A Weekend Adventure with Mexico...

Thanks to my amazing friend Mykensie, I was able to spend a handful of days in April with her and another dear friend of mine, Marty, in Mexico City. The trip was wonderful and filled with great laughter and lots of adventures. We were only there for three days, but it felt like much longer, which was nice and restorative.

Kensie lives in Houston. We went to high school together, and met through Lindsey. She moved to Houston several months ago, and we wanted to find a way to get together. She was in search of mountains. We met at the Mexico City airport, where we were both somewhat panicked because we couldn't find each other. Mexico City’s airport apparently has two different international terminals, and we flew into different ones. Fortunately Kensie figured it out and took a twenty minute train between the two of them and found me. We then grabbed a taxi and headed towards the city center, to Marty’s house. Marty is a friend of mine from college. We became friends over hours and hours spent in mini vans rocking out to music, while providing safe rides as an alternative to walking at night. She's lived in Mexico for five years now, and is fluent in Spanish. She and her partner, Josefina, were both incredible guides for us.

Marty and Josefina live in a lovely third floor apartment with a deck or veranda over an internal courtyard. They often rent their spare room as an air b’n’b rental. It was a wonderful set up, and they were such great hosts. Marty made us dinner when we got in, and it was the first time both Kensie and I had ever had cactus. The tacos she made were delicious. The next day Kensie and I went to the Frida Kahlo museum, navigating public transit with the guidance of Marty. The museum is really popular and we had to wait for an hour and a half to get in., to which I discussed, of course, the political state of the world, and the US's impact on international communities.  It was a lovely house though, painted a bright blue color and built around an internal courtyard filled with flowers. It was really amazing to see some of her drawings, doodles, and writings that were never published, and were found in the house years after she passed away. It was also really cool to learn more about one of the most famous Mexican women, her lasting impact on the history and narrative of Mexico in particular.

After our museum tour we met back up with Marty and Josefina. They invited us to go to the south part of Mexico City with them to celebrate a friend of theirs who is moving. We had our celebration on a flat-bottomed boat in the canals propelled by a man with a long pole that looked like a thick bamboo stalk. He pushed us through the canal for two hours, trying to avoid all of the other boats, which we did crash into every now and then. There were so many and the canals aren't that big. All the boats were really colorful and lots of people had brought stereos out to play music. There were also a few bands that would come up to boats and play banda or mariachi music. It was a really fun adventure, and didn't end on the boats. 

If you don't know much about Mexico City, it’s huge; one of the largest cities in the world. There are over 23 million people living in the metropolitan area of Mexico City, but it is also really spread out. We were staying in the center of the city, and it took us 1.5 hours to get back from the boats; 45 minutes in a car and another 45 on the subway. While out on the boats, they stop at this spot so folks can use the rest room and buy whatever. They also sell a ton of plants, and Marty and Josefina picked out this very large, very beautiful bougainvillea bush. They were going on to an after-celebration celebration, so we offered to help them get this bush home. We squeezed it into the uber car with us, and it was sitting on our laps. Then we carried it on the subway. Lots of people complimented us on the bush, and many asked how much it cost… which was only 40 pesos, or about two dollars. It was an adventure and definitely a good story. We wandered around the neighborhood that night for some food and settled on a little quesadilla spot. It was really just a woman cooking quesadillas in a stairwell, but they were delicious, albeit really spicy! My mouth was burning for quite a bit after. Once filled up on quesadillas, we crashed in anticipation for our second full day in Mexico City. 

This second day was spent traveling to Teotihuacan, an ancient city located outside of Mexico City proper. It was one of the most massive of it's kind, built by hand more than 1,000 years before the Aztec arrived, giving it the name Teotihuacan. The city covered eight square miles and supported a population of around 100,000. It also has some of the largest pyramids in the world, comparable to those found in Egypt, and was once the largest city in the Western Hemisphere. There is an amalgamation of cultures represented in the construction of the pyramids that were built between 100 B.C. and 650 A.D. There is still so much unknown about these pyramids, but they were incredible. We entered the city from the west crossing the Avenue of the Dead into the citadel, to the Temple of the Feathered Serpent. In the distance at the other end of the Avenue of the Dead, all the way to the north, we could see the Pyramid of the Moon, and before it the Pyramid of the Sun. It was an incredible site, that inspired so much curiosity. It was also a really hot and sunny day - so we had to drink a ton of water, and ultimately resulted in a sped-up conclusion after hours of exploring. 

