A man returns to where it felt good.

+++

“If anyone gets dizzy, please yell. It will burn a little. If you can’t breathe, put your head between your knees to create a kind of pocket. But try to hold on as long as possible. When you think you can’t take it anymore, hold on a little longer.”

+++

Life unfolds in spirals. Many times we find ourselves in spots we’ve been before. Only this time, we’re different. Suddenly, we see these places from a different perspective, as if from the other side. And we choke up. Usually, we also get emotional. Or we ask ourselves if we’ve lost our minds.

+++

It felt like getting ready for a funeral. Nervousness, sadness, grief. And a little bit of excitement about the unknown. It was dark all around, and I didn’t feel like talking.

We passed the Basilica of the Virgin of Guadalupe. The one that hides the cloth on which the Virgin Mary once appeared to a poor peasant in this place, and thus Christianity began under Popocatépetl. Over hundreds of years, the cloth has not faded, it survived a fire, and even the most qualified scientists from around the world have been unable to figure out what it is made of. Today, millions of faithful from all over Mexico make the pilgrimage there every year to pray for their lives.

I mentioned that I had actually never been there. Sara was surprised.

At least now, for the last time, I said, trying not to worry about it as the round building disappeared from view. Everything is always the last time. Nothing repeats .

Actually, it was a bit like a funeral. I had about 72 hours left in Mexico before I had to say goodbye. After many years. It was the most precious gift and curse for me.

Darkness was falling, and we went to pay our respects to the place where it all began. Teotihuacan, or what remains of what was once the largest human settlement on this side of the planet – long before the Mexicas, whom we now call the Aztecs, arrived, and before the Spanish took everything from them, and before Mexico was founded with the Virgin Mary of Guadalupe as its modern patron saint.

The pyramids there still guard the secrets of what happened long ago along the Road of the Dead in the desert between the mountains.

+++

The first participant gave up before the ritual had even begun. She started to choke on the heavy air, panicked, and shouted the password: “Puerta!”

Door! That was the agreed signal to remove the curtain from the entrance to the temazcal.

“Hang in there a little longer,” begged the shaman, but he was only begging himself. The older woman paid no attention, she was already outside, and her husband, like a true gentleman, followed her.

At least I was able to be a little more comfortable, because until then, about twenty people had been packed into the dark igloo-shaped hut.

+++

It was Friday evening. Normally, at this time I would have been in a bar or a someone’s bed. But I was in a car on my way through the backstreets of Ciudad de México, which are so remote that they seem gloomy and lonely. Or maybe it was me who suddenly felt gloomy and lonely.

I was thinking about all the things I would miss. And I couldn’t help but remember all those moments.

Yes, it was.

It was

like

going to an execution.

Sara and her friend were chatting away. Her friend wanted to know what the difference was between life in Mexico and in the Czech Republic. I tried not to dive too deep into it. We could have talked about it for hours.

I wanted to delve into my thoughts and remember everything I had experienced here.

How is it possible that it went by so quickly? It must have been yesterday when I first arrived here. At that time, I never dreamed that I would ever come back. And then again. And then, when I was here for the third time, it was Día de Muertos, and I began exploring on my own for the first time.

I still recall vividly how I took the subway from the airport and went to the Valle Gómez station, not far from the Tlatelolco housing estate. Today, I can’t understand what led me there at the time. But I didn’t even know where else it should have led me. So I followed the basic human instinct of today: to find the cheapest place to sleep.

When I checked in and went to look around, I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw a cheap clothing store with an entrance sheet bearing a large sign reading Gambrinus and featuring the bearded man from our Czech advertisement for beer from Plzeň. To this day, I haven’t solved the mystery of how and why this thing ended up there.

But I’m sure I didn’t dream it.

+++

In the temazcal, we all introduce ourselves, as it is a collective experience. We are strangers with different stories, but the fact that we have all come HERE in search of answers unites us. Moreover, in the temazcal, which the Aztecs considered to be a phone booth to other worlds, the connection between everything around us is even more palpable.

One woman said that her son had been murdered and she needed to say goodbye to him. Another said that her niece had been kidnapped and she would like to know if she was still alive. Another had been diagnosed with cancer.

Then it was my turn. They were already looking at me a little strangely—what was this white guy doing there? Now I started speaking Mexican and said, “It’s been eight years since Mexico became my second home. I love it more than anything. But now it’s time to say goodbye. I have to return to my homeland. And so I would like to end this journey with a ritual in the temazcal. To close the cycle.”

I received applause of appreciation. For some, I became even more interesting because I knew Spanish and hadn’t come just to gawk.

“Are you the one who rides a bike?” one woman ventured.

I hesitated. “A bike? Yeah, I can ride a bike.”

“On that tall bike? I follow you on Instagram.”

“Oh, that’s Josef Zimovčák,” I dampened her enthusiasm, explaining that I was not the 70-year-old Czech record holder in velocipede riding.

+++

“In the Czech Republic I mostly feel like life is happening somewhere else. We’re always rushing around after something, so we don’t even have time to enjoy ourselves,” I began to explain to Sára’s friend what the difference was.

“It’s always about work and money. Nothing else. Responsibilities, worries, career... You’d think we were a rich country like elsewhere in Europe. But we’re mainly a worn-out country. I want to live life, not just survive it. And that’s what I’ve found here in Mexico. Life here is somehow more full, wild, passionate, even if it sucks. We’re a little better off at home, but we’re just slaving away and that’s it.”

+++

The drum resounded through the temazcal and the shaman summoned the Aztec gods.

Tezcatlipoca.

Mictlantecuhtli.

Huitzilopochtli.

And so on.

I already knew them almost by heart. And one was freshly tattooed on my shoulder. Colibrí Zurdo is supposed to represent the god of war and also willpower, the art of achieving the unthinkable and going against the established order.

Like the fact that I’m now sitting somewhere in the desert in Mexico, speaking Spanish to the descendants of the indigenous people, telling them how I ended up here, within sight of the pyramids of ancient Teotihuacan.

And so, while the shaman recited his prayers, I sweated as usual, closed in on myself, pondering life. I remembered everything that had happened since I first arrived alone at the Basilica of the Virgin Mary of Guadalupe with that holy cloth, which I had no idea about at the time, near the store with the Gambrinus advertisement, and how far I had come over the years. Now I’m going home.

Well, home?

+++

“Stop! You can’t be serious!” I shouted.

There was no need to stop, because we were already stuck in traffic.

“What’s up?” Sara turned to me and, along with her friend in the passenger seat, looked questioningly at me.

I stared out the window, holding my breath.

“Over there!” I pointed. “See that store and the sign above it?”

“Yeah. So?”

“That’s Gambrinus – Czech beer,” I exclaimed.

“Oh, that’s cool. How did it get here?”

“You don’t understand! When I first came to Mexico, it was right here. I lived around here and used to walk past this place. And then I could never find it again!”

“That magical night,” Sara whispered without a hint of surprise, “is powerful.”

We had already left the last remnants of sprawling Ciudad de México behind us. My anxiety was growing.

When we got within sight of Teotihuacán, Sara waved her hand toward the driver’s left window: “The pyramids must be somewhere over there. I can already feel the energy.” Her friend nodded.

I tried to feel something too, but all I felt was nausea after yesterday’s unexpected party, which started in Tlachiquero and ended in Tokyo. But that’s another story.

Meanwhile, we continued to bump along in the dark desert landscape. These are exactly the places you’re told to avoid. Especially at night. But I’m on my way!

+++

The shaman who began the ritual left after about an hour and was replaced by another.

“I am here to tell you that anything is possible. There is no need to be bound by past lives. We all have them in our hands,” he said.

Sighs and occasional moans echoed through the dark temazcal. I covered myself with a scarf and tried to isolate myself from my surroundings.

“I led a very bad life,” the shaman continued, “I was close to death, I hung out with bad people. I lost an eye, and it’s a miracle that I’m here with you. But that’s the point of it. The power that is inside each of us. The power to change things.”

