Behind the window

Chihuahua is not just the home of bug-eyed, handbag-sized dogs. Believe it or not, most people don`t go there for that.

They go there because it is the terminus of the infamous copper canyon railway. I´m going there essentially for the journey, and because someone told the ticket seller to send me there.

The coach is well padded and cool. A womb to carry me on until I feel the need to stop.

The scenery looks like a child`s drawing of Mexico. Cacti reaching swollen fingers to scratch at a sky liberally sprayed with stars. Mountains irregular ink blots along the bottom of the page. Petrol stations and roadside tiendas boxed in neon. Lorries like giant gemmed christmas trees, looming.

The road is ruler straight and endless.


I have a half-hour pause in Monterrey, during which time a friendly face with perfect English buys me a hot chocolate and registers my Mexican sim card for me. He tells me to get a coat.


The journey sands down the cacti of the central desert to the wild west of the north, complete with ranches and grassy plains. The sun bookends the trip, crimson through the window tint, bleeding over the horizon.


I am ejected from the bus at 7am to Chihuahua´s generically clinical station.

I stay long enough to gulp down a Nescafe and decide to get the hell out.

Not that it is so bad a first impression, but rather the sprawl of concrete under musty skies is just not at all appealing to my restlessly flitting mind.

In my flick through the guide book one name along the rail route stands out. Creel. I think I`m going to meet someone there. I don`t bother to question the intuition, just buy a ticket and get on my fifth coach in a row, gluing my eyes to the window for four more hours.


Canyon country begins. Grasses give way to clusters of pines, pierced by strange rock formations. By the time I`m in Creel I feel like I`ve landed in a lost Alpine world.

I`ve been travelling for 24 hours. Lost one hour to Mountain Time. I could go on. But I need to see what this place has to offer.

Going it alone

The hitchhiker's guide to the Galaxy stipulates that if you carry anything at all with you the most fundamental component should be your towel. You can sit on it, lie under it, use it as a scarf when cold and a toga when you've lost all your clothes. You can soak a corner with essential nutrients for nourishment in emergencies.

The towel is so much more than just a square of liquid-licking loops. It provides moral support.

A traveller who knows where his towel is is a traveller to be reckoned with.

My equivalent of the towel is a bright yellow sarong. Its sunshine folds have nourished me in ways unique to this town of myth and crumbling fortune, excepting perhaps the comforting weight of Israel`s puppy, who is warming himself under my arm. I have a strong protective urge towards him and keep panicking that he is going to die. I don`t know if this is paranoia or foresight, but I pull him closer and he rests his chin on my knee in gentle companionship.

We crouch on the cobbled streets and contemplate.

While the haunting ruins and mind-bleaching vistas are beautiful, I haven´t settled here. My trusty sarong is a poor match for the freezing winds, and under the grey skies it has been one of the only flashes of colour in a town seemingly grown from the rock.

Under a different situation I would embrace this. But my mind feels limp and my body fails me. I miss my boyfriend with a dull ache that is as ever-present as the cold. And I am more sick than I would care to admit. Spit-dripping, retch-inducing, lung-emptying coughs keep me awake all hours. I`m so bored of people telling me to go to the hospital that I might actually just go.

My instinct pushes me on to somewhere greener. Less prohibitively cold.

I decide to leave. Pass a last precious half hour behind Israel`s glinting display of stones and silver jewellery, watching the world go by under a white sun.

One face jolts me with the shock of familiarity. Shaven head, wide mouth, almond slitted eyes and a long, feathered earring. My brain tries to tell me something but I can`t hear through the cacophany of sights vying for the attention of my eyes.

I smile at him but he is gone.

I run for the minibus, to be the first of a series of buses, each of them improving on the last like an automobilic set of Russian dolls.

I have no idea where I`m headed.

Through the tube of a tunnel - the only access to Real - to a scramble for seats on the next. My hula hoop causes amusement and annoyance in equal measure amidst a crowd of hawkers pushing everything one might need for a journey, from fat gorditas to pumpkin seeds to newspapers.

I settle into my seat but am asked to move by a woman with small children. I slide into the next available seat. Put bag down. Look up at the shaven head and wide mouth of the man I recognised earlier.

