Centro Historico, Mexico City Federal Districo

I arrived in the dumb-early morning and as if in an art house film, I watched from my taxi's window a city move past me; a city that sprawled beyond the street lamps and evaporated into the darkness. 

Mexico City.

I couldn’t remember a time when I hadn’t wanted to come to Mexico. And there I was. In Mexico. Sweating at 5am. And hoping my taxi driver wasn’t going to rob me.

A bouncy night clerk showed me to a bed at the hostel and I napped.

Groggy, I awoke, with a sense of nervous excitement tinged with foreboding… because I’m nothing if not dramatic.

I lay awake, with the city pulsating outside and I worried that I would be disappointed. With Mexico, with life, with love. And what then? What happens when disappearing isn’t enough?

I lay there listening to other tourists getting ready for their days and I remembered not 3 weeks earlier, my friend Dan had talked at me about Carl Sagan. I listened to him explain for a good 20 minutes that Sagan was an astronomer, a “science communicator” and – according to Dan – a total babe. 

‘What are you interested in at the moment?’ Dan had asked when he had finished and was faced with a strange silence. A wave of what was now a familiar emptiness returned. ‘Nothing, really’ was my response, one fraught with self-esteem issues. It was a whingey disposition that I couldn’t shake so the reply hung flaccid and damp in the air.

And now? …

I was in Mexico. 

Had anything changed?

I got up without an answer, needing coffee & an orange juice to deal with such a heady question. I padded down the cool steps of the hostel. My hand hovered for a moment over the front door handle. 

Was anything going to change?

I tugged at the door because it was heavier than I had expected until I realised it was a push not a pull door anyway, so I pushed with an umph and then I stepped out into the blinding heat and the chaotic streets.

And disappeared.

***

In Centro Historico, the indiscriminate sun pummels the large slabs of imposing Spanish architecture, that crumbles above. It dries the blood and dog shit on the torn footpaths underfoot. And it blushes the sweaty cheeks of Gringos who tower over the squish of people in Ciudad de Mexico.

It’s hot.

It’s energetic.

But it’s slow.  

It’s no secret that my inner rhythm is not the quickest. So the Mexican pace should have come naturally. But I was still on Melbourne time. I was still a little harried, a little late and a little encumbered by lists of things to do. And despite my general slowness, my gait is a quick one especially so when on a hunt for caffeine and “jugo de naranja, por favour”. There are as many people in Mexico City as there are in the whole of the continent of Australia and it felt in this moment that all of them wanted to get in my way.

There was rubbish and cracks and holes and boarded up crevasses to trip over, bump into or fall down. And so: I tripped. I bumped. I fell.

Taco and toastado vendors yelled at no one in particular that they had both Tacos and  Tostados ¡que sorpresa. At least I guessed that’s what they were saying, mi espainol es terrible, lo siento.

Cars were piled up at red lights and the drivers were without concession for lazy tourists, who were still blinking away the jet lag.

Brunch. Coffee. OJ. A wander and a wonder. The sun began to set.

Despacio.

A cool breeze relieved the tingly, reddening skin and the shade became shadow.

As the sun evaporated into the edge of the city the night felt ominous. But as I searched for a restaurant for dinner, I found that the night brought with it a peace. A quiet. With intermittent bursts of life and light and laughing, a sense of possibility unfolded.

It felt as if there was something else going on here. Something I didn’t know about yet. Like… As if there was a secret river running under the city, or… something.

It felt like there may have been a place hidden from the sun and the shadows, somewhere. A place that could only be accessed through a hole in the ground and climbed down to by a grimy, moss-laden ladder.

Maybe I was just imagining things. I have a habit of doing that sometimes.

But if there was a secret river I had no doubt that it would be a place the artists, the teachers, the astronomers and the total babes would ride atop in gondolas, pontificating and lamenting, as has been their want throughout the ages.

Here, we would speak a secret language, one that everyone knew, but didn’t know they knew until they arrived. It would be here that we’d drink tequila or rum or whiskey or beer or mezcal or pulque and talk until the sun threatened to rise.

We’d gorge ourselves on ideas and conversations then throw them onto the walls like fabulous cream pies. They would plop and thwack and slide down the walls to finally crystalise into our art, our songs and our stories.

And we’d float.

And think.

And wonder about the stars.

We would yell-talk across the water and clash our champagne glasses together. We’d hold hands and kiss each other lightly and laugh like fireworks at a carnival.

And as that sun would begin to rise outside, sleepy and floppy we’d float, not wanting to acknowledge the approaching day with its insistent needs and demands and lists of things to do.

A beat here. A moment. A pause. Un pequito ensueno.

Or not.

Well fed and safely back in my hotel, I realised all of this was outrageously whimsical, silly even.

Maybe there was no canal under D.F.¹, perhaps there were no pretentious hipsters breezily sailing by each other underneath the city. 

But I was, for the first time in a long time, curious and interested and I wanted to investigate. Even if it wasn’t true, that tingle of possibility was beginning to change the colour of my eyes, here, at night, in Centro Historico, Cuidad de Mexico, Distrito Federal, Mexico.

(1) In the time of the Aztecs the site of Mexico City was an island in the middle of Lake Texcoco. Before the Spanish invaded there was a complex floating economy and trading system on the lake. When the Spanish invaded and over took this area, they drained the lake and filled in the area to build the city that is now known as Mexico City. The contemporary city now rests on the site of Lake Texcoco and due to natural irrigation and water table, water still needs to be pumped from the underneath the city. Thus the city is unstable and slowly sinking, the evidence of which can be seen through the lopsided cathedrals and buildings throughout. Whether there are mysterious (and accessible) canals running underneath the city with artists and astronomers afloat on them still remains to be proven.