+++

We had finally arrived. We were supposed to recognize the building by its spray-painted metal gate. That alone probably would not bode well.

But the one we found was spray-painted with some kind of astral scene, not street gangs mottos, so we knew we were in the right place. The gate to other worlds.

A blond young man came to open the gate for us.

He was the shaman who would lead the first part of the ritual. The other one was heating stones in front of the low domed temazcal building, which would soon make the room unbearably hot.

Outside, it was starting to get really chilly. I understood why they had urged us to bring duvets and tents. I had none of that. I’m from the Sumava Mountains, the real cold!

Gradually, other groups of people arrived. We timidly began to cooperate together as we went to change and then gathered in front of the temazcal.

As always, we first had to undergo a ritual cleansing, which consisted of being smoked with a bouquet of burning sage. Then we had to enter on our knees into the hut, which the Aztecs considered a channel of communication with the universe.

Ometeo!

+++

The ritual was over, but I remained in the temazcal. I couldn’t get enough of the heat. Only the shaman was there, and we talked. Only now did I notice the empty expression in his left eye, which was looking who knows where. His face was scarred. We talked about willpower, about fate, about the ability to change things and the ability to let them flow.

Until the temazcal cooled down.

I bowed and went to take a shower.

The others were already gathering outside.

One woman came up to me with a box of matches. Would I take care of lighting the fire? I don’t know why she came to me.

“Now show us what you’ve got, mountain man,” Sara joked.

“One match,” I assured her. I’m from Šumava, after all!

Everyone was already sitting around the fire, and I was determined to succeed as I had promised. One of the Mexicans insisted on throwing a plastic tray into the fire. He said that was the only way it would catch. Even so, the job was done, and soon stable flames were blazing.

We all wrapped ourselves in blankets. The woman who handed me the matches started talking about passing various afflictions from generation to generation. I knew that these issues were to be discussed that night, but I wasn’t interested in them, so I didn’t pay much attention. All I wanted was to be close to Teotihuacan, to perform a cleansing ritual here in this blessed place under the full moon, and thus symbolically end my journey.

The participants were now supposed to confess their family troubles, and I knew that this was not for me, so I let myself be lulled by fatigue, wrapped myself in a blanket, and dozed by the fire.

The cold was starting to get really unpleasant. I was wrapped up in a blanket, which stopped me from moving. I knew that one wrong move would mean the chill would creep in. So I chose to ignore the pain that was shooting through my left shoulder, on which I was lying.

In my half-sleep, I heard people’s stories about violence and injustice from their loved ones, about the difficulties in their lives, and then the solutions given to them by the two women who were guiding this event. The next thing I noticed was card reading. I was already fast asleep, but from time to time I still caught something.

I never really understood the principle behind it all, how someone could predict what awaited someone on the other side by drawing a card from a distance. So I kept quiet.

But as I fell asleep, more and more questions from the participants crept into my mind, along with the more or less clear answers from the two women. An unpleasant, almost suffocating doubt began to awaken in me: Should I also ask one?

I tried to push it out of my mind and continue pretending to be asleep. I even convinced myself of this. Also, I remembered what Sara had told me earlier: Cards should not be read after midnight. You will learn things you don’t want to hear.

But I also thought that if I was ever going to ask about IT, it had to be now. And never again. And that weighed on me more and more.

“Vac!” one of the women called out to me, as if sensing my dilemma. I lifted my head from my bed. “Don’t you want to ask something too?”

The others fell silent for a moment. I had about a second to make up my mind. I didn’t even have time to wonder how she had seen through me like that. And maybe I took it as a sign that I should.

“All right,” I said, “I’d like to ask if I’ll stay living in my country for ever.”

It came out of me as if it wasn’t even me who said it. Then I waited anxiously as the tinkling sound of the cards turning reached me, as if they were metal plates clanging together.

“Yes,” said the woman, as coldly as if she didn’t realize what was at stake here. “But you won’t be happy there.”

I regretted asking. My throat tightened. I probably already suspected then that this decision might not be the happiest one. And now I was sure of it.

I thanked her, wrapped myself up again, and returned to my hiding place under the blanket. But I couldn’t fall asleep. From that moment on, I thought about how I would have to return to my old life, driven by the inertia between buying and selling. That after all these years of adventure, I would once again be a wheel in the machine of our consumer society.

+++

The darkness began to fade. The fires beneath Teotihuacan were dying out. But this morning brought no resolution. Rather, it brought another confusion. The closer the new day came, the more its weight pressed down on me. In just a few hours, I would wake up from this dream when I got off at the airport, and all of this would be gone. The burning moments would turn into memories. Here, it would continue, but without me.

“Does anyone else have any questions?”

Finally, there was silence. I was fed up with people asking questions like, “Should I sell my car below market value, or should I wait?” and so on.

“That’s it for today.”

Dawn was breaking. The fire was barely burning, and the light blue sky in the east was turning gold. It was really cold.

A strange roaring sound had been coming from afar for some time. It had been with us for so long that I had learned to ignore it. And then Sara said, “It must be flying balloons, globos!”

How did I not think of that? Hundreds, maybe thousands of people came to Teotihuacan every day, paying for a hot air balloon ride to see the great Teotihuacan, the majestic ruins of a fallen city, from above at dawn.

To this day, no one has figured out what caused its doom. Everything seemed perfect. And then suddenly, it was over. All that remained was the pyramid of the Sun and Moon, two inseparable brothers along the Road of the Dead, perfectly positioned relative to the Sun and Moon, watching day after day as they traveled across the sky, like a journey from the world of the living to the underworld. It was believed that every day was reborn, and therefore every day was a new beginning.

“Over there!” someone pointed, and the rest of us turned and saw a colorful balloon with a basket and people inside it emerge from the fog above the horizon. And behind it, another and another. They flew high, yet close enough that we could see the faces of the people waving at us from the ground. What did they think we were? Some bunch of loonies wrapped in blankets camping in the middle of the desert? But they smiled friendly and called out to us, and we called back.

Shy rays began to warm the landscape. It was turning into a beautiful day, the sun was about to peek out, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, cacti surrounded us, and suddenly a tear fell from one of my eyes, then another, and another, and I couldn’t stop it. Sara didn’t even have to look at me to sense what was happening. She took my head and pressed it against her shoulder, and I didn’t resist. One’s personal end of the world.

+++

By the extinguished fire, two women were performing a ritual cleansing of those participants who were interested. They rubbed people’s bodies with eggs and whispered prayers, because in these parts it is believed that such a raw egg will absorb all the ailments of the person concerned.

When I too came to the circle around the fire – now I had nothing to lose – one of them looked me over. “Doesn’t this shoulder hurt?” she pointed to my left arm, and I realized the burning pain that had accompanied me all night until now. “Actually, yes,” I agreed, rubbing my shoulder with my other hand. Then I don’t remember much else.

When we got home, I started packing my things. Suddenly, I noticed a red stain on my jeans pocket. I couldn’t figure out where it came from. And then I saw my bleeding wrist. The lettering “Vagabond,” which I had tattooed when I took my first trip to Mexico years ago, had a two-centimeter wound running through it, and blood was flowing from it. I don’t remember what I cut myself on or when.

+++

Two days later, I was sitting on a plane to Madrid. It was still freezing in Šumava, but spring was already making its presence felt and everything seemed to be as usual.

I just couldn’t forget what the cards had told me that night in the desert by the pyramids. And I still had a scab on my wrist from that blow.

Someone explained to me that cards respond to a person according to their current state of mind. In fact, they tend to tell us aloud what we already suspect. They reveal what we carry inside us and may be afraid to say out loud.

Which is good news. Because it means that some stupid cards don’t decide what you do and how you will do. Everyone has the power to change things just as they feel. And so I too have chosen my new path. And it leads back to old Great Tenochtitlán, there under Popocatépetl and by the Basilica of the Virgin of Guadalupe.

WARNING: THE ARTICLE CONTAINS GRAPHIC DEPICTIONS OF DEATH, SOME MAY FIND THE FOLLOWING PHOTOS AND VIDEOS DISTURBING.