His name is Guillerme. His girlfriend is called Julia. He studied physics, but renounced it in favour of a more creative life. The symmetry settles over us in ripples.

Our conversation pushes through the language barrier. Settles lightly on love, music and the mystery of quantum entanglement. He tells me to go to the desert.

I wish I had spoken to him before getting on this bus.

I comment on his necklace; a huge tooth strung with beads. Immediately he takes out its twin from his bag and tells me I can have it in exchange for something. I search through my bag although I know I have nothing like this. The only thing I can offer is a moonstone ring given to me when I left work back in April by a girl who said she did so because she felt for some reason it was time to pass it on. I know she would agree on this. Received in a time of great movement in my life. Passed on with the flow to the next stage. I hand it over.

He holds it up in the the light and it glows, as if the light comes from within rather than through the sun-splashed window.


Our briefly concatenated lives split once again at the station at Matehuala. Bang in the centre of the country. I find myself at the ticket desk being coaxed by a concerned onlooker to a decision. I point vaguely at the map and shrug my shoulders.

She tells the attendant to give me a ticket for Chihuahua, via Monterrey. At least two centimetres away on my map.

Whatever. Seems good to me.

I spend the hours before the departure curled in spine twisting positions underneath my shield of yellow cotton, trying desperately to conserve some of my fast-escaping body heat and concentrating only on the present.

The Eagle's Head

While el Ciudad de Mexico is a compelling, if sprawling, metropolis of as yet undiscovered delights, after four nights I've had enough of the coughing and the cars and I allow myself to be escorted northwards on the Bus of Unmatchable Luxury.

It leaves from the north bus station but it is still an hour before the buildings recede. When they do the change is severe. The sky turns from white to deep blue and I'm encouraged on by sentinel hills clothed in dark green and sun-dried brown.

I rest my forehead against the window and feel my body go slack as my mind eases into the journey.

I pass an evening at the family home of my only Mexican friend, an Aztec from Queretaro, three hours north of el DF. I am reluctant to pass responsibility for my journey to the hands of another so early on, but more coincidences have pointed me this way and I know better now than to ignore them.

I am the star of the show for Israel's wise parents and five serenely beautiful siblings. They ask continuous questions in incomprehensible Spanish. After four hours I am frustrated to the point of tears, the response 'no entiendo' (I don't understand) becoming more and more frequent as I lose belief in my abilities. Despite attempts to bury myself in my frijoles y nopales (black beans and cactus salad) misunderstanding breeds, much to their amusement. I mistake Israel's invitation to go to the shop as time for us to leave, picking up all my bags and saying goodbye to everyone one by one. Red-facedly I place them back down on the floor and when I return from the shop I pretend it never happened.

I breathe a deep sigh of relief as we get on Bus of Unmatchable Luxury #2. I can't help groaning at how comfortable my fully reclining armchair of a seat is.

Several changes later and I wake in Real de Catorce.

I have been in some strange places in my time but this one has to be near top of the list. Hundreds of years ago it was the biggest city in Mexico, fuelled by its silver-rich hills and the greed of the conquistadors. Now, all that remains of this is a valley literally littered with shells of ancient dwellings, split by great scars of old mines in the dusty brown hills.

I realise I have unknowingly surrounded myself with grutas.

This is both mountain range and desert country, the only green being cactus after cactus after cactus. It is freezing cold at night - such that in my windowless room I wear all of my clothes and am still cold - but in the day the sun burns.

They call it La Puebla Phantasma (the ghost town). I sense the energy here is very, very old.

I sleep for 24 hours. Israel's Belgian Shepherd puppy takes a liking to me and spends most of the time between my legs, whining contentedly. When I wake I am still coughing, gulping at the thin air.

Israel talks in Spanish. Theoretically this is good, but as such I am only able to voice a tiny fraction of what is going on in my head. In this strange place, locked in my thoughts, it is hard to picture a more isolating situation.

He is gesticulating animatedly, pointing to the highest of all the mountains. I realise he means us to go now. I look at my watch. Look at the sun. Shrug.

We start walking.

Ten minutes in and I can barely breathe. Pride keeps me quiet and I focus instead on the unending, barren terrain. I've never seen so many types of cactus. We stop only to pour water down our throats and pick spines out of the puppy's feet.

