Adios Mexico, Welcome to My Rankings

I have come to realise there are very, very few places I have enjoyed as much as Mexico. When I consider how much I like a place, it always comes down to the breadth of experiences I can create or access, which includes food & drink. Mexico is one of the top 4 regions I have ever tasted and visited. In no particular order, the 4 places I would return to time and again to soak up and explore are:

Sicily (pre-White Lotus)

Patagonia

Sri Lanka

. . . and now Mexico joins my rankings . . .

. . . so much so, that my face was glued to the window en route to the airport. I was determined to commit the journey to memory in a child-like fear of not coming back again.

But I know avoiding another trip to Mexico is next to impossible.

On the night before I left, my friend Thao sent me a link to write up about a Mexican Soul Food restaurant, Blaxicocina, a play on Black, Mexican, Cocina (kitchen). And just like that, with less than 12 hours left in the country, Mexico unveils another layer and an Uber is enlisted to make it happen.

Arriving 15 minutes before closing, I scored a Mexican take on shrimp & grits with shrimp & polenta, almost ordered the collard greens, found it hard to avoid the Mexican Gumbo.

The owners came out for a chat and discussed the similarities and connections between Mexican and African American cuisine, the vegetables and gourds and approaches to flavor and preparation.

And there was this rooftop beauty in Mérida:

The swing through the Yucatán peninsula and Mérida in particular offered up another world wonder: cenotes. No explanation needed. Pictures should suffice. These water holes can be open to the sky, completely inside caves with stalactites, or somewhere in-between. They say all cenotes throughout the region are somehow connected by underground rivers.

As if cenotes were not enough, the Mayan civilisations give you even more to be in awe of.

And now a moment on libraries.

When I was 18, I got a job in a law firm in downtown Los Angeles. I used to take an almost 2-hour bus from my suburb into the heart of downtown LA every day. One of my favourite sights in LA (always) was the LA Country Public Library with its inscription on the side of the building:

“Books alone are liberal and free; they give to all who ask, they emancipate all who serve them faithfully.”

I haven’t looked up those words, so I may be slightly off, what I did do was commit them to memory, as best I could, decades ago as I passed the library to and from work each day. These words represent the kernel of truth behind books for me.

I love libraries.

And so while thinking of my buddy Lily, who is embarking on her own library journey in Sydney, I thought it would be cool to check out the most interesting libraries in Mexico City.

As with all adventures, we wound up at the wrong one (both libraries have the same name in their titles). The National Library of Mexico has all the grandeur you could ask for with a decidedly Mexican flair – indoors and outdoors with massive murals and classical and modern architecture.

Then the modern, brutalist-concrete beauty we set out to find in the first place.

And I can’t help it, but I am going to post a few food pcs, but I just can’t wrap my head around the amazingness of it all. So here goes.

And so Mexico climbs the ladder, scores high, and makes me want to come back — for good reason.

Norbert hungry too! 17 March, 2024