Part 2 – SUFFERING

„Black magic puts in, white magic removes,“ Haciano Cruz, a one-legged vendor of tegogolos on the shores of Lake Catemaco in the town of the same name, explained to me.

In case you're wondering what tegogolos are, they're the local pride and golden fleece - they're snails that live only here on the rocks in the Lake Catemaco and are a renowned delicacy in the town and the region around it. And for some, like Haciano, they are also the only source of income. Next to witchcraft, shamanism, white and black magic.

He loaded a cup full of them for me, along with shrimp and salsa, and went on to say, "White magic is used by shamans. Black magic is used by sorcerers."

“That's the difference,” I understood. Haciano nodded.

"And nahual is another thing altogether. Nahual turns into a pig, a bird, a horse, a dog, a lot of things..."

“And then it does harm,” I added.

"Yes. For instance, if someone wishes to prevent his friend from doing business, he will seek out such a person and he will arrange it for him. They take the dirt from a grave and pile it up for the acquaintance's business," the vendor instructed me.

“All this for envy?”

“Exactly!” Haciano almost shouted. Envy, as I mentioned in the first part of this reportage, is taken seriously here.

“And if, on the other hand, you want business to be good for you, you have to have aloe, and you have to add seven pieces of garlic to it, a horseshoe, and seven colored ribbons.”

+++

It was Thursday, March 6, the last day before the magical portals opened here in Catemaco. At least, that's how the locals tell it. On Friday, the town fills with superstitious people from all over Mexico to seek the help of local shamans and witches on the day their powers are supposedly strongest. And then there's the evening witches' march, which is more of a glamour for the out-of-towners.

In the first part of this report, I showed you how difficult it can be in these parts of the world to tell the authentic from something that's just pretending to be the real thing. I found out that not everyone here who claims to have supernatural abilities is being serious with you. That a lot of people are exploiting the reputation of this place for their own enrichment. That some of the local occultism is just a tourist attraction.

But I also knew that on the night of the first Friday in March, many places held real witchcraft rituals behind closed doors. At least real in that those who participate are deadly serious. And the deadly here applies literally, because killing and blood is part of it.

But how do you find something that by its very nature is meant to remain hidden?

You mustn't be in Mexico. A country where street gossip and connections will get you anywhere you need to.

I tried to write to Alison, the girl from the jungle - if you still remember her - to see if she knew, had any idea... And she did. I didn't even have to wait so long, and she'd already forwarded me an invitation to one of those black masses, to be held somewhere in the backwoods outside the city on Thursday night to Friday.

How important is “the truth”?

Well, the mass... Looking at the video invitation, I rather got the impression that it was inviting the audience to a theatrical performance or a circus. The protagonists were a trio of men and a woman, all dressed in colorful witches' robes and with all sorts of witches' props, to the point where they looked more like a scene from a fantasy movie than someone who would be invoking Satan at a secret convention at night. The video inviting this event could have been screened in a movie theater easily; it had quick cuts, dramatic shots, voiceovers, even drone footage. And at the end of it, information on where and when the mass would be held.

I was perplexed all over again. Shouldn't the black mass be non-public and shouldn't there be some shady figures rather than these well-dressed, good-looking buffoons? Shouldn't it be held in an unknown location and shouldn't the invitation be wrapped in parchment and written in blood? It was clear to me: it must be a tourist trap and they'll just want money.

I was sick of the whole witches' ballast around the Catemaco lagoon. But I also knew I had to bring back some pictures from here. Taking pictures of some local rituals was my chance to not leave the “cradle of witchcraft” empty-handed. After all, I reasoned, the event was happening and I was here to bear witness to it. Whether it's authentic enough, I'll let the reader decide.

According to the invitation, the mass was to take place 10 kilometres from the town of Catemaco, while - if you still remember - I lived another 10 kilometres away on the shore of the lagoon in the village of La Victoria. Which complicated the situation, as I had no idea how I would get back to my accommodation sometime in the middle of the night after a black mass somewhere in the jungle. And how would I even get there?

But I didn't entertain those thoughts just yet; it was sure to be a night full of surprises anyway, and planning its course now was useless. After dinner at a simple homestay in La Victoria, I caught the last pickup going into town and pulled into Catemaco before 8 o'clock. There I had to improvise. Ideally to go somewhere near the taxi drivers and secure a ride into the jungle with the promise of a night pickup. By the way, would you trust anyone in these parts to pick you up in the middle of the night somewhere in the jungle? I had no choice.

But before that, higher powers brought Rodrigo my way. He was standing outside one of the many half-empty restaurants along the boardwalk around the lagoon, offering toritos to passersby. My Achilles heel!

It's an alcoholic invention from the state of Veracruz that could be compared to eggnog or Baileys, but with exotic flavors, often masking more than a small amount of alcohol. I couldn't resist making sure it was homemade.

“Of course, fresh,” Rodrigo nodded, “I make it myself.”

“Can I taste it?”

“That you hesitate!” He plunged his hands into his bag and handed me a full liter bottle.

“Just the cup, that's enough,” I argued. Rodrigo was a little disappointed, but especially found the cups lacking.

“Well, keep an eye on this place for me, I'll run to the market,” the man said, and ran off into the darkness. I was left there alone with his bag full of homemade cocktails for sale.

He finally returned with a stack of plastic cups and poured his drink into one for me. It tasted divine and strong.

Somehow I didn't want to leave him. I had another cup and chatted with Rodrigo about life in Catemaco. Across the street, an oversized poster hung from the terrace of one of the houses inviting me to the black mass I was going to. It had the same figures on it as in Alison's video. My doubts about authenticity were raised again.

But Rodrigo tried to explain to me that it was all part of tradition and local folklore. I wondered if some of the locals were exaggerating a bit to attract tourists. This almost offended Rodrigo. "No, no, no, they are not exaggerating. Look, I'll tell you again: Catemaco is a place that's famous for this culture. Whether we're talking about culture or tradition. The products they offer are part of the Catemaco tradition. A lot of people are looking for that, and you have to respect that."

“It does,” I nodded, "it's just that a lot of people have warned me about charlatans, for example. Or aren't they here?"

"I can answer that exactly: Why? Because a lot of people say what they want to say. And that has to be respected, too. It's all about respect. Everything has to be respected."

That was a bulletproof argument, though, and I preferred not to tease him any further, so I said goodbye and continued down the boardwalk.

Unexpected encounters

Less than two hours remained till the start of the Mass. I still hadn't figured out how to get there. I bought a can of beer and looked out over the lake drowned in darkness. In the distance on its shore, I saw flickering dots of yellow light. A fire, perhaps. The distance didn't suit me too well, but maybe the darkness was distorting. I was almost certain that the fires marked where the night's activities would take place. What else would be going on there on this day?

I figured I'd try to get there. I crossed the boardwalk and, past the last remnants of the development, followed a sort of dirt road along the lake. I felt that this was again the moment when my adventurous expeditions traditionally turn into spectacular disasters. Even though anxiety began to grip me in the darkness, I ordered myself to continue.

In the distance, right on the road, I saw more fires. I was heading towards them. The first one was burning abandoned in the middle of the road. No one was there. Or so I hoped. But at the same time, this desolation made me all the more afraid. Someone must be around, but I can't see them!

I continued on to the next fire in the distance. Suddenly I noticed a movement in my back. I turned and recognized a silhouette in the darkness. There was nothing to do but grit my teeth, keep calm and hope it was just another curious person like me. I continued to the next light in the distance and the shadow followed me.

When I was within sight of them, I could distinguish a familiar object in the flickering light. A giant boulder with a carved face! The head of the Olmecs! An artifact from pre-Columbian times. Lights from a nearby campfire on the road bounced across the stone face. On the other side, they were letting us know about the silhouettes of a group of people having a bonfire.

I pretended to take a picture of the stone phenomenon. The silhouette in my back continued with me. I greeted the group by the fire and took no further notice of them. Until I heard, “We're from the capital!” announced one of the figures, "I hear there's some sort of black mass going on here. How are we going to get there? Are we going right?"

