Wrapping it up...for now?

It takes a good 24 hours to acclimatize to the energy of Mexico City. At first when I pass people on the street it feels as if prickly cactus pears are brushing up against me along with other unpleasant energies which I won't name. So for a day I just wander around like a homeless person and sit in coffee shops and use my computer. Then at one point it's as if a switch is clicked and I don't notice the dense energy anymore. In fact I even start to notice some good energy in the city.

The first night in DF (short for District Federale, the Mexican name for Mexico City) I get the idea to email someone on a message board that I used to frequent. So I do this in the internet cafe when I post my blog. I feel a little strange because I don't know her but she texts me back on my phone before I get home and to my delight we set up a meeting for the next day. Yes, here I am texting like a teenager, because phone calls are so expensive.

Meanwhile I'm still wandering about in my unacclimated daze, speaking to the shopkeepers with my best diction and still being asked to repeat myself. But at least I know what words to say! I try a diner next door to the Detroit-style one only to sit down and find out it has the same menu. But I stay to try a breakfast called "Huevos Nortero" and am treated to a jumble of sausages and scrambled eggs and this reminds me that finding good sausage in Mexico is as rare as finding a sober cowboy at a rodeo. Ukranians beware! Still I realize I'm beginning to like this diner.

My new friend Meli shows up a little early and texts me at the hotel I go downstairs to find a beautiful young latina on the sidewalk who gives me a big hug. We go to a nearby parking garage to get her car and have to wait in a crowded line for about fifteen minutes while the valets run off to get cars from families, cars from tradesworkers, cars from old ladies, every car except ours. Finally the valet brings a shiny red SUV and we drive down a large boulevard with palm trees and lots of green to a Mexican restaurant which is quite a far away. I tell Meli about how much trouble I had adjusting to the energy and she says it's the same for her after she leaves for a few days, but of course she is a high energy person and is a treat to hang out with. Inside the restaurant we talk about many things and laugh a lot and have margaritas. She even drives me back to the hotel.

One reason I wanted some time in DF was to see the pyramids. But hanging out in low-end Mexican hotels and staying off the tour beat doesn't make it easy. There is s a poster for a tour by the hotel counter so I ask the clerk about it. She tries to tell me about it but talks very fast and I don't get much data. Luckily a staff member walks by who speaks English and he tells me simply to take a bus and gives directions.

The next day I'm a little worried and wonder if I should have taken the tour after all instead of attempting a dyslexic navigation around a strange large city where no one understands my speech. I consult my hand-drawn map carefully and find the city bus and ask the driver to give a shout at "Central Norte" which turns out to be the bus station I was at before--although it takes a lot less time to get there than it did with the cab. At Central Norte I run around a lot and find a bus to take to the pyramids which is just about to leave. They ask me whether I want to go to the Teohuatican pyramids or the Mayan ones. This is news to me as I didn't know there was a choice! So I choose to go to the Teohuatican pyramids because the woman I knew in San Miguel kept referring to herself as a princesa Teohuaticana and because I'd had a bad experience with a Mayan student.

On the bus I get lucky as there is is a family from Pennsylvania with a son who has spent a lot of time in Mexico. So I get off when they get off and go with them until we get inside. At first it's a little underwhelmig but then I notice that there is another section with the larger pyramids quite a distance away. It takes a long time to walk there on the beautiful path surrounded by Mexican tourists and the occasional Americans.



The largest one is majestic and is called the Pyramid of the Sun. It's easy to climb it after walking up and down the hills of San Miguel so much. I pass everyone except for the nuns, who race up and down the pyramids with flowing habits and light feet. There are people here of all ages, even school tours and the old women who persist for many hours and make it all the way to the top. At the bottom again we are surrounded by Mexican merchants who tease us by eating ice cream bars after our long bus rides and taxing climbs but only offer us trinkets. However there is a good taco restaurant on the way out and I'm also able to buy some dresses for the nieces and a t-shirt for Ben with the money I saved by not taking the expensive tour.

On the way home I wave down a bus on the highway to Central Norte, then I think I take the right city bus but it turns off the main road. I ask the driver where he is going and he pretends to be helpful but then just tells me to sit down. I start to freak out a little because with dyslexia it's very difficult to be lost. Eventually after talking to him some more he lets me off at a main intersection and I find out the only way to get back is to take the subway, which I do, and find my way back easily, much to my surprise! I'd been warned about thieves on the subway but there is no sign of problems and everyone seems unusually happy.

The next day I have so many problems getting ready to go back home that it reminds me of the information jamming time last February and so I wonder if this is the Canada energy funneling down to me. I hope not! Someone grabs a cab out from under me and I can't do anything because I have all my bags around me. The cab driver who I do get takes a "shortcut" which puts us into stalled traffic on the freeway and he has to go off and take a route he doesn't know and almost gets into an accident. At the airline they only have one person serving the demanding gringos and it takes over an hour before the short line moves enough for me to get service. The ticket clerk writes down the wrong gate but luckily the person in front of me in line, a Montreal ex-pat, has warned me about this problem and I find out immediately when I check with the clerk at the gate, who sends me to the correct gate.

Once I'm at the correct gate everything is problem-free and I remember why I like Air Mexicana. On the plane there is a rare empty seat in the middle beside me so I have space to lean my computer diagonally and write this blog. Off course there's a jammer in front of me who puts his seat as far back as possible and keeps bouncing it to try to get it further back. How pathetically predictable. But at least this time there's not an obscenely fat guy sitting beside me. After a while they pass out the bilingual (French and English) Canadian customs form and I watch the Spanish-speaking passengers struggle with the English and I translate some of the form into Spanish for my seat-mate. No one in Mexico speaks French except for the tourists from Montreal but any time I mention French the Mexicans' eyes light up and they are most interested, asking if I speak French.

What will Canada bring? Will it be better than before, will the energy be different? Will I be able to adjust after having been away for so long, or will I just quit my job after six months and return to San Miguel as a couple of friends predicted? One step at a time I guess. That's one thing that Mexico has taught me to do, is take it one day at a time.