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The Long Way Over the Mountain: A Ten-Year Detour to San Sebastián del Oeste
We wrapped up our San Miguel tour, and the group scattered like a basket of spilled kittens. Two guests headed back to Portland, another struck out solo to Mexico City, and Joan headed back to San Miguel for a two-month stint. Me? I headed toward Puerto Vallarta to chase a ten-year-old itinerary. A decade ago,…
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From Bottles to Brothels: My return to the tour business
For the first time in four years, I led a tour of my own creation. That’s not completely accurate; My current boss has taken a few of my suggestions and turned them into tours that he’s assigned me to, but this was the first tour since my 2022 Morocco trip where I was responsible for…
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Involuntary Intimacy: A Guide to the Mexico City Metro
The Mexico City Metro is a subterranean marvel that manages to be simultaneously the greatest bargain in the Western Hemisphere and a claustrophobic’s worst nightmare. To understand the scale of this operation, you have to appreciate that 5.5 million people ride these rails every day. With 9-car trains holding upwards of 3,195 people at peak…
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Adventures in pet sitting: A Study in Urban Diplomacy
As I mentioned in a previous post, the demographic tide has shifted in San Miguel de Chapultepec. The neighborhood has seen an influx of new residents who, like their counterparts in the trendy Condesa across the way, have brought their dogs in droves. However, while Condesa boasts expansive dog parks where canines can frolic and…
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How I invited Montezuma into my kitchen
Most people assume I have an iron stomach because I travel the world constantly eating street food. I remember once ordering from a food cart and only later looking down to see an open sewage trough flowing beneath the wheels. It is a strange truth that most of my bouts of food poisoning have occurred…
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The Joy of Staying Put: Three Weeks in Mexico City’s Quiet Corner
After wrapping up a Puerto Vallarta tour, I traded the coastal humidity for the thin, sophisticated air of Mexico City. I was there for a three-week pet sit—a welcome reprieve from my normally nomadic life. I’d sat for my friend Jason before, but this was a last-minute arrangement. He’d been whisked away for an artist-in-residence…
