June 11, 2014, Mexico. Le Barrales had invited me to visit him in Mexico City. We’d met at the Musicology Hostel in Bogotá, Colombia, in October 2012. I had planned to visit the following summer, but life had other plans. On April 30, 2013, I was a passenger in a car accident that shattered my right ankle, tibia, fibula, and a few ribs. After a couple of tricky surgeries, I was non-weight bearing for three months and spent the next year in rehab, essentially relearning how to walk.

After that long, frustrating process, I finally made it to Mexico City. Le and Ruben, his dad, picked me up in Ruben’s small car, and somehow we made it back to San Buenaventura, a small town where Ruben lived east of the city. We spent two lovely days together—one wandering the pueblo and walking up to a lookout (it was too hazy to see the volcanoes), and the next exploring Amecameca, a beautiful colonial town with a grand cathedral and a convent on a hill. We also searched for a phone I could use in Mexico, which turned out to need to be “liberado” (unlocked) so I could use it in other countries.

Ruben and I stepped inside the cathedral, and I marveled at the beauty of the stone floors and walls. As Le pointed out, nearly all the cathedrals in Mexico are built atop sacred sites—Mexica, Toltec, Aztec. So it’s always bittersweet to admire the facades, knowing that the very stones often came from sacked pyramids (as with Templo Mayor in Mexico City, whose stones were used to build the cathedral next to it). We also did the peregrinaje up the mountain to the cemetery.

One day I tried pulque—a fermented drink revered by the Toltecs—made from maguey cactus. Ironically, we had two of those cacti growing in our backyard in Sunnyvale, CA. They got so big we had to use a truck’s tow bar to pull them out. I sampled pulque in durazno (peach) and piña (pineapple) flavors. I couldn’t finish either—they’re really strong and reputedly good for, well, strength in all forms, especially sexual 😉

We visited a friend of Ruben’s who runs a paletería, a small ice cream shop that makes its own fruit bars from water or milk. I tried the guayaba (guava), which I first fell in love with in Colombia. A very kind man brought over the best chicken with mole, blue corn tortillas, and salsa, and after a bit of nudging, sang traditional songs from his home near Oaxaca. He leads tours in the south of Mexico and says the gringos love when he sings. For him, it’s about passion and sharing—something I definitely felt.

The next phase of the trip was in Villa de las Flores in Coacalco, just north of the city limits and near the Sierra de Guadalupe. I visited the center of the city one day, but decided it was too far to do every day—it took nearly two hours each way by crowded combi (a small van where everyone sits around the perimeter). So I spent the other days walking up into the hills of the Sierra. It was hot and humid—probably 90°F with 90% humidity—but I was determined. A kind young park ranger showed me a path through a field of flowers. June is the start of the rainy season, with fierce thunderstorms, lightning strikes, and thunder that can shake your core.

On another outing, I admired the murals in the Palacio Municipal of Coacalco. As with so many murals in Mexico, they depict the treachery of Spanish colonizers and the betrayal of the people by some of their own—but also the bravery and resistance of many who stood their ground. I’ve spoken to many people who say life is harder now than even five years ago. I think of the lasting impacts of NAFTA and the 2008 economic crisis. Pay is dismal for most jobs, and people are just scraping by.

On my last day in Villa, I visited Teotihuacán, just about an hour away. I arrived early, before the hordes. I climbed the Pyramid of the Moon, thought by some archaeologists to represent water on earth—rivers and streams—based on frescos showing sinewy, snake-like water imagery. The site was built by the Toltecs, who may have spoken Nahuatl, though researchers aren’t sure. They used some Mayan words, and the city was later abandoned for centuries until it was rediscovered and revered by the Aztecs, who named it Teotihuacán—”the place where men become gods.” The Pyramid of the Sun (with steeper steps) is believed to have honored Tlaloc, god of rain and storms. At the site’s entrance is a large plaza, recently speculated to have once been covered in water to honor its sacred role in Toltec life. The Toltecs were agricultural—growing corn, beans, chia, squash, and more.

Le had just finished a building project, and I found myself feeling homesick and unsure. I had come mostly in response to his invitation, but I felt disoriented—maybe in culture shock. I started studying maps and thinking about where to go next: Guanajuato, Zacatecas, San Miguel de Allende, Tula, Teotihuacán, Puebla, Oaxaca, Chiapas—particularly San Cristóbal de las Casas. I wanted to explore the center of Mexico City which was no easy feat, given the intense sprawl. Combis are everywhere—small vans stuffed with people going every which way.

One night, I had the rare opportunity to attend a concert at the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes. It was a stunning performance of Handel’s Judas Maccabaeus oratorio, conducted by Horacio Franco. I met him by accident while sitting on the theater steps. The theater itself was built during Porfirio Díaz’s bloody reign. He was a Francophile who had the institute built in neoclassical French style. His obsession with European aesthetics came at a cost—he violently repressed Mexico’s indigenous people, exiling and murdering many. The concert ended at 11:30pm, and I didn’t get back to the house until 1:30am.

I finally left Le’s mother’s house and took a combi into the center to see museums and avoid 4-hour commutes. A kind man named Jaime, a friend of Le and a local shaman working to revive Mexica culture, invited me to stay at his place. He holds temazcales (sweat lodges) that date back to the Toltec warriors. I slept in a treehouse of sorts—open to mosquitoes, traffic noise, horns, and exhaust. After several nights of almost no sleep (Jaime is popular and had guests at all hours), I looked for a quieter place. Another friend of Jaime’s offered me a room for 200 pesos, the cost of a hostel, and generously gave me his own space.

We visited the Antigua Colegio de San Ildefonso, a Jesuit seminary from the 1700s. The historic center is full of colonial architecture with beautiful archways and courtyards—stunning to any architect. The entire city is slowly sinking, having been built atop a lake. One day I walked around Chapultepec Park, where there’s still a small lake with boats. It was Sunday, and it felt like the whole city (or those not in Acapulco on vacation) was out enjoying the day. A clown was telling risqué jokes in a way that flew over the kids’ heads, and on the hill stood Porfirio Díaz’s castle. After seeing several of his former homes, I fully understood why the people revolted in 1910.

Díaz also had massive underground drains built to protect the city from floods, one of which was dug straight through the middle of Templo Mayor, destroying part of its ancient history. I visited Templo Mayor on a free Sunday, as well as the Museum of Medicine, where I was especially interested in pre-Hispanic herbal and healing practices. I joined a Spanish-language tour of Diego Rivera’s murals in the Palacio Nacional and visited the Museo de Caricaturas, full of political cartoons that skewered corrupt politicians—much like in Chile and the U.S., where satire has long been a safe mode of critique.