Temple of the sun

In late September, my husband and I took a trip to Mexico City. I knew prior to leaving that I’d want pesos on hand, since it's easier to pay and more reliable, especially with street vendors. My parents had been big proponents of this ethos, encouraging my sister and I to pay in cash whenever possible. The day before our trip, I stopped at my bank, but learned they had to order the pesos in advance, something I should’ve considered, but, through lack of experience with international travel, had forgotten. I decided upon that embarrassment to transfer about fifteen hundred American dollars for pesos at the airport currency exchange. 

The international terminal at LAX held luxury boutique brands offering duty-free gifts to international travelers. I wondered how much business they did, considering the actions of the federal government, which decreased the rate of international travel, and had had a sizable impact upon communities that relied upon tourism for commerce. Situated between these stores, a small stall with a single worker housed the currency exchange. An older woman in her sixties stood behind bulletproof glass, and seemed to be totally locked within the stall, a strange circumstance considering the TSA security checkpoint required to enter the terminal and the overall heightened security at airports.

“I’d like to exchange for pesos,” I said to her.

She punched some information into her computer. “You’re smart to do it on this side. They’d scam you bad in Mexico, give you a bad rate. You’ll get a good rate here. Somehow the dollar is still strong today. It’ll go far in Mexico.”

I tapped my card against the machine, then she started to count out pesos into her hand. “The president is in town. Traffic this weekend is a nightmare. They’ve got all the streets downtown closed. So many secret service agents around. All for what? He hates it here. Complains about us. He’s destroying the world, you know. Everyone’s saying it. I talk to so many people that come through here, exchange money. All of them hate him. And I don’t even mean the international travelers, I’m talking about the Americans. The foreigners, well, they don’t have much to say, really. Usually get their dollars first. But you can feel it here. Tourism is down. Nobody wants to come to the states. And why would they? You’re a foreigner, there’s a risk you’ll be detained at the border. Taken into custody. It’s nonsense. What do you think about him?”

She started to count the pesos into the palm of my hand. One thousand, two thousand, up to nearly six. I was surprised by the exchange rate.

“No, I can’t say I like him.”

“Figures. Young kid like you. I don’t see why anybody your age would ever support him. He doesn’t believe in the future.”

I thanked her for the money, then deposited it into my wallet. I was hoping to fit it within the small pocket in the leather, but there were far more bills than I anticipated. I settled with folding them in half and fitting them beneath the metal clip. The wallet I then placed in the front pocket of my backpack. I always hate to have anything sitting in my pockets.

Our gate was deep at the end of the terminal, in a wing that felt like an extension of the main airport. The deep hangar held several moving walkways, end to end, to help travelers move faster. There were families with small children taking up the width of the walkway, slowing the flow of traffic. About halfway through, the incessant whirring of an alarm bell came from the ceiling. A dull, high-pitched buzz that scratched the inside of my ear and made my body shiver. As we passed this alarm, the noise became unbearable, shaking me down to the bones. The poor passengers whose gate sat beneath the noise stood in the hallway, hands clasped to their ears. The gate agents stood at their post, working, seemingly oblivious to the noise. Similarly, there were janitors around the set of restrooms working, nonreactive. The further we moved away from the alarm, the quieter it became, until we rounded the corner and entered another offshoot of the airport extension, where three more gates sat, each heading to central America. The din of the alarm persisted, but at this distance had become bearable, and resembled more the threat of a gnat than anything else.

Entering the annex of the international terminal, the waiting area was full of teenage missionaries, all wearing name tags that read “Brother” or “Sister” followed by their Christian name. The boys wore white, button-up shirts and black ties with black slacks. The girls wore plain-colored dresses with full-length sleeves and skirts that fell below the knee. None of the clothes seemed ironed or steamed, and since the team of missionaries seemed to be departing for their mission trip, the lack of care in presentation stood out. Surely they’d like to make a good impression upon landing in—looking at the gate beside ours—Guatemala. I wondered, too, how many citizens of Guatemala had yet to convert to Christianity, but thought it unwise to ask one of the youths. There didn’t appear to be any adult supervision of them, though it seemed possible they could be college-aged. It became harder and harder with time to determine the age of people younger than me. And certainly the way they dressed was no help.

