Mexico City, 2013, 10

 March 20, 2013 9:19:49 PM

Subject: Electrolytes



I had to cut short my visit to Parque Chapultepec today because I was showing symptoms of electrolyte imbalance and in danger of fainting so I walked back to my hotel where I have been resting but for an excursion for dinner (very little appetite right now) then came back to rest some more. Not quite as bad as my last trip here when I fainted in the hotel restaurant in San Cristobal, but I have to acknowledge I have been really busy and active and often overwhelmed by things (mostly positively) here. It is quite making me dizzy. Time will tell if I stop taking these trips but the evidence is mounting up that perhaps I´m not getting any younger. I had a little contact with beggars today, ¨mothers¨with children, positive I´d say. I really wish I could learn more about their situation though I don´t know how I could help them. Still, as they say, knowledge is power.

Sent: Thursday, March 21, 2013 6:29:02 PM
Subject: more random observations

I seem to be recovering well from yesterday´s illness. My appetite is back in full but my walking is still a bit wobbly.  Yesterday the  only thing I could eat without wanting to gag was Hershey´s chocolate almond kisses.  I try to maintain a steady supply of them in my hotel room and every night I purchase from the bartender a tall glass of cold (hopefully, sometimes it´s luke warm or room temperature) milk which I take up to my room to enjoy with the chocolate.  He must find this very amusing but I did mention to him that I just don´t like alcohol.  No problem with it.  I would just not rather drink it.  And this helps me save truckloads of money.  Actually I´m not sure if I´ve shared this with any of you but my real epiphany revelation about booze must have occurred around twelve years ago when I was super poor and relatively fresh from being homeless.  I was walking through downtown Vancouver to a favourite cafe-bar of mine to buy a beer, one glass of brown ale, a rare treat which for a change I could afford.  Then a young man approached me and asked me if I would buy him a slice of pizza.  So, I bought him two slices of pizza, then proceeded to the cafe-bar where I had a coffee instead.   I didn´t go very far, just spent the afternoon in Condesa.  Cumulatively I must have spent five hours spread out in three different cafes where I started drawing number seven.  It´s a beautiful area, I used to stay in this neighbourhood until my financial situation and the lack of generosity of the bed and breakfast owners where I stayed made it necessary for me to go elsewhere. But it smells like sewage, but so does most of Mexico City. In Parque Mexico, which is in Condesa, they put up a sign which translates as ¨Please, we beg you to use the benches appropriately.¨  I wonder what they might be referring to... On Reforma, on the south boulevard there is an enormous book fair stretching for almost six blocks.  I bought a small volume of tales of terror.  Just the thing to put me to sleep in Spanish. Sent: Friday, March 22, 2013 6:31:56 PM Subject: Chilango Follies Today I officially morphed into a tourist.  I have never thought of myself as someone who buys a bunch of useless stuff  on a trip while taking photos everywhere and simply looking ridiculous in his Tilly Endurables (never worn ém, never will).  My style of travel always has and hopefully always will be from the ground.  I don´t even spend a lot of time visiting museums since I often find them time-consuming and exhausting when I´d rather be out on the street in the open air seeing and interacting with the people who live here.  This is not to dis museums by the way.  They are great education tools and I have nothing but good to say about the Museum of Anthropology here in Mexico City.  I might even nerve up for another visit before I leave this fabled city.  So what suddenly makes me a tourist?  I bought something pretty, useful but not hugely necessary and that is bound to remind me fondly of Mexico City whenever I look at it.  That´s right, I bought a cocoa pot and it is lovely and I´m looking forward to using it when I get it home.  I also bought another book at the book fair on Reforma, a thick novel about the Knights Templar in medieval Barcelona for the equivalent of eight bucks Canadian.  In Chapters I might get it for twenty minimum.  I also mentioned to the booksellers the tragedy of the many closing bookstores in Vancouver thanks to Amazon and e-readers, especially given how integral bookstores are to the cultural character of a city. All night long I was bitten by mosquitoes.  I must have woken up with a dozen bites or more on my body.  Mosquitoes aren´t quite so dangerous here in Mexico City where there is no problem of dengue fever or malaria.  So I don´t feel worried, just taken advantage of!  Isabel the cleaning lady (whom it turns out is 67 and not 77 as I erroneously reported, left a can of Raid in my room but I haven´t used it much because I´m afraid of inhaling the chemicals as I sleep but I´m going to start using it regularly till the end of my stay.  Better than being a buffet.  Which reminds me of a Joan Rivers joke.  Remember her? The Queen of Mean.  She´s eighty this year but thanks to her tens of thousads worth of plastic surgery could pass for a surgically enhanced sixty-three.  She was particularly famous for her Liz Taylor fat jokes, such as ¨You´d never catch Liz Taylor in a nudist colony because after one look at her all the mosquitoes would yell BUFFET !!!!´  While sipping an americano and working on drawing number seven in a cafe on La Reforma I watched as a thief got chased down and apprehended by a couple of bystanders who held him until the police, who were quite reasonable in their treatment of him, arrived.  Among the observers was a man on a bicycle with his little girl seated just behind him.  It was touching seeing him soothe her after seeing this spectacle. I have forgotten to mention here that free community bikes are ridden everywhere here.  Unfortunately this doesn´t seem to have lessened the volume of traffic any, and the cyclists are every bit as reckless and clueless as the drivers are here. Especially the cab drivers. Almost as bad as cyclists in Vancouver! Speaking of cab drivers, today I saw one cab where the head lights were adorned with giant false eye lashes. A bit later I saw a huge cloud of rainbow hued bubbles drifting towards me from the street (Reforma) then watched as two young men worked their way in and out of the stalled traffic, one with the bubble machine going and the other holding a sign.  When they returned to the sidewalk I tried to read as much of the sign as possible but his arms were covering most of it and I assumed it would say something about turning off your cell phone while drivig.  On my way back from Chapultepec Park and Polanco I saw them again and one of them let me read the sign.  It was an offer of charging drivers´ cell phones for a fee while waiting in traffic and he was carrying in his hand a whole cluster of chargers.  They both kind of gave me the creeps, like scrawny reform school dropouts that would gladly stick a knife in you for a couple of easy pesos. Speaking of traffic there are a few crosswalks near Chapultepec with images of stick man pedestrians wearing crowns on their heads.  Ha! As if!  And free tortillas for everyone!