Apparently, some person in the group was well acquainted with the local traditions and now he was explaining to them that they were going wrong and that the black mass was happening a little further away. "You have to follow the road and then turn towards the lake. But it's a short distance," said the young man on the scooter. That made me move closer. “You mean the mass of the four witches?” I asked.

The group turned to me. “Yes,” the boy said. "There are several of them around town. But this one you say is still about seven miles away."

“We can go back and get the car and drive there,” the Mexicans from the capital suggested.

The higher powers probably wanted me not to miss this event. “Would you have room for one more?” I asked.

“Sure!”

“Great, let's go!”

“What about your buddy,” they asked, pointing to the shadow that had emerged from the darkness where he had followed me, now also inspecting the Olmec head, only to disappear again without a word.

“That's not my buddy,” I said, “he just followed me the whole time.”

“Strange,” someone in the group remarked.

Together we returned to town, where we bought three cartons of beer. A guy on a scooter informed us that the entrance to the mass was free, but it would be nice to bring an offering for Santa Muerte. "She likes alcohol. Or drugs," he instructed us. Then the four of us - me, three other guys and one girl - headed northeast along the lake shore.

After about a quarter of an hour of driving, we found a turn off the main road leading somewhere unknown. We pulled off the road and followed this unlit trail descending to the lake. Soon it became a ready-made tankodrome, and we were bouncing around inside a big sedan, packed in like sardines, with cartons of beer under our feet. There was no doubt we were on the right track, the worse part was arriving at the finish line in one piece.

Finally, we saw a house lit up with neon lights and cars parked in front of it and a swarming crowd of people. We parked and went to join the others. So far, it looked more like we had arrived at some private rave party where soon the snorting and mass banging would begin. This house in the jungle didn't look like just any house, but a large multifunctional villa with a garden. Not just anyone in Mexico owns one of these.

An excerpt from a video report I took that night (you can find the full video in the exclusive section of the article):

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Part 1 — FAITH

Would you believe you could conjure up wealth? Bewitch love? Extend your life when you only have a few days left? Even at the cost of... a pact with the Devil? There's a bet on it around Lake Catemaco in the state of Veracruz, Mexico. They believe this place is the “cradle of witchcraft.” And they also believe that these sorcerers can work wonders (with you).

+++

We came out of the jungle and, in the middle of nowhere, I saw a group of people standing under a lamp. They stood there in the dark of night, all dressed in black, holding hands and forming a pentagram.

“There’s more,” the taxi driver boomed, pointing his head in their direction.

“And you believe in this?” I asked.

"Me? No," he said, and I was relieved. Not that I wanted to deny him his right to any of the bizarre beliefs that thrive so much in Mexico and Latin America — but simply for the sake of feeling a little safer amid all the madness of Catemaco.

Immediately afterward, the driver stroked the mannequin swinging under his rear-view mirror. “I believe in Jesus.”

So we were back where we started.

"He appeared to me when I was dying. I was in a car accident. It was very bad. And just when I thought I wasn't gonna make it, suddenly he was there. Huge, on a white horse, in the middle of the glow. He spoke to me. And now I'm here. I believe in him."

"I see."

This place is full of freaks, I thought.

+++

In that March madrugada — that’s what Mexicans like to call the time between midnight and dawn — I had met the Olmec heads, attended a satanic mass, been detained by the Mexican army, and finally gotten this taxi ride, which I hadn't even hoped for anymore.

“There’s a lot of stuff going on here,” the taxi driver continued. "Some people are seeing a woman in a white dress by the lake. Even here in La Victoria, there have been people who signed a pact with the Devil."

After all, it's a well-known local legend that the Virgin of Carmen, who became the patron saint of Catemaco, appeared to a fisherman on the lake. The place on the shore where she supposedly appeared has been turned into a shrine, and people go there to pray.

This whole region is closely tied to mysticism. Its origins go back to the area's original inhabitants — the Olmecs. They were later replaced by the Mexicas, better known as the Aztecs, who brought deep knowledge of medicinal plants and healing practices. And into the mix came the Spaniards with Afro-Cuban and Afro-Haitian slaves, who added Catholicism and Afro-Cuban Santería. It’s no surprise that today you’ll find a colorful melting pot of religions and cults here.

People also believe in a number of supernatural beings — like the Nahuales. They’re humans who can take on animal forms, and in those forms, they wreak havoc. That night at the satanic mass, I spoke with a girl who said she knew one. "He lived on our street and turned into a vulture. We knew it was him. He moved around the neighborhood and caused all sorts of trouble. Then one day, the neighbors got together and killed him."

As you’ll see in the following paragraphs, such stories are common around Catemaco. Nothing surprises anyone here — whereas a European mind would just freeze.

Finally, the taxi driver dropped me off in La Victoria at my lakeside hostel. The water surface looked so dark in the early morning that, after everything, I preferred not to look at it. Thank God I’m back, I told myself. Actually... I didn’t even know whom to thank anymore. With all the gods and deities and spirits swirling around, it was too much for one night.

+++

Catemaco. Is a lake near the Gulf of Mexico — and also a town of the same name on its shore. It’s believed that for every street in this settlement of 50,000, there is at least one shaman, sorcerer, healer, or magician — if you like. They’re not the kind who pull scarves out of sleeves or perform card tricks. These are the Wise Men (or women) who act as surgeons, psychotherapists, and priests. They are called to deathbeds and broken hearts. They can heal, cleanse — but also summon curses or even kill.

Witchcraft in Catemaco became widely known in the 1970s when Gonzalo Aguirre, also known as the Brujo Mayor (Major Sorcerer), appeared on television. A boom followed, turning Catemaco into a sought-after destination, profiting — to some extent — from its reputation as the cradle of witchcraft. People flock from all over Mexico seeking help with their problems: health, love, money — even revenge. Witchcraft offers an alternative to those who find no answers in traditional medicine or religion. They ask Santa Muerte or Satan for what they cannot ask of God.

Does that sound pathetic to you now? I understand. But living in Mexico changes you. You arrive and laugh at the Indian rituals around pyramids and shake your head at the bizarre stories. But after a few years, you accept it as part of life — and sometimes you even find yourself living a little more spiritually, rejecting Western idols like careers and possessions and turning toward spirituality.

"What’s so weird about that? It’s natural to be spiritual," one girl told me last year, when I confided that I had recently become somewhat spiritual myself. It's not that I started invoking supernatural beings, but I began believing more in the power of human consciousness and the subconscious. In the power of nature — and that things don’t happen by chance.

In Europe and in the so-called developed countries, we’ve become used to approaching everything rationally and pragmatically — explaining and measuring everything by economic output. As if only what we can touch, what has value, makes sense. Spirituality faded away and was replaced by the pursuit of the physical, of material goods. We believe more in the power of the bank account than in inner wealth. Yet humanity has always been spiritual. If you take that part out of a person, all you have left is a shell chasing after superficial tinsel.

But Catemaco — Catemaco was a lot even for me, as open as I was to all sorts of mystical things. People dressing up as wizards. People sending curses. People sacrificing animals and invoking Satan. I don’t know.

Even one of the famous local sorcerers, Félix Oseguera, criticized, long ago, that some of his colleagues had started taking advantage of the troubles of people who came to them — just to make money. He said they had turned witchcraft "from a spiritual good into a commercial good" and complained that today anyone could pretend to be a sorcerer.

I set out to see for myself what was true, what it all looked like — and what to believe. I chose the most important day in this community: the first Friday in March. In Catemaco, it’s believed that on this day magical portals open and the local mystics go to recharge their energy for another year of “work.” That's why, every year, all the healers, shamans, and sorcerers from across Mexico gather there.

Join me to meet them.

+++

The ride from the village of La Victoria to the town of Catemaco took about 20 minutes in the back of a pickup truck, which operates as a mass transportation service in the area. I headed there on the first morning after arriving at the lagoon.