Now he is saying something about an eagle, and about offerings. He gives me a feather and tells me to hold it as we walk. He draws in the sand with a stick. I suddenly understand.

The peak to which we are headed, Cerro Quemada (Burnt Hill) forms the head of a giant eagle, whose mountainous wings curl around the circle of desert below us. The Tropic of Cancer lies exactly over the head. This is a sacred place for many tribes across Mexico but particularly the Huichol indians, who collectively take an annual pilgrimage across the country to meditate and collect the elusive Peyote, which forms a central part of their spiritual rituals.

For anyone else choosing to take the so called 'path to enlightenment' contained within this psychadelic cactus, the correct thing to do before and after is to climb to this place to say thank you. It does not feel quite the right time for me to indulge in psychedelia. Even so, the further I walk, the more I can feel the place itself calling me.

The final steps are exhausting but what little breath I have left is taken away by the view. Behind me the gentle hulks of the mountains comfort; far below rolls the vast desert, shimmering, as if not entirely real. Directly in front of me is a stone circle full of colourful offerings - remnants of the last Huichol ceremony.

I am pulled cross-legged to the ground and there I stay, eyes closed, breathing in as deep as I can. I am my biggest critic and certainly now to some I sound like a deluded hippy, but I cannot deny that there was something extremely special there, much, much more ancient and powerful than me.

My eyes are opened by the sound of feather on dreadlocks and I turn to find Israel brushing himself with his 'offering'. With no shred of embarrassment he indicates I should do the same - mentally cleansing myself with every stroke. Then we sit next to the stone circle and thread the feather onto twine. He gives me a bag of beads and coloured seeds and tells me to choose the ones I want, always holding in mind what I am asking through my offering.

I choose two shiny red seeds, for protection, one brown and veined that reminds me of the world and the strange coincidental connections that have been plaguing me, and two jaffa orange beads for what I hope for in the future. Finally I pick up the smooth cross section of a shell, cut to form a spiral. A representation of the universe in so many indigenous cultures, and the shape of two curled hands linked together.

I crunch alone up to the very top of the mountain and tie my colourful string to the spiny leaves of a cactus tree. As I do so the calm is broken by a freezing cold blast of wind and I feel it cleansing me.

The return takes half the time of the journey there and on our way back a sharp cry of a bird causes us to stop and look up.

An eagle wheels slowly around our heads.

By the time we get back to the ghost town darkness has fallen. I have eaten only once today but have no desire for food. I return to the banging door of my concrete room and sleep for sixteen hours, and when I awake I feel whole.

Following the path of the sun

I wander aimlessly for days around the bewildering mass of concrete that they call 'el DF'. I am rooted here by indecision, the clamouring pile of worthy destinations too great to choose from. Despite my natural reaction to ditch this lung-rotting place, something deep inside tells me to stay. It is not long before I discover why.

Just when I am about to give myself up to the rolling chance of the dice, my first taste of real Mexico arrives, red-lipsticked, green-shorted and eyes full of life's secrets.

She bounds into my life with a series of coincidences that starts with her son, the curiously-named Albert. Just when we think we've lost him forever, he taps on my friend's shoulder amidst the madness of a busy street. We surrender to the unlikelihood of it all and follow him obediently to Calle 20 Noviembre, a shining ribbon of hot traffic carving through the hectic metropolis.

I slide into her battered green Volvo, sweaty skin sticking on fake leather. Her curly head peers round the driver's seat, teasing out my vital statistics, to which she cries "Julia Roberts!" and cackles hilariously. Any doubts I may have about getting in this random car dissolve and I know immediately I am in good hands.

Albert sits stoically in the passenger seat and to my left are squeezed the two Belgians who led me here. They too have vowed to travel on coincidence and it is the combination of all our fortunes that find us here now.

We speak in Spanglish. I am getting better every day but still lack some of the basics. I did write one word down this morning - 'La Gruta'. I don't know why I chose this word out of the thousands still incomprehensible to me, but it is my intention for the day to find out what it means.

