There is a very specific exhaustion that comes from taking a red-eye flight to another country and not being able to check into the hostel for another seven hours. Reyna and I dropped off our bags and bleary-eyed, we hit the streets of Mexico City. As Americans with the wrong stomach bacteria, everyone told us to stay clear of non-bottled water. The first thing we did that morning? Order iced coffee. We started drinking before it hit us, and our solution was to chug before the ice melted. Do as I say, not as I do and all that… but hey, our stomachs were fine. That did give us enough confidence to risk it one or two more times. I mean, how were we supposed to go to Mexico and not drink agua frescas? We tried though – the month spent in Latin America was the most I’ve ever seen Reyna have hot drinks.
Adrenaline and excitement fueled by caffeine carried us even as our bodies protested. We stopped in a hotel lobby known for its stained glass ceilings but truthfully, we stayed simply to sit somewhere for a bit.
We didn’t stay long – we were worried about the employees getting suspicious that we weren’t actual hotel guests. So we walked until something caught our eye: the Pink Panther. A two story gallery showcasing art inspired by the Pink Panther. It was so absurd and funny and perfect to stumble across something this familiar this far from home. We bought tickets to see it, but we didn’t realize that our tickets came with a tour… in Spanish. Reyna had taken high school Spanish and passed the fluency exam six years ago. I’d taken high school French (no fluency exam) but at least some words sound kind of sort of the same. The thing about being brown with curly black hair is that while people didn’t necessarily assume we were Mexican, they did assume we were from some Hispanic country and could understand everything. It was helpful to not stand out as tourists (targets) but not helpful when people would jump into rapid-fire Spanish at us, just like this tour guide did. He was also very enthusiastic about it being an interactive tour where we answered trivia questions. Unfortunately, Reyna’s Spanish classes didn’t cover Pink Panther vocab so we went with the ultimate strategy: Smile and Nod. It would’ve worked except there were only four people, including us, on the 11:30 am Thursday morning tour. We almost got away with saying “no sé” to every question, until he called us out on never participating and making the tour less fun. Then we had to come clean. We weren’t complete idiots or miserable people who didn’t know how to participate. We were just American.
The internet is powerful and I love it. But sometimes too much access can be limiting. We never would’ve gone to a Pink Panther exhibit and pretended to understand Spanish if we made a detailed itinerary. Sure, we did scroll on Reddit for recommendations, but I don’t always want to get caught up in finding the “best tacos," the “best vintage store," or the “best margaritas.” Hey chat, can you plan my trip for me?
Some of the “best” moments you can’t plan for.
We didn’t plan to make a friend in our hostel who took us to a happy hour at another hostel. We didn’t plan to invite four Danish men on a boat tour of canals with us. We didn’t plan to sit in at a fruit stall in a sprawling food market as the employees kept up a steady stream of fruit scraps from smoothies while we waited for our order.
One day we were so tired that we could’ve stayed at the hostel all night. But we didn’t travel to sleep on bunk beds, we were sleeping on bunk beds to travel. So we walked until we heard live music. A Mexican rock cover band was playing at a bar ten minutes from our hostel. The patrons were clearly regulars singing along at the top of their lungs. We ordered two margaritas, took out a deck of cards, and let the music wash over us while we tried to beat each other playing Speed. I don’t know the name of this bar, but we retraced our steps for a second night.
I can’t talk about travel without talking about food. The two are inextricably linked. I was raised on Anthony Bourdain in a household where we always said, “We eat everything.” Food is culture.
So I tried mole for the first time. I didn’t know much about it – the only thing I’d vaguely heard was that it’s a combination of meat and chocolate sauce. That didn’t sound appealing at all. However, I believe in trying everything once and probably twice.
I regret that I didn’t try it before, but I don’t regret having my first time be at this tiny restaurant. Chocolate-sauced-covered-meat isn’t inaccurate but it is possibly the worst way to describe the dish. The one we had was tender chicken and cheese layered together and covered in a rich sauce with a subtle warmth from cinnamon and chocolate. Mole is so, so good.
I also had my first taco.
You might be thinking, Anusha, surely you’ve had a taco before. I thought that too, until I had a taco on a warm night in the streets of Mexico City. We were hungry, it was late, so we followed our noses and turned the corner to find a man grilling on a massive cast iron circular slab. It was sectioned off into chicken, pork, beef, onions, and cactus. A rainbow of plastic plates were off to the side. A couple, maybe in their early thirties, was off to the side recapping their night. Of course, I couldn’t understand, but I know a debrief when I see one. There was a family of three too. The dad was buying a bottle of water from a stand a few feet away and the mom was asking for his order. Their son, maybe eight or nine at most has a blue luchador mask on, completely ignoring his mother as he reenacted the lucha libre fight they’d just come from.
I ate two tacos al pastor with onions and cactus. The tortillas were fresh and soft, the meat flavorful and juicy, practically melting in my mouth. The heat both from the temperature and the spices woke me up despite the hour.
Both of these meals happened well past 10,000 steps, finding places based on instinct rather than ratings. The satisfaction that comes from a finger-licking hot meal after a bone-tiring day of tree-lined streets and strummed melodies is a feeling I chase on every trip.
I’m not against planning. In fact, if you know me in real life, you know that my calendar is usually overflowing with plans. I wanted to try Panadería Rosetta because I found it on TikTok and that guava ricotta pastry was one of my favorite bites of the trip. We didn’t go to the Frida Kahlo Museum because we didn’t book tickets far enough in advance (I will take the excuse to go back though). But that meant we decided to go Museo Anahuacalli instead, and I wouldn’t trade that experience. You can’t truly experience a place if every moment is dictated by your algorithm. That’s not travel, that’s a highlight reel made by someone else.
A couple friends have asked me how Reyna and I planned a month-long trip. The answer is we booked flights, we booked Macchu Picchu (we weren’t screwing up that one), and then we showed up. We walked. We asked the people we met what they liked. We took the occasional Reddit recommendation or browsed a listicle on Google. And we booked a trip to the Atacama Desert because two Brazilian girls in Peru told us we should – more on that later.