The town didn't strike me as very welcoming or interesting. It lacked the rural character of the remote and isolated village of La Victoria, yet at first glance it offered nothing of interest — just a network of similar-looking streets.

It was only in the centre, around the main market, that I discovered a few esoteric shops from which statues of Santa Muerte and Lucifer in many colours and sizes looked down at me. This was nothing new to me from the rest of Mexico — I've been documenting Santa Muerte devotees in Mexico City regularly for several years now:

As I was taking pictures of the local occult display, a dishevelled dude with rotten teeth and a Versace shirt came up to me. “I believe in the Devil,” he announced without me asking him, before explaining that he was also the owner of the shop.

“Oh, that's fine,” I replied. “And what does that get you, anyway?”

“Everything: money, women,” he chuckled, his face twitching.

“And how does that kind of faith work?”

“You ask for what you want, and you bring sacrifices.”

“Like what?”

“A dead animal, gold,...”

"What about some rituals? I hear there will be clandestine masses somewhere tomorrow night," I pressed him.

“I'm holding one,” boasted the man, who reminded me more and more of a B-class dealer.

"Oh. And could I come and check it out? I'm a journalist and I'd like to document it."

"Well... That's not possible. I've already got people lined up to film it."

“Then I can go too, can't I?”

“You can't,” he twitched, “you know, they'll stream it to the platforms and all.”

"Oh, so they have exclusive rights and then you'll scrape up the money from the broadcast? Do I understand that right?"

“Hehe,” he bared his rotten teeth at me and winked mischievously.

That's how it works around here, I reflected.

I continued to walk the streets, hoping I might stumble upon the house of an actual mage, where I could ask more about all the superstitions and stories and how things worked around here in general.

In good humour, I struck up a conversation with one of the tour vendors on the lakeside promenade. He offered me a boat ride to the place where the Virgin Mary appeared to a fisherman, then into the jungle to the Olmec heads, and then even further into the jungle where shamans perform ritual cleansings in a temazcal for tourists.

It all sounded tempting, but I didn't need that right now. Until the vendor hit the nail on the head: “I can also introduce you to the Brujo Mayor.”

Bingo! Brujo Mayor. Those were the words that worked on me. “What's his name?” I quizzed him. He said a name I didn't know: Hijo de Nahual, Son of Nahual.

"Oh. And is he the chief sorcerer?"

“Of course.”

I was beginning to understand that chief sorcerer was not a position held by some head of the local occultists, but rather a title that more people here prided themselves on. Because even in my investigations, every once in a while some other person with the title of Brujo Mayor would pop up.

“He lives a few blocks away, I can take you there right now,” the man suggested. I agreed to be guided to him.

On the way, he told me that he himself would go to him from time to time for ritual cleansing.

“What does that give you?” I asked.

"It washes away negative influences from you. What others who envy you send down on you," he replied.

I remembered sitting with a friend in the café garden in Ciudad de México in January, when a gypsy woman came up to us and wanted to read our palms. We refused. She nodded, but on the way out she looked me in the eye and said, "People envy you a lot. That's why you can never be happy." At the time, those words resonated with me.

I had heard about envy again the previous evening when an old taxi driver picked me up at the bus station. He warned me to beware of charlatans, "They use magic to do evil things. Sometimes they send envy down on you," he said.

“Envy is something you deal with a lot around here, isn't it?” I asked the guide.

"Sure. Envy is bad. Someone who envies you doesn't wish you well. It can bring bad things down on you. And then you don't do well."

We arrived at a modest house with a creaky vintage porch. As if he had been waiting for us, a young man with a boyish twenty-year-old face stepped outside. He immediately introduced himself: Hijo de Nahual. I barely noticed that my guide had, in the meantime, vanished without a trace.

"Come in," the sorcerer beckoned, leading me into a small living room just beyond the front door. From the first step, a strange heaviness settled over me. Stuffed dwarf beasts bared their teeth at the newcomers from the walls, staring like something straight out of a horror movie. Deeper in the room, amulets and religious artifacts of every kind cluttered the shelves. Yet otherwise, the house could have been anyone’s home: a little girl was watching cartoons on TV, an old woman keeping an eye on her — and throwing suspicious glances at me.

Nahual motioned for me to follow him through a door leading off the living room. Darkness awaited behind it. Without a word, the young man circled around me, shut the door, and lit a candle he held in his hand. The flame revealed blood-red walls, casting a fiery glow across the room. He placed the candle in a corner where I could now make out an entire altar — dozens of figures of Santa Muerte, Lucifer, demons. Scattered across the room were countless human and animal skulls, taxidermy creatures, pentagrams, talismans, and photographs of people.

In the corner stood a solid wooden table. Hijo de Nahual sat behind it and gestured for me to sit across from him.

My stomach twisted slightly under the gaze of all those underworld figures. The atmosphere pressed down on me, but this time I forced myself to hold onto as much of my European rationality as I could. I wasn’t going to give in to fear.

"Do you believe in any of these figures?" he asked, his voice calm.

"Believe?" I hesitated, trying not to sound rude. "I know about them, yes, but I wouldn’t say I believe."

“That’s alright,” he nodded. “So, what problem brings you here?”

It dawned on me then — I hadn’t even explained that I wasn’t here for his services. I scrambled to correct myself. “Actually... I’m a journalist. I came mostly out of curiosity.”

"I see," he said, encouraging me to go on.

I thought for a moment. What could I say? Sure, I had my fair share of problems — time, love, work — the usual. But nothing worth shortcutting through magic. Life’s challenges are there for a reason. Skipping them feels like cheating: you might escape them for a moment, but the reckoning always finds another door.

Still, the young sorcerer's sharp but patient gaze cornered me. What if he can see inside my head? I wondered. What if he really can curse me?

Nervous, I blurted out the only thing that was truly weighing on me: I was returning to the Czech Republic after years abroad, and maybe for good. Maybe, just maybe, a little blessing wouldn’t hurt.

He nodded gravely. "You want happiness and success in your country? We can make that happen," he said. “We can do anything here. Cure diseases. Summon the love of your dreams. Make your enemies disappear. You’ll never see them again. Do you want that?"

I was taken aback. "Uh... I don’t think that’s necessary. Thank you, but I came here more to ask questions."

"I can summon money for you," Hijo insisted. "Say the word, we’ll make a pact with Lucifer, and by tomorrow, you’ll be rich."

My curiosity got the better of me. "And what does Lucifer want in return?"

"The Devil likes many things," he said, pointing to a stuffed jackal glaring down from a shelf. "He likes gold. Talismans. Jackal teeth!" He spilled a handful of silver-decorated jackal teeth onto the table.

"Thank you, but really, I don’t need any of that," I said quickly. Hearing about pacts with the Devil made me want to run. The oppressive feeling was back, and growing. I needed to leave — now.

"I really just came to ask about traditions," I tried again.

"I can give you a custom cleansing," he pressed on. "To help you prosper back home. Protection from envy, bad energies — a powerful cleansing."

"How much would that cost?" I asked warily.

"Two thousand pesos for you. But it will be a great cleansing."

"I don't have that much on me," I said truthfully. "I'll think about it and maybe come back later."

"Then one thousand. Just for you."

"I’d rather not," I replied, feeling increasingly uneasy.

I hesitated. Should I go along just for the sake of the story? But a little voice in my head screamed: Don't mess with this stuff!

"And what kind of magic is that anyway? Black magic?" I asked.

Now I had him cornered. “Well... more like red magic,” he admitted.

“Oh, no thanks," I said with relief.

"But we have white magic too," he said eagerly, jumping up and leading me outside again — but only to the room next door.

This one was bathed in light. White walls, white candles, angels, saints on horseback. "This is where we perform white magic. I can do a white cleansing for you," Hijo offered.

By now, my head was spinning. I didn't want to make any decisions in this state. “Thanks, but I’ll think about it and maybe come back later.”

We left the bright room. I intended to head straight out the door — but he led me back into the red room with the demons and voodoo dolls, shutting the door behind us.