Between checking in for the flight the day before and the moment of departure, they had changed our plane, switching to a smaller, older model. A man in a suit approached the gate agents and began to complain about the last-minute change. He had purchased a first-class ticket, and expected a first-class experience. That his seat had now switched from one of private luxury on a newer, larger aircraft, to a smaller, more cramped seat on an aircraft with only two aisles of seating instead of three seemed to him an occasion to re-imburse him for the cost difference. The gate agents instructed him that he would have to reach out to customer service if he intended to receive a refund. They did not have access to the financials, the gate agents told him. That must have been a hard-won concession for their union.

As we boarded, I remembered that the administration had updated their travel guidelines a week before, and decided that they were cutting the number of flights to Mexico. There was little worry ours would be affected—the flights had already been purchased—but we did feel that we had gotten lucky with the timing of the trip. 

———

My husband’s company had an office in the Roma Norte neighborhood of Mexico City. They began a few years before to lay off creative members of the team based in the United States and decided to rehire those roles with English-speakers in Mexico. The team members had done a good job, and my husband was eager to meet them in person. This was just a coincidence, and not the catalyst for the trip. Since we were in the neighborhood, he decided it was smart and advantageous to get face time, and a little work done, since even a few days away from the computer meant mountains of work upon return. Our hotel was in Condesa, the neighborhood southwest of Roma Norte, and situated beside a small park. 

The most striking part of the city was the amount of greenery. There were small parks throughout our neighborhood, and massive walking paths that ran the middle of major roads. These paths were well-shaded by tall, lush trees and bushes. The city sat in the Valley of Mexico on the high Mexican plateau, and had an altitude above 7,000 feet. It’s surrounded by mountain ranges and volcanoes. I dreamed as we walked down one of the main paths of this kind of infrastructure within the United States. I thought of the major roads in Los Angeles, dropping walking paths in the center of them, building out streetcar systems and a workable metro. It felt like a real city in this way—the amount of people walking past us, living their lives. Restaurants, street vendors, gyms, offices. The mix-use buildings provided inspiration for how to build a city for people to live, not just go to work. It became easy, too, to imagine what it would be like to live a life there. That was one of the joys of travel for me, to place myself in this foreign location, imagine the different outcomes my life could have taken.

After I dropped my husband off at work, I decided to wander around the city on my own, to take it in. I had studied Spanish for five years as a teenager, but had lost most of the language in the following decade of disuse. Still, I had had little difficulty navigating us through meals or taxi rides. A few blocks from his office building I passed a small storefront that seemed enticing. Upon entering, I noticed that it was a shop for witchcraft. There were sticks of incense and shelves with books. The books were separated into genres: horoscope, tarot, crafting, spells. Wooden boxes held votive candles for manifestation. A display along the wall held different gems, crystals, and stones: obsidian, aquamarine, selenite, pyrite, fluorite, quartz. There were bracelets and necklaces with these, meant to bring peace or ward enemies. One of the workers behind the counter held a bundle of lavender and explained to a customer how to light and use it. As I walked toward the exit, I noticed collections of coffin nails, chalices, crystal orbs, mortar and pestles, and other divination tools. The major arcana of the tarot deck lined the walls against the ceiling. In order my eyes ran across them. One of the employees approached me, and I could tell she knew I was an American. Whether this was divination or my outfit, I could not guess. I quickly nodded to her, then exited the store.

Beside the occult apothecary, there was a coffee shop. Adobe walls ran the far length of the room. Across from it, a single barista stood on her phone. The store was minimally decorated: a fern, plastic chairs, and a hand-written, chalk menu. I approached the register prepared to order.

“Va a ser un cafe negro,” I said, quickly .

The barista responded: “¿Para tomar o para llevar?”

She spoke the words flowing together, and my lack of experience made me hesitate.

“¿Puedes repetir más lento, por favor?”

The barista blushed and looked down. 

