La Ciudad

There isn't a word in the English language that sufficiently describes the urban expanse that is Mexico City. It is sprawl on steroids, density unparalleled spread beyond the horizon, full circle, stacked stories high, shanties for rooftop garnishes, at night a distant glow of etheareal embers.

We're staying at a hostel, Hotel Catedral, a block behind the Zocalo, the central square in Mexico City. As luck would have it, we arrived at the beginning of the weeklong annual celebration of Mexican Independence. The truckloads of machine-gun toting military and police personnel patrolling some radius from the Zocalo are more unnervering than reassuring.

The kilometers around our hostel are packed with every sort of shop and street vendor imaginable, milling with thousands upon thousands of patriots and police disregarding every common sense law of car-packed street navigation. Honks, whistles, and shouts comprise the omnipresent aural assault, with the malodor of sewage, garbage, and exhaust intermittently disrupted by wafting scents from streetside food vendors hawking tacos and tortas for mere coin, bills for those who prefer the relative health standards of a sit-down restaurant. But we're here to steel our stomachs and stretch our dollars, so we'll brave cramps and diarrhea for sublime tacos al pastor from a fly-swarmed cart. Last night I sampled a plate of delicious platanos fritos -- "Si, con todo," I instructed the seller behind the rickety cart -- smothered by various colored icings and sauces from squirt bottles, and I've yet to suffer any consequences; Jackson, too, survived his three hotdogs for twelve pesos. Tonight wé've resolved to sample the giant-kerneled corn grilling on every block, often off the cob and mixed with chilis and mysterious sauces. Hunks of dried fruit the size of fists made window shoppers of us when we pass one dulcerias, and panaderias abound, selling assorted breads, cakes, and pastries for small stacks of pesos. I experienced postre de las tres leches for the first time an hour ago, the moistest cake I´ve ever had the pleasure to devour, and it'll remain a staple of my diet as long as it's available. Dollars are accepted most places, but we're dealing in pesos, which equate to approximately one dime apiece. Nearly forty-ounce varieties of excellent Mexican beer, including many we don´t see stateside, sell for less than 20 pesos.

We stand out walking the streets, a head taller than most, wearing white shoes we've renamed after supermodels they're -- excuse me for lack of a better term -- eye-fucked so frequently. But I'm less paranoid already, after two days of working myself through throngs with their spitfire español. I won´t wear the stomach-bound money belt I purchased anytime soon. I will be wary, however, of beer companies' promotional chicas. Supposedly the girls promoting Victoria wield a device that electrocutes the daring, or more likely meatheaded, so severely that they are unable to release the grips until the devious cerveza vixens, having had their fill of agonized screams and faces contorted by anguish, cut the flow of electricity. As Jackson describes it, complete with convulsions, "jiggling your bones" for free Victoria almost sounds like a fun game, just one that would never be legal in the US outside of government-sponsored torture sessions.

For about $15 per night, our hostel is quite nice. We're in a dorm with three bunkbeds, a shower and toilet. The hostel is sex stories high, with a restaurant and bar on the main floor, a rooftop terrace and bar, another balcony, and a kitchen, laundry service, and this cheap internet cafe (from where I'm transcribing these previously handwritten entries). We're provided a mini-buffet breakfast of fruit and bananas, cereal and milk, yogurt, bread and jelly, and coffee. The cereals are corn flakes and Cocoa Crispies, and something fiber-rich that resembles twigs. I miss my cereal stocked cupboard. (Our first morning, however, we tried cochinita pibil, a traditional Yucatan breakfast of spiced and shredded pork piled upon bean paste on a tortilla. Sensational. A candied gauva mixture we snacked upon later was equally enlightening.) With the hostel dinner nothing more than one helping of an iceberg-romaine blend and a side dish that was one night scrambled eggs, another tortillas piled with undiscernible gunk, I'll have to rely upon cerveza and panaderias to keep my weight up.

Past my initial fear of being pumped full of automatic gunfire from the menacing government forces, I'm more concerned about our hostel shower. Jackson described the emitted stream of water as a missile, which I promptly dismissed as nothing more than a firm stream. Upon engaging the shower, missile stream proved an understatement. I'm convinced our showerhead is one step removed from the riot control water cannons I expect to see unleashed in the streets any of the coming nights, to control the surging masses celebrating independence.

We bus to Oaxaco tomorrow morning at 8:30am, so we'll take the Metro from the stop adjacent the Zocalo to the southernmost bus station, then ride six hours in luxury for a mere $36 each. All of you still in the US: suckas!

My Life in Ziplocs

We're only a few hours into our indefinite adventure, high above the craggy western US, flying toward San Francisco as part of the world´s most awkward-yet-affordable route to Mexico City, where we'll touchdown this evening.

Jackson and I are a like-minded pair. Both left-handed, tacos, beer, and chicas are the sole motivations for our journey into and throughout Mexico, Central America, and wherever else impulse carries us. While devouring tacos and hoisting beers, held in our left and right hands, respectively, our handedness will decrease the likelihood of our bumping elbows. And where are the chicas, you ask? Ah, the imagination...

My High Sierra Compass travel backpack finally arrived at 5:22pm yesterday evening, a full 12 hours before we were to depart Davidson to catch the first leg flight. I was taking one final hot shower at the time, relieving the stress of minutes before witnessing the UPS man drive directly past my house. My contingency plan involved assualting Jackson and stealing his bag, but I´m glad to have him along in full capacity. I´ll need someone to trip to distract and occupy our pursuing kidnappers, or as a friendly offering to the chop-and-burn ritual killers who my mom keeps suggesting are gonna get me. Let 'em try, momma! In a land where full-sized adults rarely stand larger than American kindergartners and carry fractions of the fast food padding, I´ll finally be the towering, fearsome foe I´ve always pretended to be on internet message boards or whenever I´ve been lucky enough to confront an unaccompanied minor chutes-end of some playground slide.

I´m going to miss American beers, the myriad, superlative microbreweries spotting our drinker´s landscape; Kalamazoo, MI´s Bell´s Brewery and Ashville, NC´s Highland Brewery foremost on my tongue. I won´t miss American beer prices, however, except happy hour specials that render palate-awakening microbrews affordable, or Charley´s of Ann Arbor´s nightly pitcher specials of LaBatt, which fall in line with Mexican affordability.

Come to think of it, I should´ve poured a Bell´s Two Hearted Ale or six into the assortment of plastic grocery bags and recycled Ziplocs I have emcompassing nearly every non-clothing item in my backpack(s) -- one becomes two with the detachable daypack/carry-on. When I walk, I crinkle like I´m wearing and smuggling a year's worth of Pampers. All I know is I wouldn't approach any adult I suspected of wearing diapers, so maybe my waterproofing measures will prove crime deterrent too.

Unfortunately, my apparent Pamper-donning might repel precisely the type of illicit behavior I hope to attract. I tiptoed into a women´s restroom at Charlotte Douglass International Airport this morning, occupying a stall and expecting my toe-tapping sex signals to snare a lascivious stewardess for a toilet-top tryst. The tested methods of closet-homosexual republican congressmen have no noticeable effect in Charlotte Douglass' concourse B. I repeat: concourse B is not a hotspot for foot-flapping fuckfests.

I apologize to the uninitiated for that vulgar outburst. ¨"Toe-code hookups" doesn´t breed the same impact.

Jackson and I will soon be recording a weekly for-pay video segment tentatively entitled "Dos Gringos Desnudos." However unlikely, in my porn-star fantasies the tapings will employ the surplus box of contraceptives I´m hauling and an array of libidinous latinas.