The drive is hairy to say the least. My hostess - whose name I am still unable to pronounce and therefore to remember - thinks nothing of wildly changing lanes, chatting animatedly on her phone or spectacularly reversing back up the motorway toll road. I find out later she is a highly respected doctor and it does not surprise me. There is a deep intelligence in those sparkly eyes that make me feel safe and I am happy to leave my eyes glued to the side window.

Palm trees line the highway like soldiers. The city goes on, and on, and on.

The entire Valley of Mexico is crammed full of concrete boxes, some painted nursery school bright, others made even greyer by the ever-present smog. It squats over the capital like a doting mother. In theory we are ringed by mountains but she keeps the secret well; all I can see in the far distance is her protective haze.

This manmade ocean is undoubtedly a vision into our future. The thought makes me shiver.

As we drive we pass a huge sign saying 'La Gruta' - the second time today I have seen this word. Another small indication of something bigger than us that relaxes me even more.

After an hour or two we grind to a halt. Our destination is Teotihuacan, the site of the two biggest pyramids in Mesoamerica, both of which we climb at thigh-burning speed. Unlike most of the remaining sites like this, which were the inhabited predecessors of today's concrete jungles, Teotihuacan was built solely for the worship of gods. It is my first encounter with an ancient site like this and I am overcome with awe at its size.

The view from the Pyramid of the Sun is vast and shimmering. I wonder how many thousands of prisoners lost their lives at this spot, victims of the Aztec's core belief that the world required human blood as fuel.

We watch the sun melt into the horizon from a ledge on the top of the Pyramid of the Moon. The entire site turns a dusty orange and I am suddenly thousands of years old. I close my eyes and tune into the energy as best I can. Things start to make a little sense.

All the leaping leaves us hungry. Our tiny host leads us to a restaurant in the cool depths of a cavern to munch nachos and firey salsa.

It is called La Gruta.

My inner smile widens. Apparently the word means 'cave' and I wonder what place this has in my overall game. I can feel a current of something carrying me onwards and resolve to trust more in whatever it is that led me here.

We stop in a tiny warren of a town in search of a panetaria (bread shop) and find not only the most deliciously crunchy tortas but also a fizzingly vibrant saint's day celebration, which coats the tiny streets with all manner of stalls and ear-piercing entertainment. I am asked to dance by a laughing boy with bad breath. His attempts to induct me to the twirling ways of the Mexican dance fail miserably, leaving me to retire with my malcoordinated giggles to mis amigos y mi tequila.

The five of us bounce around the town, wide-eyed underneath brand new sombreros. Our finale is an explosion of the coolest fireworks I've ever seen. We stand underneath racks of flaming, spinning shapes and firey hoops that rise vertically like UFOs, spraying white and red, before exploding in showers of retina-branding sparks.

More than once I am hit by flaming debris. I don't care. It only burns the memory more vividly into my mind.

Back at the hostel I lie awake and shuffle the day's events like cards. Calm settles on me like the warmest blanket. For the first time since my arrival, I am excited about tomorrow.

I am a big believer in the world bringing you exactly what you need, as long as you trust that it will. Sure enough, just when I craved direction, a day of serendipitous inevitability is placed in my lap.

Faith in my journey is restored.

The lethargy and life of the city

I practically crawl the last few steps.

I'm only on the second floor. Every time I get to the top of the stairs I have to collapse on my hostel bunk to recover.

I feel like fat people look.

I would be worried but whatever is looming over my lungs - altitude, pollution or remains of swine disease - is thankfully not of my own doing.

Everyone here moves slowly. It is the only way. This suits me well. The general lethargy detracts attention from the fact that I have no idea what to do with myself.

I am excited. Don't get me wrong. Admittedly most of my anticipation is about the food. Of course it is. Even when there is as much to get me going as there is in Mexico I will still always focus on the food.

But I know very little about Mexico, so the food is really the only thing I have to go on. Perhaps some adjustment is needed.

Here are the things I think of when I think about this country:

Dust.
Sirens.
Spanish.
Turquoise beaches. Jungles. The precarious ecological state of amphibians.
Cacti. Moustaches.
Aztec and Maya.
Cheese. Chilli. Chocolate.
Tequila.

The generic nature of my list makes me squirm a little.

A number of people have expressed surprise at my lack of knowledge. I'm used to this.