There were so many smaller temples where offerings were made along the journey to the Pyramids. We climbed a ton of them, but concluded not to enter into the Palace of Quetzalpapaotl that had had it's interior restored, as there was a really long line, and at that point, we hadn't made it up the big pyramids yet. We spent hours upon hours going up and down steps, before we even went up the stairs at the Temple of the Moon, then we still had to go up the Temple of the Sun - which is the one you can go all the way to the top on. It was incredible, and brings me so much awe as I think back to the memory of the the place. How incredible would it be to be able to glimpse back in time to this place when it was at it's peak, to discover answers to all of our unanswered questions, to know the memories that a place holds. The only other place I remember being in my travels that has structures constructed in B.C. was when I was in Athens. It draws some interesting parallels. 

After grabbing some food and even more water, we went to wait for the bus. Several busses went by us completely packed, and they had to send an empty bus specifically for our group waiting at our entrance. Unfortunately I desperately had to go to the bathroom, so that made the bus ride back really interesting. We then had to hop back on the subway back to Marty's place. That night we had a delicious dinner near Marty's house, then went to bed early. We were both pretty tired after all of the sun and walking that day. We didn't get to go on our mountain hike, but we went up so many pyramids this day that it felt like we were hiking, so that was nice. 

The next day, our last together in Mexico City was spent just exploring a neighborhood in Mexico City. It was one of the wealthier neighborhoods, and after wandering around for a bit, we found a cute bench in a park and sat and talked for a little while. It was a lovely afternoon, even when the clouds kept blackening, and thunder started rumbling a bit, then the downpour hit. We thought we'd wait it out on our covered bench for a little bit, but once it started raining so hard we were getting wet anyways, we made a run for it. We made it to a nice restaurant and enjoyed some more delicious food, some coffee and wine, and company of course. Then we traveled back to Marty's during rush hour on the subway. So far, we'd only experienced weekend subway usage, which was like packed US subway usage.  Rush hour subway in Mexico City was SO packed. It was impressive actually. Fortunately we didn't need to go very far. Marty was telling us, the subway moves around 6 million people every day through it. It is one of the most used subway systems in the entire world. And it is still relatively really affordable, unlike some other subway systems, or public transit systems throughout the world. It was cool to experience - and honestly felt much more effective than driving. 

After some more quesadillas that night, we visited a bit, then went to bed, to wake up and catch our flights in the morning. In hindsight, although a short trip, I feel I have so much to reflect on. One piece that was a huge struggle for me was Spanish. After studying Spanish for six years, I can definitely understand quite a bit of it, enough of it at least. But whenever I try to speak Spanish, the only words that come to mind are Kinyarwanda. So it was a really interesting and frustrating experience to understand what is being said to me, but absolutely cannot communicate back. It was so weird, and felt debilitating. I compensated for this by just randomly chiming in with a Spanish word here or there, which was probably more annoying to everyone than helpful. It's been interesting to reflect on this experience of being incapable of communicating, especially since so much of what I do, who I am, and what I enjoy rests in communication, It was also interesting being on an incredible trip with one of my favorite people in the world, and honestly not being able to let go get out of the mindset of my fast paced American life, and the stresses of what I knew I had to tackle when I got home. This unfortunately contributed to the fact that we didn't do Mykensie's other one wish other than to find mountains, but to dance. 

She has so much life in her, and so much vitality. Since I've known her, I've seen that she is a person that has brought out the beauty in the world just by her existence, and I don't mean that metaphorically. Her smile, her laughter, her intentional thoughtfulness and processing literally lights up every place and space that she exists within. It's incredible, and I feel so honored to know her, and be her friend. She is one of the most beautiful and incredible people I've ever met. I owe her some dancing though. It was also incredible for me to get to see Marty. Similarly, Marty is one of the most passionate and intelligent people I know. She has been such an educator to me since we've met, and an inspiration to me. She is dedicated and loyal and animated and insightful. I learn something from her every time I am with her. She is the type of person that sparks great change and reminds you that that flame is still burning, always. So I take great inspiration and enlightenment from both of these people. They have both played huge roles in my life, in my narrative, and in my directions. I feel incredibly lucky to know them both. This was the highest point of the trip for me, getting to see and hang out with these two people, and together in a place and space that brought out love and happiness in both of them. It was truly incredible, and I'm just lucky.  

My flight back was uneventful, albeit my sim card on my phone broke, so I was down a phone for about a week, which was fine. Kensie had a little more of an adventurous, albeit shorter trip to Houston, and was happy to find that her neither her car parked at the airport, or her house had gotten caught up in the Houston flooding. I can't thank her enough for making this trip possible, and Marty and Josefina for opening up their home for us, even though they flew out the same day we did to come home, headed for South Africa for a conference. It was an incredible trip. Thank you.