“For here or to go?” she asked me. The rest of the conversation was in English. I cannot remember what else I said, but I dropped my wallet and ordered the coffee “for here” out of a sense of humility. I took the cup and sat on the veranda that overlooked the main road. I watched the students get off a bus and walk home, and the bartenders heading to their evening shifts. A restaurant across the street had a soccer game on the TV, and crowds of people cheered as Mexico scored a goal. I finished my coffee, then placed it on the counter for the barista. I thanked her in Spanish, then headed back out and towards the hotel.

The park where we stayed had a playground, a library, a fountain and splash pad, an outdoor auditorium, and a field for sports. The sun was nearing the horizon, and the golden hour was upon the city. The leaves looked a perfect green on the trees, as if painted there by a master. There was a group of young men on skateboards in the auditorium, riding the rails and the steps. By the sidewalk, several young people set up shop: cardboard signs advertising tarot, palm readings, and fortune telling. They shuffled their decks in their hands, or laid them out on flip-top tables beside them. They lit incense or smoked joints. A few of them already had customers: young people desperate for answers to love. One of them, a young girl around 23, saw me watching and motioned me over. She asked me if I wanted a tarot reading.

I told her that I was an American, and spoke very little Spanish, so I likely wouldn’t understand the future she foretold.

“I speak English,” she said, so I sat down.

“What do you question?” She began shuffling the deck of cards in her hand. In her mouth she chewed a wad of bubblegum light green, and blew tiny bubbles that popped almost immediately.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I guess I’m seeking to know what I’m missing.”

“Have you lost something?”

“No,” I said. “I guess I’m curious if there’s more. If there’s something I can’t see.”

She nodded as if she understood, but I’m not sure I got my meaning across. She placed the deck on the plastic table beside us and asked me to cut it. I grabbed the top third, and placed it to the left of the rest of the pile.

“Your past,” she said, then flipped over the nine of swords.

“Your present,” she said, and flipped over the wheel of fortune.

“Your future,” she said, and flipped over the sun.

We looked at the cards for a moment. Behind her eyes, I could see she was formulating a story. She saw the three panes of the triptych and needed only to thread the needle between them to tell the narrative of my life.

“You’ve escaped a prison of your own making,” she said, pointing at the nine of swords. “You used to be a prisoner of yourself. A prison of your mind. But that is over—you have broken free. Insecurity. Fear. Anxiety. Those are behind you. Maybe you still feel them now and again, but you are better equipped to handle it. You don’t let them enclose you as they once did.”

She moved her hand and picked up the wheel of fortune. “You’re caught in a cycle of your life. It’s a moment of extreme uncertainty. But not bad. In a positive way, your life is in chaos. You have to learn to flow with the chaos and adapt with the changes. There are always changes in life. Nothing is stationary. That’s what this is telling you. To let go of yourself and allow your life to happen.”

She put down the card, then picked up the sun.

“If you can do this, then the universe will reward you. The sun is everything—it’s the trees, the food, the water. It is life itself. It is the card of yes. Surrender yourself to the present, to the path, and in the future everything will work out how it is supposed to.”

“But how do I know it’s the right future if I’m not actively building it?”

She shook her head. “Man cannot build the future, only experience it. Few lucky ones live to see the future. It is a blessing to grow older.” She pointed to a Shamel ash tree in the park beside us. It had grown around a large boulder stuck in the ground. The root system had built itself around the rock in several arcing tendrils, as if the base of the tree clutched it like a jewel. “You cannot tell the trees to stop growing. Be like a tree and grow anyway, because you have no other choice.”

I thanked her for the tarot reading, then pulled a couple hundred pesos out of my wallet. I handed them to her, then stood from the table. As I walked back to the hotel, I wondered if I had insulted her, not knowing if I had given her the equivalent of twenty dollars or five.

———

About an hour outside Mexico City in the shadow of a volcano sits Teotihuacan, an ancient mesoamerican city, now an archaeological site. Our tour bus picked us up around nine in the morning and drove across the city and up into the mountains northeast. Around ten we arrived at a small gift shop outside the national park. There, workers explained to us the different tools the ancient people used: arrow heads, spears. They showed us the many uses of the agave plant, and gave us samples of different tequilas and mezcals. Because of the volcanic activity around the region, obsidian was easily accessible. We held stones of obsidian, and in its shine I saw my reflection. Artisans crafted replicas of the pyramids out of the stone. There were mini statues of eagles, axolotls, snakes, and masks. While the Americans got their tour, the tour guides prepared the tickets for the archaeological site.

