This was my fourth time in Ciudad de Mexico and also the longest — five weeks. I’ve flirted with making Mexico City a regular on my list of destinations so this time around I booked an apartment for six weeks in the neighborhood of La Condesa as a formal audition. Replete with cafes, excellent restaurants, and more casual street-side taco venues, La Condesa affords tremendous value and quality for the price. For this reason, many extranjaneros make it or the neighboring barrios of Roma and Roma Norte their home away from home.
I had avoided doing the same — comfort is dangerous! This time around, however, I wanted to absolve myself of logistical strains of new destinations to focus more of that time and energy on other pursuits — work and improving my Spanish. Thanks to a recommendation from my friend, Niraj, I found a great workspace to base myself on days when working from my apartment felt unappealing.
I had two different morning commutes each workday. The first was to and from my gym at 6:30 AM. Charmingly simple, small, and inexpensive (75 pesos a day or 300 pesos for a 1-month membership), I learned to arrive earlier rather than later in order to have space to do my pushups. If you follow my blog a regular theme is my love of searching and finding new gyms in every city that I visit. Blue-collar gyms such as Roma gym are my favorite. The equipment is usually very old, and the space is usually constrained — but it’s more fun because you can build camaraderie alongside those other blue-collar gym-goers without sharing a sentence of speech. Eye contact, a nod of the head, and sometimes a grunted gesticulation is all that is needed to communicate the availability of a given piece of equipment for another’s use. If you show up regularly, you’ll start getting smiles as well. — Duchenne smiles — though their mouths are covered in masks due to the gym restrictions, you can still see a grin from their eyes.
On my way to the gym, it was early enough that shopkeepers were beginning to emerge to sweep their storefronts and street vendors were readying their stalls for the breakfast commuters. Returning home after exercising, the streets were busier with cars and the food vendors were serving pedestrians sandwiches, coffee, and juices on many corners. The post-exercise endorphins and the cool morning air made it a peaceful and relaxing stroll home. Each day I passed in front of two different primary schools and witnessed parents delivering their children past the posted security guards at the entrances. Occasionally fresh eggs laid by the school’s chickens (presumably) were offered for sale on a small table outside — patrons deposited fifty pesos ($2.50) in a small dish and were free to take a dozen eggs.
I would then return to my two-bedroom apartment (one of these rooms served as a home office and though I invited many guests to visit and stay, none did), turn on music through my tiny, portable speaker, take off my clothes, and throw them anywhere. Showering to playlists including Bob Seger’s Travelin Man, Kansas’ Point of Know Return, I would cook a ritualized breakfast consisting of 4 eggs, grilled onions, poblano chiles, and melted manchego cheese — served into a wide tin cup and eaten with a fork over the kitchen sink (so as to reduce the obligation of additional dishwashing). I made a habit of also mixing a new favorite beverage as accompaniment:
Mexican Breakfast Brew
In a blender: add ice-cold whole milk (8 oz)
3-4 heaping tablespoons of pure, organic cacao (not dutch processed!!)
1/2-1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2-1 teaspoon turmeric
1/2-1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
Cacao contains theobromine which in humans has weaker, similar effects to caffeine consumption. Cinnamon and turmeric are also useful in their own biohack ways. I became infatuated with this earthy, smoldering spicy-cinnamon, chocolate concoction. Give it a try and see how it suits you as a coffee or breakfast replacement!
My second daily commute came after breakfast and was to the cafe/coworking space I became accustomed to frequenting. The scenery here was different from my earlier gym commute as the streets I passed through were by this time (8:40 AM) abundant with passersby. It wasn’t long before such rhythms of my daily life became comfortable patterns that I learned to relish. I began carrying my camera in hand to capture them. Here a corner juice vendor squeezed oranges, pre-empting his inevitable customers. There, a dog waits outside a coffee shop for its owner’s addiction to be sated. Such regular routines as my daily morning walks form the heartbeat of a pleasant life; I’ve done well in avoiding their comfortable allure — a siren’s song meant to drag down adventurous travelers such as myself. Everything in moderation.
There is a lot to explore as a tourist in Mexico City; I hiked two volcanos (you can see photos of my hike of La Malinche here and photos from the Nevado de Toluca volcano here) and visited a creepy island filled with decayed dolls and saw ancient pyramids while riding in a hot air balloon. Being an ex-pat in Mexico City gives the benefit of living like a tourist, with the comforts of community and feeling somewhat like a local.
It had been a long time since it felt like I was living conventionally and La Condesa, Mexico City allowed me to try it on for size; it might not be such a bad thing to live conventionally, more often. That has a lot to do with the new friends I quickly found and made.
I became fast friends with Alejandro, an Uruguayan ex-pat who began as the head chef at the cafe I frequented the same week that I began visiting. His love of hiking and good cuisine inspired and educated me. My new buddy Jack, an avid traveler, and adventurer himself introduced me to the joy of Lululemon Joggers (basically yoga pants for men) and Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential. We shared many sessions chuckling over cocktails while sharing travel stories. Liz, an avid hiker, and outdoorswoman with an unerasable smile was a steadfast compatriot on both volcano hikes and the journey to the creepy doll island as well as a commendable drinking partner when the opportunity presented itself. Krystal was the ring leader of many of our social activities and effectively nudged me out of my insular modus operandi to partake in happy hours and social graces.
I was fortunate enough to reconnect with two of my favorite Mexican ex-pats, Jason and Travis who have settled in Mexico for the past several years; if they can do it for years, I can try it for three months next time and see how it goes.
So I’ll be seeing you, Mexico City — sooner rather than later. Once the winter returns, I’ll be back, for longer.