The heavy atmosphere settled back over me like a thick blanket.
"Well, 700 pesos then," he said.

I clenched my jaw. I hate being pressured like this. "No, thanks. I'm not interested."

"Then at least 500 for the consultation," he shrugged his shoulders. "As a sacrifice to the Devil."

"Fine," I said, pulling out my wallet and handing him the money. "For the Devil."

He finally let me go — but not before giving me his number, in case I changed my mind.

I thanked him and left, walking away fast, grateful to feel the outside air again.

+++

All the cheerful mood of the morning was gone. I was struggling with the regrets of letting myself get upset and run away, with the worry of whether I had messed with the higher powers, or even just the street authorities here in Catemaco. After all, I'm probably the most exotic visitor around here at the moment, and a fist in the eye. Anything can happen here.

I'm on my way back to town somewhere. I didn't even notice that the trip vendor who had led me to the wizard had reappeared beside me. “How was it?” he wondered.

“Fine,” I replied.

It wasn't fine at all. I just didn't want to talk about it. Especially not with him.

Maybe I should have done the cleansing, my mind raced. But he can't force me to do it like this! You don't do that with things like that. But maybe I should have gone through with it, just for the sake of the story, and I wouldn't have gotten hurt. But what if I had? What if it's all true? What am I going to write about now? No, I did the right thing. He must have been after my money, not my welfare. But what if? What if something happens to me now? That's bullshit.

I decided that I'd best go back to La Victoria and let my mind settle.

I needed a good meal and a beer somewhere to lift my spirits. I decided not to get off in La Victoria, but to drive to the end of the line of pickup trucks, where a restaurant caught my eye on the map. It was located – like most of the interesting things here – on the shore of a lake, and it looked like it not only had great food, but it looked good too.

But the wait for a ride was unreasonably long. Several of us were already standing on the corner in front of the shop when the (un)regular pickup finally arrived. I got in along with a few villagers.

As we pulled away, I pitched to our group to see if anyone knew the restaurant and if it would still be open. The middle-aged man sitting across from me assured me that they definitely did.

“And can I find it easily?”

“She'll give you a hint,” he pointed with his chin at the schoolgirl bouncing on the bench next to me, “she lives right next door.” The girl nodded.

In the setting sun we passed La Victoria and continued along a dusty dirt road through the trees.

Soon it was just the two of us in the pickup, me and Alison, as the girl introduced herself to me. When we finally dismounted, she offered to show me the way.

“What do you think about all this witchcraft stuff around here?” I asked her. She seemed so innocent, a girl from the jungle, not yet influenced by the world out there, sure to answer me without ballast. Even though she's still a kid, she could have been thirteen.

"I think it's great for the people who believe all this. It can help them. And if someone doesn't believe it, it won't help them. But they should respect other people's beliefs," she told me.

“And you believe it?”

"I don't. But if someone believes it, I respect it."

We came to a place where there was a kind of forest on the shore of a lake. The restaurant was spread out all over the place. It consisted of a main building on artificial stilts and then shacks scattered variously around the grove. A truly hipster concept, one would think. Unfortunately, it was closed.

Alison checked with the landlady. She pounded on the door of the main lodge until the owner of the restaurant opened to apologize that it was already closed, and promised to host us the next day.

The people around here, unless the Catemaco charlatans, are extremely friendly and helpful. So when I started to figure out how I was going to get back to Victoria this late, she led me to her family in their modest home, and there several uncles and aunts called their taxi connections to get me a ride. Luckily I caught up with the last pickup of the day. I said goodbye, hopped in the back of the truck and took the dirt road back to my village.

On the way, I thought about what the girl had said to me. After all, she wasn't the only one; another taxi driver and several natives I spoke to had similar messages for me: they didn't believe in it themselves, but they accepted how important local rituals and superstitions can be to those who do.

I guess that's my conclusion: if someone believes in it, such cleansing or magic can help them. Even if they pay a fortune for it. Even if it's just the invention of a charlatan. And if someone doesn't believe in it, no matter what the ritual is, it won't help them.

After all, that's how every religion works, isn't it? Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Satanism – it's all about believing in something that cannot be rationally proven. One relies on that belief when he or she is sick. They believe that there is someone or something up there (or down there) that will help them out of a jam in times of trouble. Just like it is here. Without faith, there would be no hope. Without hope, there would be no meaning in life.

+++

I stumbled back to my village in the dark. Instead of eating dinner at an exotic restaurant, I had no choice but to go to a shop for a six-pack of beer. I sat down on the balcony overlooking the silent lake. The lake where miracles happen.

I wondered what trouble I'd have to have in my life to put it in the hands of occultists. It certainly wouldn't be money. Or love. Or my dreams.

But maybe something after all: health. A man can have everything, but he has nothing if he has no health. And it's also something we can't always save. Although I recognize that health is also a reflection of something and a consequence of something, and we shouldn't try to circumvent nature. But if there was no hope left and a loved one was dying next to me, or myself, I would probably go to little Nahual to buy jackal fangs from him to make a pact with the Devil. Whether I believed him or not. I'd just trust that I did my best. Except for the fact that I've gone completely insane.

End of Part One

This article is available to all readers in honor of Walpurgis Night.
But if you enjoyed it, you can support my work by buying me a beer via this QR code (or through the Buy Me a Coffee):

In the second part, you’ll find out:

– what I saw and experienced at a satanic mass by the lake,
– how and why I was detained by the military at night,
– what a satanic amulet looks like and why mine no longer works,
– what else can and can’t be believed.

And here’s a little teaser:

Returning to old places usually warms a bit and hurts a bit. If, of course, we've left something of ourselves in there. It also depends on the conditions under which we left them and under which we return. Sometimes we just smile as the memory tickles us. It's the little things we laugh at nowadays. Other times our chests still ache - those are the scars that haven't healed yet. But it's always moments like these that make us think about who we were then and who we are now.

After more than seven years, fate brought me back to Tijuana, a border city in northwestern Mexico—the exact same place where I was spat out of the U.S. in the fall of 2017, with just one stuffed backpack, almost no money, a little hope, and no idea that I wouldn’t be coming back.

I'll never forget how, exhausted, I stepped out of the pedestrian border corridor into the afternoon heat and found myself in Mexico, in the middle of a deserted plaza, where nothing stood except a neglected fountain—only a tumbling ball of prairie grass was missing to make it feel like a movie scene. At the same time, in the eerie silence, I could feel many eyes on me, knowing it wasn't wise to linger here, especially looking like a Boy Scout who had just lost his troop.

I can see it now: me, sweating as I headed toward that fountain, fully aware that it was the most exposed spot. I tried to at least pretend I knew where I was going and what I was doing—though that was the thing I knew least of all. Meanwhile, I was discreetly hunting for a signal on my phone, trying to get anywhere near civilization as quickly as possible.

Now, after all these years, I had returned. Just as I did back then—to report on the refugees around the border wall. Fresh off Donald Trump's reappointment as president, once again a bit homeless and with no clear idea of what the next few weeks or months would bring. Though this time, in slightly better shape.

***

There are some things we can't erase from our memories: certain people, places, stories.

On Valentine's Day, it'll be a year since Krups left. Exceptional person, great mother-in-law, top journalist – one of the best around. The day after her death, obituaries across Mexico said she gave a voice to the voiceless—the forgotten ones.

I inherited piles of her books. Mostly stories about the local crime scene, then journalism and writing. A few days before leaving for Tijuana, I thought I should read some to get back in shape. One slim book caught my eye: Los Cínicos no sirven para este oficio (Cynics Are Not Suited for This Job). I wondered if it wasn’t the other way around—that maybe cynics should be doing this work, because then they wouldn’t be moved by the harrowing stories of individuals.

Still, I grabbed the book at the last minute and packed it for my Friday morning departure.