Our tour guide within the park was a nice woman named Rosa. She brought her three dogs with her: leashless dingos that looked like ancient dogs. Tan, short hair, thin bodies. They could’ve been mistaken for coyotes. One of the dogs had a lame front leg, and hopped along on just the other three. Rosa told us that the dog was fine, had been like that for years, and he seemingly had no trouble navigating the dirt roads around the pyramids.

Made of stone and towering high in the air, it was difficult to conceive of them as manmade. They predated the Aztecs, who found them and gave them their own stories and history. To think of something predating the Aztecs. 

There were three pyramids at Teotihuacan: the pyramid of the moon, the pyramid of the sun, and the temple of Quetzalcoatl. Between the sun and the moon ran the avenue of the dead, the main street of the city. Here many vendors set up blankets and sold trinkets, rugs, jewelry, obsidian. Our tour guide took photos of us in front of the pyramid of the sun. Walking down the avenue of the dead, she explained the layout of the city, how the people that lived there lived alongside the avenue of the dead, in little stone buildings that were now collapsing. Behind the pyramid of the sun, the large, dormant volcano rose into the sky. It became easy to imagine the ancient people seeing the grandeur of this volcano and seeking to recreate it in their own way. That was how art used to be: shocked at the beauty of nature, eager to recreate it ourselves. The history of the pyramids was a mystery—isn’t everything? 

Seeing them in person was a moment out of a dream. Unlike the city with its tall buildings and many trees, the area around the pyramids was sparse, desert-like. The sun rose high and pelted upon us. It should have occurred to me that we would be outdoors in direct sunlight for hours. I forgot to wear sunscreen or bring an umbrella. Instead we baked beneath the late-summer sun. In the heat I began to feel exhaustion, and an uncanny remove from reality. It was difficult to determine if this was from the overwhelming beauty of the pyramids, or the direct exposure to hot sunlight. By the end of the two hours, it became difficult to remember the specific stories the tour guide told us about the area, but I’ll never forget her kind demeanor.

After the tour of the pyramids, the tour guides took us to a local restaurant. There, one of the guides told us how she dreamed of going to New York and working for Vogue magazine. She wanted to work in fashion. I thought of the death of print media, and realized that the reality of America had not reached other places yet. The guides offered us free models of the pyramids if we reviewed them positively on the tour website. After publishing my positive review, I received an email from the company: did they offer us anything in exchange for the review? As I cradled the model of the temple of the sun, I deleted the email.

On the drive back to the city, I leaned my head against the side of the van and finished the water bottle the guides handed out at the start of the day. Margaritas, tacos, the summer sun, and the overwhelming power of the past had weighed upon me. I slept most of the ride back.

When we were in the middle of the city, my husband shook me awake. Our van had been pulled over. Three Mexican police officers on motorcycles parked behind the van. The driver in broken English tried to tell us there was nothing to worry about. We lined up on the sidewalk along a chain link fence that overlooked the barren valley below. One of the police officers came over and looked in my husband’s bag and saw a water bottle, my camera, and a smaller pouch with our wallets and passports. The police officer motioned at the passports, and my husband took them out and handed them to the officer. Another one came over and patted me down, starting at my armpits and ending at my ankles. I held nothing on my person. He moved over to my husband with similar results. The first officer handed the passports back to us. The driver of the van walked over the officers and began to speak to them in rapid-fire Spanish. A few moments later, the officers nodded at us, got back on their motorcycles and rejoined the highway. The driver gave us some platitudes about a van of white people being suspicious, that we had nothing to worry about, we were a certified tour group and had paid to be there. My husband and I got into the van first and sat in the back row. We were the only two who had been patted down and had their passports checked. Not once during the encounter had I felt nervous or scared. I stood on the sidewalk in the place between sleep and wakefulness. As I watched the police officers drive off in front of us, I felt grateful for the air conditioning in the van, and anticipated the cold shower I would take back in our hotel room.