Nehaveigur

I was the only recognizable tourist in the crowd, so of course the performer picked me. He was doing balloon animals. He asked me to hold one, and then the next, and then the next, until my arms were so full I couldn’t hold any more. He then put a big one between my legs, made another ballon animal, walked up to me and popped the suggestive ballon I was holding between my thighs. It exploded loudly. Everyone thought it was very funny. I felt like strangling him but couldn’t with my arms full of ballons. I had to smile and agree that it was all in good fun.

This was 2006. Back then I still lived in England and this was my first time coming to the Americas. López Obrador had lost the election but refused to concede and declared himself alternative president. When I arrived in Mexico City, his supporters blocked Paseo de la Reforma, the city’s large boulevard. My friend, who had invited me and whose house I was staying at, explained that this didn’t matter much since traffic was bad all the time anyway. For López Obrador it paid off: He eventually won the election twelve years later.

I spent a few days in Mexico City, meeting my friend’s extended family, teaching his German class, having lunch at Sanborns in the Casa de los Azulejos, and visiting Teotihuacan. We went to see ladies in tight clothes riding horses. Presumably there were men too, but I don’t remember them. My friend’s employer had a ranch in the hills outside the city, and one day we went there to ride horses ourselves. Later, we went to the south of Mexico, driving around Chiapas and the Yucatan peninsula. I had liked Mexico City, which is both elegant and the friendliest large city I’ve been to, but I liked rural Mexico even better. Until now, I associated the smell of grilled corn with Mexico. I don’t remember where exactly we picked up an indigenous woman and her two children. She didn’t speak any Spanish and her kids had to translate for her. Across some of the remote roads, the local kids had spread ropes that they raised when they saw our car approach. We had to stop and buy chili-spiced mango from them before they lowered their rope so we could pass. I saw hand-painted signs declaring the area we passed through “Territorio Zapatista“. We saw Tuxtla, the Cañon del Sumidero, the Lagunas de Montebello, St Cristóbal where our car was towed during a festival, Palenque, Tulum, and finally Merida, where we attended the wedding of a someone we knew from college. Her family had a beach house that made me think that they must be inconceivably wealthy. I’ve learned since that this type of property isn’t rare in Mexico or California.

After a few weeks, we went back to Mexico City and I took an overnight bus to Guanajuato and then on to Guadalajara, where I was visiting another friend. The seats on the bus were adjustable to almost horizontal, so that I was able to sleep through the night. I don’t know why other countries don’t offer similar bus rides.

My friend in Guadalajara was a student and therefore short on cash. To earn extra money, he worked as a mystery shopper. He went to department stores and bought small items, all the while pretending to be a difficult customer. He then filled in a feedback form about his experience, which earned him a few pesos. His parents had a business producing dolls. I visited the workshop, where half a dozen works sat around tables sewing, assembling and painting dolls. The walls were full of ceramic doll parts.

After a few days, my friend asked if I wanted to accompany him and his girlfriend to the beach. Of course I did, so we all got into his little car and we started driving West. We crossed the Sierra Madre with hillsides full of Guava, and after a few hours, for the first time in my life, I saw the Pacific Ocean. We found a little inn in a seaside village called Boca de Iguanas. Even though it was the middle of summer, we had the beach to ourselves. There was a small restaurant serving fresh sea food and drinks. At night, the bats came out.

My stay in Mexico lasted a month, much of it driving a small rental car. After my return, I needed to do a driving test in England to get a license there. I failed the test. The man with the tie and the clipboard told me the reason was that I had accelerated too hard when the traffic lights turned green. I realized that this was I habit I had acquired in Mexico, where any split-second delay in reacting to a green light is punished by a cacophony of angry honks.