It was a set of interviews with the Polish journalist Ryszard Kapuściński. I'd never heard of him before. But the fact that he'd made it to this fine personal library somewhere in Mexico made me think it was probably worth paying attention to. Then, as we gained altitude and my nerves battled airborne vortices in the plane over the heated deserts of northwest Mexico, I took the book to the rescue and tried to drown out the tremors with focused reading. Certain passages were highlighted in pink—nearly all of them stressed the need for journalists to set aside their egos, seek out ordinary people, listen to individuals, and care about their small and big stories alike. That was exactly what I had set out to do.

Ironically, this was exactly what was on my mind the night before I left. For some reason, I felt nervous. That had never happened to me before—maybe I was out of practice. Or maybe the weight of responsibility had just fallen on me, because I had grown up a bit and was beginning to realise that I couldn't do this job like I did when I was "young" and just wait to see what happened on my first night in the pub. I was aware that I needed to do more. At the same time, a pall of doubt came over me, questioning: What's it all for anyway? No matter how sensational the news I bring, it will be old in a day or two. In a week, no one will remember it. People might pause for a moment, my ego would jump, but nothing would change.

But then there was an inspiration, a vision, that said the only way to make sense of it all was to direct it to the ordinary people. To those who have no representation elsewhere. To use the opportunities I have to help those in need. To care about those least heard, to immortalize their neglected stories and give them a voice.

Fortunately, I've had great partners to do that. The editors at revue Prostor magazine shared the same perspective: 'Take your time, we're not chasing a news story, but a story that will still matter in a few months.' That’s something rare today, as Czech media giants in the hands of businessmen won't allow it, there's no time for honest journalism, there's money to be made. So it's rare when you don't have to make fools of yourself and chase instant click-baiters, but you can go deep. Unfortunately one of the other natural consequences of capitalism.

Right next to the fact that those who don't have money and wealth right now automatically lose their voice and importance. Our proud quasi-Western society would rather hide them away so we can enjoy only the shiny stuff. I realized this as I hurried to catch a bus to the airport before dawn and passed homeless people on the benches. Such luxury is no longer available in our "developed" world. In fact, we're so progressive in Europe that they design benches so you can't lie down on them. So that those who are worst off have it even worse. Instead of spending money to help them get back on their feet, to show compassion, money is thrown away so we can pat ourselves on the back about how well we have it.

On the way to the airport, it was clear to me that this is exactly the kind of people journalists should be there for. To finally step out of the comfort of unhindered parroting of politicians, to stop being the mouthpiece of the powerful towards the people, and to become the mouthpiece of the neglected towards the upward.

***

October 27, 2017. I wanted to get that date tattooed in Tijuana this year. To forever remind me that when all may seem lost, things can still turn around. A reminder that the only way off the bottom is up.

It was then that I went to Los Angeles to live my own 'American Dream,' which, however, didn’t happen, and so I wandered lower and lower until one day I found myself in Tijuana. I couldn't find a signal at the fountain there at the time, but I fit in at some shady grocery store where you could also get a beer, so I bought one and hooked up to the internet to arrange a ride to the coast. There, in the days that followed, I made a reportage from the border fence, where the eyes of the world were fixed at the time because of Donald Trump's freshly begun first term as president.

Even though for a while it looked like I was doing something that mattered again, even though I was sending stories to the Czech Republic of people who had everything taken away by the fence, it didn't increase my chances of success overseas. I was sleeping in a hostel with a bunch of perpetually drunk retired Mexican-Americans, eating mostly defrosted pizza from a nearby 7Eleven, and my dream of success in the big world was slowly but surely turning into a nightmare. Luckily, the roommates were pretty fun and there was also a Wallmart nearby where I got a bottle of mezcal for 159 pesos.

The plan was to get acclimated in Tijuana, do my reportage, and go to Ciudad de México for a Día de Muertos. There I would see my girl that time, the daughter of the aforementioned mother-in-law, and probably return to America again. But when I bought the tickets on that date and saw my account balance, I wanted to cry. I knew that I had only a few weeks of hope left, then I would have to call it a day. There's no way I can survive this. The image of returning to the Czech Republic after my grand departure, three months later, with a plea popped into my mind. How I’d have to go back to my old job at the bizarre news factory and probably live in my friends’ places.

Today I know it would be no shame. That it's moments like these that create strong characters. But back then? Back then, I felt like shit.

I bought a plane ticket and shook off the gloom. I knew that now I could only hope that one of the jobs I'd been looking for all this time would finally come out. And if not? I guess I didn't really have anything to lose.

I uncapped the bottle of mezcal and drank shot after shot in that blissful despair. Not even to induce drunkenness or oblivion. On the contrary, it didn't get me drunk at all. But it felt good to laugh at myself as I did.

Pretty soon, I was almost at the bottom of the bottle, and at that moment, I corked it: Not yet, mate, you can't give up yet, you're not at the end yet. You have to hit the rock bottom first, and then it will come and it will be a blessing, because then it will kick you up! And I decided to hope for a little while longer.

That night, I went to bed with a clarity I hadn’t felt in a long time and woke up with a brutal hangover. I checked my phone and, at first, couldn’t tell if it was the agave talking. There was a message from the guy who ran a hostel in the Yucatán, the one I’d been trying to get into for weeks: 'Come, the season’s starting, we could use all the help we can get!' Before I could get too excited, another message came in, from a friend at Czech TV, asking me to go live and share my experience from the border wall.

That day a new story of my life began to be written. I shot the promised interview in a living room in Ciudad de México, which soon became my new home. In the meantime, I also spent some time in Tulum, Yucatán, and also received other job offers.

Seven years have passed since that unfortunate night and blessed morning in October, most of which I have spent in Mexico and much of which I have been able to engage in activities that make sense to me. Would I have thought then that I would be where I am today? Certainly not. I am far from where I would like to be: still haven't published the book, still not the acclaimed author, still on the road, etc. I've lost out on a lot of things, but I'm alive and still heading up. And that's the biggest win.

So on the third Friday of this year, I stood in Tijuana again. At the airport, seven years older. Seven years more experienced, with far more scars on my soul, a little more knowledgeable and a little less reckless. I'm also a little calmer, because I've learned that everything always sorts itself out at the end and there's no point in hoping for the worst.

The taxi driver laughed – he said this was a completely different city than I knew it, because it was growing at a breathtaking pace. But honestly, all I remembered from my brief visit years ago was the hostel and the nearby promenade to the border fence. And it will still be there, I'm sure. And then there were the memories of those few harrowing nights.

I drove downtown to the hotel - yes, there was no longer a bed waiting for me in a cot for twenty tattooed regulars - and headed straight for the border. I wanted to go right to the border crossing - where the immigrants go to negotiate their entry into the US. I had the place picked out from the news, it was called El Chaparall.

I shivered when I got there. Half-dead homeless, hookers, drug addicts everywhere... Good thing I left my camera and the rest of my gear at the hotel for the day. When I pulled out my phone to look at the map, I didn't feel good at all. But I finally hit the bridge over the Río Tijuana, at the end of which was supposed to be El Chaparall.

Down below, armed National Guard men were just handing out junkies from the neighborhood. I climbed up onto the bridge and saw the dry riverbed and the skyline of the big city. On the other bank, a rusty fence loomed on the horizon, and beyond it, an American flag. I advanced on the bridge, wondering when I would be ambushed. I'm like a fist in the eye again, just like I was then, though not as naive as a Boy Scout.

When I got to the other half of the bridge, I was no longer in doubt. Something must have dropped in my eye. I was staring ahead and actually looking back. A few more steps and a desolate and deserted square with a neglected fountain in the middle opened up in front of me. Yes, the very place where I had found myself seven years and a few months ago, with just one stuffed backpack, almost no money, a little hope, and no idea that I wouldn’t be coming back.

I stopped and stared at the fountain where I had parked back then, sweaty and scared, trying to figure out how to escape that despair. I realized that I truly had no idea where I was going or what I would do. The only certainty was that I’d keep trying to survive for a little longer before my dream ate me alive. I smiled at the thought, maybe to comfort my younger self from a distance: 'It’ll be okay, buddy, we’ll get through this.