Deep down I know this is what I thrive on. Not knowing what will happen tomorrow. I may be drifting but this is the stuff of dreams.

A few cups of coffee and the odd traveller's tale and I'll be bouncing.

The city is not as bright as I thought it would be. Or as busy. This may well be a reflection of my own mental processes. But the Mexico City painted to me in shades of thievery and kidnap by dozens of concerned advice-givers seems confined to dark corners, swept aside by well-meaning Mexicans and the enticing smells of their weird food.

I'm very relaxed.

I have absolutely no direction and only a small amount of enthusiasm. But I'm fine with that. It will come. I'm in a bubble. With free breakfast, dinner, internet and hot showers, I have no real reason to leave this hostel.

My attention creeps vaguely towards the map. I become momentarily taken with ideas of a hop to the beach. I crave bland beauty and a hammock. It is with no small amount of surprise that I find out a centimetre on my map is a fifteen hour coach journey away.

The snail's head of my intrigue retreats slimily back into its shell, leaving only wet feelers, slowly waving.

I may throw a dice.

The plane list

How ironic that I should find myself in such an unsettled, unsure mental position when I have the words SECURITY stamped in huge, accusing letters above my head.

I wait for my fraying bag to be probed by enthusiastic personnel, who look at me with sideways glances. I think they are probably looking at the bright orange and blue hula hoop curled conspicuously round my arm, rather than my saltywet face.

They must see tears like these every day.

I have just waved goodbye to my father, my sister, my best friend and my beautiful man. That precious quartet of gentle faces and enveloping familiarity, disappearing behind the etched green glass.

For all I know they are still standing there.

I can´t see them any more but knowing I can run back for one more kiss is almost more than I can bear.

I turn away.

Released, I walk the length of the terminal to find a suitably quiet area of the walkway. I spend the next forty-five minutes alternately hooping and running to the gate to double-check my boarding time, until the hammering in my heart slows and I have a steamy sheen over my skin.

I am still crying through my pirouettes and as I board the flight I find tears in my hair.

***

The big contradiction that is my life has encouraged me to be comfortable with coincidental and opposing feelings.

This year I have been riding a prolonged and messy wave of all possible emotions, all competing against and struggling for each other.

Right now, I feel incredibly sad, but even through the ache I´m also ever so slightly excited and more than a little relieved that I have managed to get myself on this plane.

But I dont feel very comfortable sitting where I am. The seat is too small for me and my thoughts.

I try to pin them down with my pen but give up when I start boring myself. Instead I make a list, adding to it periodically over the rest of the 20-hour journey. This list is essentially just a sequence of thoughts, each of which hit me with equal profundity.

Please see below.


The Plane List
1. Life is not about killing time until you die.

2. Airports are emotional places. If there were such a thing as a supernatural creature that fed on consciousness, I imagine airports would be one of their prime hangouts.

3. Most people on planes do not know how to entertain themselves. In desperation they will read pages and pages of duty free goods they have no intention of buying, rather than listening to the commentary in their own heads.

4. I can be very judgemental under stress.

5. There are 3603 miles between London Heathrow and Newark, New Jersey. I do not know how many miles there are between Newark, New Jersey, and Mexico City, Mexico, because I was asleep when this information was available.

6. The ground temperature in London was 55 degrees Fahrenheit. The air temperature around the plane was -55 degrees Fahrenheit. I found great comfort in this symmetry.

7. Very little compares to airline mashed potato.

8. You can always tell where someone´s eyes are. Whether they are reading the paper over your shoulder or staring at you from across a crowded room, you are always aware when a person´s pupils are fixed on your skin.

9. Tomato Juice and Mr & Mrs T´s Bloody Mary Mix are almost, but not quite, entirely unrelated, and should never be considered interchangeable.

10. Freedom is compelling, intriguing and totally dependent on time and place. It´s all relative. You can be free to choose between a thousand paths and the glitter of them may be dazzling. But at the end of the day you can still only choose one thing. You can only ever be in one place at one time. And once that path is chosen, the nature of the other nine hundred and ninety nine paths will be changed forever.


The list and the emotion tire me out. I spend the rest of the journey slipping in and out of sleep, the orange lights of countless unnameable cities drifting below me like dreams.