The street and the smell - Viva Mexico

Back in Mexico after an incredible five years away, memories hidden on every corner. Emery and Indira met me at the airport and where was the first place we went on hitting town - La Fuente of course. Is there anything more typical of Mexico than a dingy downtown dingy bar, in an old colonial building, filled with mainly men, drinking the finest Mexico has to offer, munching on botanas (basically deep fried anything); whilst someone plays music in the background - interrupted now and then by someone on a table of university professors who have had one too many blowing in to the trumpet. And of course everything in Mexico is synchronised, so when the horn is played the entire crowd erupts together in a responsive shout.

Mexico, mi querido Mexico.


Somehow making it through to the next day, through a haze of beer and tequila, I am struck by the power of the sun - it reminds me how the light in Guadalajara was always so bright. However after two months away from the sun, its warmth on my skin is incredibly invigorating. I stand in the street with my arms spread, trying to soak up as much of it as possible, secretly hoping that it will provide a cathartic defrosting of my frozen insides.

The other thing I notice in the street is la suiciedad - the filth. The streets are covered in crap, there is a thick, black dust covering everything - it never rains here - and the most potent of all - the smell. Somehow in the two months in the US & A I forgot what it was like to smell public smells - I guess the absolute cold and the lack of gathering spaces kills any public smells. Wandering through the streets here it is impossible to avoid -every block has it's odour. From small back alleyways which reek of sun dried urine, to stretches dominated by the smell wafting from the taco stand frying some part of some animal, all competing against the background of general third world city odour - a mix of sewerage, cooking and decomposing food, car exhaust and the sweat of four million people eking out a living in a generally unforgiving city.

For the first time in a while I feel alive, and connected to the throbbing mass that is humanity.