There's more!

As soon as my plane touched down at Logan International Airport my nose started to get runny and my stomach began to hurt. I spent seven days on a futon in a living room in a Bostonian suburb. Not exactly how I had imagined the beginning of my travels but still, I enjoyed watching the snow fall and reading.

A week later I was back at Logan, on my way to Mexico City (with a mere 11-hour stop in Chicago). Alone and still a little sickly I landed at Benito Juarez International around noon. My friends had volunteered to pick me up but when I got through customs I was just as alone as I had been for the last 18 hours.

There I stood, completely lost, in city of 21 million people. I didn't speak their language and had no idea where to go. A stream of travellers and picker-upers hustled past me; hugs there, kisses here. But no sign of my friends.

Fifteen minutes went by. Then another fifteen minutes. Forty-five minutes and nobody to pick me up. My soul and stamina shrinking by the minute.

Then I saw them! There they were! People I knew, people who spoke my language and would take me somewhere where I could finally shed my suffocating sheepskin jacket and get rid of my heavy luggage.

Scratch that; first we had to travel through the city. And what a city. Three subway rides and a 40-minute taxi drive later I was finally able to let go of my bags and change into something better suited for climates south of New England.

"Would you like to go for a boat ride now?"

In some sort of a travel trance I left a house in the southern hills of Mexico City and entered a bus with my travel companions. I zoned out for the bus ride. Someone pulled my hand; “We’re getting out here!”

I’m standing on a traffic street, somewhere on the outskirts of the city. I am dragged into a small convenience store. We get some snacks. And then I am placed in a magical world. Surrounded by colors and water and trees. This is Mexico, this is what I imagined and more. Finally I am here. We board a boat and for the next two hours we float slowly through the eerie canals of the Xochimilco borough, a community built on top of the once great Lake Xochimilco.

At last I feel like I have arrived, arrived at my destination in this beautiful country. I lie down in the bow of the boat; watching birds and butterflies and people bringing home their groceries in their boats. My friends sitting just few feet away, drinking sangría and nibbling on potato chips. This is life, this is what I came here for.