A word on what went into this: I have this thing that I do (as a prank) where every time I travel I completely forget my digital camera’s memory card and have to scramble to either buy another or get a couple of disposable cameras. This hasn’t been a problem before, not least because it last happened in Ireland, where they speak a language almost like English. Not so in Mexico. For the first day and a half of my trip, I wandered around Mexico City - ¿Vendes cámaras desechables? ¿Sabes dónde puedo comprarlos? - with no luck. Evidently, disposable cameras are even less cool in Mexico than they are here. Halfway through the second day, a breakthrough - Gualma. Gualma will have it. It’s just that way. Gualma. Gualma (my Spanish being poor at best, I had to re-confirm the bearing with someone every 500 feet or so). A mile or more in esa dirección along Avenida Universidad, parched for want of horchata, I finally found it: the lost Aztec city of Gualma.

Mexico City

There’s whistling everywhere. Signaling the start and stop of music, orchestrating the city’s highly questionable street parking racket, echoing through alleys in an Omar’s comin’ sort of way. It’s a universal language, and yet somehow even more foreign to me than the Spanish being spoken. Certainly the effect was disorienting, but not for long - the omnipresent twittering was just one avatar of the ongoing, endless nighttime spirit of Mexico City. I stayed in Coyoacán, fortuitously close to two plazas that were the local gathering points for… well, just about anything. By the time I arrived, Día de Muertos was close enough to warrant celebration (in fact, any point during the nine days I was there seemed to be appropriate), and the plazas Jardin and Hidalgo were the destinations of choice for revelers. On my first night, I saw a dancing Michael Jackson impersonator (a wonderfully omnipresent figure in major South American cities), a group of teenagers freestyling over late-1990s beats, and a string trio, all drawing equal and large crowds. This was street performance as a scheduled event - rather than courting passers-by, the performers were there as a sort of house band. Mexican nightlife is split into a wonderful dichotomy of bars and ice cream shops - both were in ample supply around the fringes of the plaza and both were extremely happening scenes until late into the night - but I got the impression that they were accessories to the main event: standing, sitting, or milling about in the plaza.

During the day, not so much. The street performance scene shifts markedly; most noticeably, a veritable army of hurdy-gurdy men come out. Usually elderly, it can be quite painful to behold one who’s not quite up to keeping tempo as they cycle through the least-musical sequence of notes imaginable (here’s one of the best-case scenarios). Otherwise, things take on a decidedly American tenor. At best, this can mean uplifting recorder covers of popular songs; at worst, it can mean this, which you have to hear because I had to.

Oaxaca

First off, Oaxaca is cool as hell. Very intentionally, I was there during the, uh, meat of Día de Muertos; it’s widely-regarded as being one of the best examples thereof, for locals and foreigners alike. And boy, were there a lot of foreigners - for Europeans generally and Brits especially, Oaxaca during Día de Muertos seems to be a major destination. Eating at one of the fancier restaurants in town (and, in relative terms, blowing a bag and a half on a $15 meal), I had the awesome experience of watching five British finance bros (I assume the look is international) walk in, each decked out in a poncho and vaquero hat. Maybe you had to be there.

It was impossible to tell whether street performance was as much of a thing in Oaxaca because there were nonstop parades while I was there. If you so chose, you could begin marching around right after dinner and end up in a cemetery around dawn. Of particular note was the democratization of it all; there was plenty of scheduled programming, but also a seemingly endless assortment of what I can only describe as guerrilla marching bands - groups of high school-age kids running around and popping up out of nowhere with tubas, trumpets, and a drumline. It was extremely difficult, perhaps impossible, to navigate the city after dark without being swept into a massive crowd.

I played myself a little bit by unknowingly booking myself a place on the outskirts of the city that also didn’t have internet, but I’m going to play that off as an intentional choice. In all other regards, it was remarkable; an incredible side-effect of the relatively stable Mexican climate is that entire sections of houses - living rooms, kitchens, bedrooms - can be built with one or two walls and remain otherwise open to the elements. My somewhat dungeon-like room opened up onto a big, panoramic platform that overlooked the city. Needless to say I spent a lot of time there, including a few hours on my last night. While I was somewhat shielded from the sounds of the city, the entire Oaxaca Valley was filled with the sound of barking dogs cursed with more acute hearing. This recording doesn’t quite convey the feeling, but it truly seemed as though the world had been overtaken by wolves. Before leaving the next morning, I made this recording in the same spot.

Puebla

Having done a much better job sticking to the topic of sound than in the Las Vegas piece, I think I’ve earned a digression: I ate something in Puebla that blew my fucking mind. Attributed to a sudden influx of Lebanese immigrants in the 80s, the Mi embodies the idea of the best of both worlds to such an extent that it renders the term obsolete in any other use. Pork is marinated in a combination (exact proportions varying with the seller) of traditional al pastor and gyro spices, then shaved off the spit (you know those incredible rotating vertical meat sticks) and served in a tortilla-size pita. Absolutely bonkers; for a full day I forsook proper meals in lieu of simply ordering one whenever the opportunity arose.

Anyway, Puebla’s neat; it has neither the vacationed-in sheen of Oaxaca nor the suffocating air pollution of Mexico City, which means that it’s actually not unlike many American cities. There was no shortage of live music, albeit usually occurring in more traditional venues - I heard this streaming out of a second-floor bar, and made this recording in some sort of open-ceilinged church with unbelievable natural reverb (pictured above). I spent some time in a sort of standalone food court called The Market of Flavors, to which I’d like to return very soon.

On my last day, I took a train to the nearby city of Cholula, the discerning hot sauce lover’s destination of choice over the more southern state of Tabasco. With less than 24 hours remaining in my trip, I was on a thoroughly enjoyable mission to blow my remaining pesos by any means necessary. Leaving myself just enough to catch a bus to the airport the next morning, I ordered a mezcal and a Dos Equis and sat for a while, listening to some sort of devotional performance by a group of older women just outside of the bar.

I like Mexico a whole lot. If interested, you can find a few more audio sundries (and pictures) on the HR Soundcloud. If ever you go, please don't hesitate to reach out with questions (before) or stories (after).