Volume 1, Issue 3 & 4 - Diverse Voices Quarterly

After my sister and I stopped wanting to go to Mexico, my mother kept going.
She kept inviting us, but after a while she gave up. In my late-twenties, after finding a
book of poetry in Spanish my mother had from when she was little, I gathered an
interest in Latin American authors such as Pablo Neruda and Gabriel Garcia Márquez,
and I read some of their stuff, though in English. I bought their books in Spanish but
haven’t touched them.
A few years ago, when she was talking about going to my cousin Marcela’s
wedding, although she didn’t say anything about me going, I told her that I would go
with. She didn’t seem surprised and just said that it would be great, and we made
arrangements to go. At the wedding I saw my cousin Roberto who I hadn’t seen since
we were 12, when we played soccer in the streets of Ciudad Hidalgo, our parents’
hometown. He now lives in Mexico City, in la Zona Rosa, a wealthy neighborhood, and
does well for himself as a real estate speculator of some kind. That sparked a series of
trips for me, and over the next few years, I kept going back to visit him. We spent our
time partying in Mexico City, Cuernavaca, Puebla, Toluca, Zacatecas, and Acapulco.
We also visited Ciudad Hidalgo a couple of times.
To get to the funeral, I flew into Mexico City and had to take a cab from the
airport to the bus terminal that has departures west to Michoacan. There’s no
intrastate train system in Mexico, so you have no choice but to drive or take the bus.
It was my first time traveling from Mexico City to Ciudad Hidalgo alone, so it was quite
an experience.
Making my way to the cab stand in the airport was an experience in itself, with
so many people going back and forth, people selling stuff all over, and all sorts of
shifty eyes staring around. After grabbing a ticket from the taxi stand, I got into a cab,
holding my breath as I got in. Although I tried not to, I couldn’t help but think if the
guy wanted to do something like kidnap me, there was not much I’d be able to do to
prevent him.
In Mexico the cars just feel and smell different, like they’re cheap heaps of metal
and you feel every bump the car goes over. There are so many shrines of the Virgen
Maria all over the roads because people die driving all the time. And nobody seems to
obey any sort of driving rules—the cabs just zigzag down the streets, cutting from one
to another, suddenly jumping off a main road and onto a little thoroughfare, and then
onto another. Along the roads you pass all sorts of businesses, homes, more
businesses, dogs, people selling stuff, young couples completely making out on
benches, makeshift soccer fields, garbage, and clowns. (For some reason, there’s
always a bunch of clowns walking around Mexico City).
After eventually making it to the bus station and nervously buying a ticket, I ate
a steak torta while sitting next to men drinking beers and smoking, and then after
about an hour’s wait, I got on the bus and started the five-hour trip to Ciudad
Hidalgo. Though the buses have vastly improved since I was little, they’re still of far
less quality than the ones here. The seats are pasted together, there’s little to no elbow
room, no room to really lean back, no air-conditioning, and the cushions are stiff.
The bus station and the airport are located pretty much in the middle of the
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