Without my trekking companions, this historic and beautiful city was just numb and overwrought with tourism. I was done.

Eventually I made it onto a bus in Mexico City and felt something like whatever that things is when you’ve been homesick and then you’re home again. God? Heaven? IDK. I was still exhausted, but finally warm. And everything smelled right. The food, the burning petrol, the cheap rubber tire smoke that fills the air with lead, the general mix of gases and oils and hair products and Fabuloso cleaning solution. All the things I wish I could shove into a candle when I need to feel like I had ever been there—

Mexico.

The acclimation really wasn’t that bad. But Diamox does make you piss about every twenty minutes and makes your limbs feel like static. And altitude does some weird fucking shit to your bowels. By the first night up towards Salkantay, all three of us were constipated and freezing in our tiny glass dome-tent-thing. We fell asleep annoyed and exhausted after a harsh route, and woke up only a few hours later to condensation dripping aggressively on our faces and belongings. It felt like a fever dream.

I went on a couple dates with a Oaxacan named Héctor. He’s a Capricorn and has the most beautiful round brown eyes and a gravelly voice that lifts a few octaves when he sings. I tried to speak Spanish with him when I could, but he corrected me so much I gave up. Or it could just be that I speak Spanish like I’m always asking questions, so maybe that’s what he thought was happening.

MEXICO IS NOT CHEAP!

The longer I’m here the more I understand this sentiment. Walking through both downtown Oaxaca and Mexico City, I’ve seen it scribbled or spray-painted on buildings. And I agree: it’s not. With the presence of more foreign currency in Oaxaca, less locals are able to afford the aggressive rise in their cost of living and the fight against the monopoly of foreign preferences.

In the movie Casablanca, a lot of film buffs believe the most important scenes involve the central character and his charming rebellion against the Axis presence in Morocco. And, based on the prevalence of political unrest at the time, they’d be right to assume this.

But in the age of post-quarantine, I’m resurrecting the film and pivoting the perspective a bit.