on the shores of Lake Xochimilco. It’s thought that some of those fleeing Cuicuilco may have been instrumental in the development of Teotihuacan. As the lava hardened it formed an 80 sq kilometer mass, now known as Pedregal and making up a large chunk of southern Mexico City, including parts of Coyoacan.
Getting down to the bottom of the crater was a bit tricky, filled with scree and volcanic rock and like so many hikes in Mexico, there’s not really a switchback situation. More like a hope and be ready to land on your butt. At the bottom we rested for a bit and Diego told us a long story of the history in Spanish, which means I lost track after about 2 straight minutes of Spanish.
All in all I walked about 8 miles on Saturday and hiked about 5 on Sunday. Which I was feeling pretty good about until I looked at the daily itinerary on the Inca Trail. So, gonna try to get another 5 in today and start ramping up.
Year One Project 
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