Interamericana

South from Texas over the great Sierras of Mexico, high in the air, clouds rolling and swelling and spilling out rainbows. Everything shifting and shivering in the diminishing light: white, grey, black, violet.

Below us the old, old mountains adorn the land like some giant crocodile hide. Deep green ridges, folds, creases, scars. A wilderness punctuated by thread-like mule tracks and barely perceptible highland settlements. The sky and the earth are alive and now. Everything is chattering in interesting ways.

Mexico City creeps into view. A crumbling and monstrous mosaic threatening to collapse under its own enormity. North, south, east, west – it reaches outward without end, perpetually ravenous, never satiated. Mexico City: a vision of impossible, bloated, corpulent hunger.

Back on land and out of the aircraft. The first thing that hits me: the smell. It demands reams, pages, books. Mexico City’s odour could fill an entire library with its poetry. It starts in the nostrils, soon infecting the throat, the lungs, the chest.

Everything burns and tightens. The eyes and skin too. Poverty, toil and piss contaminating the air. The dirt of industry and wanton excess. The sweet stench of rotten vegetables, liquefying on the pavements. Roasted goat flesh under an evening sky. Sulphur, sewage, sweat, all seeping through the pores. Marigolds in bloom and freshly turned graveyard soil. Smoking charcoal and sizzling fat. Love, clap and car exhausts!

I go wandering through four lanes of screaming traffic, past the protests and street food vendors. The air is seasoned with vociferous cries and freshly fried tacos, organ players and beggars beseeching a peso or two. Onwards to the Zócalo, the second largest public square in the world and positively teeming.

I navigate the crowds, the cars, the crashing, convoluted chaos. Death stands before me adorned in the sapphire robes of a saint. We stare at each other, hearts overflowing. Crowds gather around, tossing coins at her feet, whispering prayers and touching her skeletal fingers. Sunflowers arise with unrestrained solar exuberance. The city – Mexico, her people, her saints and her gods – all are alive and brimming over with Death. I’m home.

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2. Death in the City
3. Dance practice in Oaxaca City, Mexico
4. Working the city
5. Tabacalera