I walked down to the little square, looking for the store where I had once taken refuge. But everything around seemed even deader than before. So I headed straight for the border crossing—the spot where, years ago, homeless Nick was supposed to be waiting for me with his van to take me to the beach. I instantly recognized the parking lot where we met, where he poured out a bucket of urine from his van. And where the border guards with machine guns were yelling at us. And where I thought to myself: What the fuck have I got myself into again!

I had a beer in another one of the local shops, with a view of the fountain. It didn’t feel much safer than back then, but now I knew how to get out of trouble. I spoke Spanish, had a phone with a local provider so I didn’t have to search for Wi-Fi, had enough money for a taxi, and plenty of contacts. After all, I also knew exactly where I was. And why.

It felt almost surreal. I wished I could hug my small, frightened self and tell him there was nothing to fear. That it would be tough, that along the way he’d lose a lot—strength, loved ones, ideals, and more. That he would suffer immensely, but that there would also be moments of hope, love, and good people. Moments that made it worth having that second-to-last shot and simply believing that things would turn around once again.

***

I went to the coast the next two days as well. The building where I lived in October 2017 was lifeless, the windows boarded up, the signs torn down and the door held only by force of will. The guy in the shop next door had no idea there had ever been a hostel there. "I've only been here six years," he told me.

The building across the street was burned down, but the same 7Eleven I used to go to for cheap pizza was still there. And also Wallmart, where I bought a Fandango mezcal the other day, which I would probably only drink today out of nostalgia.

Of course, I also visited the border fence, where I had once desperately searched for stories for my report. And I was grateful that I could now do this work in a way that not only shocked but also helped. With every interview I conducted there, I thought of Krups, and that Polish journalist, and the importance of remembering those most in need—to be their voice.

Because great stories are made up of seemingly small people and their seemingly insignificant stories. We all live out our own dramas, and none are greater or lesser than others. As journalists, we should focus on these stories. And as human beings, we should never lose hope—because even when we feel like we've hit rock bottom, the bottom is there for a reason: to push us back up to the surface. No matter how impossible that may seem in the moment.

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Just before Christmas, I left Mexico City for a few days in the Caribbean. I hoped to organize my thoughts, reflect on the year, and tidy up my mind.

Not long ago, I realized I need very little to live; which in today’s world feels like so much: having as much time as possible. Time for things I enjoy doing, people I love, and places where I feel good.

The older I get (this was shortly before my 36th birthday), the less I feel the need to chase success in any form. I just want the freedom to spend my time as I choose. But it’s becoming increasingly clear that our (Western) society doesn’t allow for that. Instead of focusing on the little we truly need, it’s centered on the much we don’t. And so I wanted to answer this question: How to find the right balance between surviving in a consumerist world and our natural desire for maximum freedom?

***

Mahahual didn't seem like the most suitable place for such reflection in the first few days: Every morning in the small village on the southern tip of the Yucatán Peninsula, four massive cruise ships dock, spilling out hundreds of entertainment-hungry Western tourists. They hop on golf carts and cruise to the Malecón promenade, where locals, armed with menus in front of polished beach clubs, beckon them in English to spend their money. That’s how the day goes until the ship horns blare in the evening, signaling the return of the now-tipsy travelers to their expensive voyage. The village breathes a sigh of relief, the Malecón empties, the restaurant owners tally up, and Mahahual turns into a ghost town. Locals grab a beer and enjoy their well-deserved rest with tortillas and rice on a tray.

This is a striking illustration of the clash between two worlds I had in mind. And yet, they complement each other perfectly. There’s nothing inherently wrong with either. I’m not one to criticize people for having fun or others for making a living off it. After all, at the end of the day, both sides seem content. The problem arises when you don’t belong to either world: you’re too foreign for locals to stop shouting English promotions at you, yet not foreign enough to happily join the jubilant American tourists.

From the moment I arrived, I felt out of place, like an intruder in both worlds. But amidst it all, I found kindred spirits. One of them was Eduardo, who introduced himself as 'Vagabondo' – a vagabond, a wanderer, a tramp, or a homeless man, if you will.

From the first day, Eduardo caught my attention. He sat near the Malecón, smiling, perhaps selling something, but unlike the others, he wasn’t shouting at anyone or trying too hard. He was just there at his little table. I immediately dubbed him Axl Rose for his torn jeans and straw cowboy hat. But underneath, the gray curls of age rippled, and even lower, wrinkles dug into the rounded, kindly face.

From his plastic chair, he observed the scene in front of him, with the sea murmuring behind. On his table lay neatly arranged minerals of various shapes and origins, serving as stands for the handmade seaside jewelry. That alone caught my eye – amid the uniform, unsightly trinkets of other vendors, covered in dust and haphazardly thrown on shabby tablecloths, here was someone with an artistic idea. I no longer collect these seaside bracelets, but these called to me. It all somehow carried an air of nostalgia, and I felt compelled to take one home. "I’ll stop by someday," I promised myself as I passed by for the first time.

Little did I know who this man was until Andrea – the other exceptional person – told me. Andrea worked at the reception of the place where I stayed. She was from Atlixco, one of my favorite towns near Mexico City (you might remember it from a previous report), and perhaps that’s why we got along so well. She was different from most people I had met in Mahahual, with none of the aloofness that others seemed to exude.

One evening, she was late for dinner because, as she explained, 'I got caught up talking to Eduardo. It turned out he was the man in the torn jeans and hat. She told me he was very wise, educated, and well-read, even though he lived on the streets next to his bracelet stall. I wasn’t surprised; from the start, it was clear he was someone special.

Kundera, Occupation, and the Desire for Freedom

I came to Mahahual with one more idea in mind: to start working on a short documentary in which I would interview interesting people about certain questions of life. You can probably guess that Eduardo was just the kind of person I had in mind.

The next day, I stopped by his stall. At first, we chatted as a vendor and buyer about his bracelets. I’m not sure how it happened, but soon we were talking about Milan Kundera, with Eduardo shaking his head and saying, "Strange how your country only wanted him once he made it big abroad, just to leech off him." He told me how, in August 1968, he was captivated by a photo on the cover of Life magazine showing Czechoslovak patriots standing with a flag in front of Soviet tanks in occupied Prague. It was clear I was in the presence of someone well-read and knowledgeable.

We discussed journalism, and he stressed how vital a responsibility it is. When I countered that it’s been going downhill lately, along with its sense of responsibility, he reminded me that even Ernest Hemingway, Mark Twain, and Rudyard Kipling started as journalists.

Kipling was his favorite. He often quoted Kipling’s poem If, a guide for young men from a father. Eduardo said he revisits it whenever he feels low. Like around Christmas. For all of humanity, it’s a time that tends to be sad, he told me. Then he added that he’s a free spirit who values his freedom above all. It felt like hearing my own thoughts. He added, "But free spirits often find themselves alone."

Eduardo told me he has an exceptional memory, which showed in his ability to quote books for every situation. He studied anthropology in Veracruz, where he’s from, because, as he said, it’s the basis of all human knowledge. For nearly half a century, he’s lived on the streets, a choice he made to embrace freedom. One evening, as a young man, he was sitting in a casino in the port of Veracruz, and the next day, he became a vagabond. Now he sleeps in a tent beside his bracelet stall on the promenade. Sometimes friends offer him a place to stay, but he’s fine as he is.

Dream and Have Goals!

We talked for a while about books, and then I asked Eduardo if he’d be willing to do an on-camera interview for my documentary. He agreed, and I soon returned with my equipment.

Initially, I hadn’t planned to release the interview before completing the mini-film. But Eduardo’s message resonated with me so deeply—and feels especially relevant now, as we set goals and intentions for the new year—that I want to share some insights that touched me the most. Perhaps they might also help some of you, who, like me, are seeking direction for the days ahead.

Naturally, we discussed death and the meaning of life. “Death is really just transformation. Matter transforms—it doesn’t die, right? In the end, we become vegetation, trees... That’s what I think about the significance of life,” Eduardo told me. “And also that it’s essential to always have goals. I find it very hard to accept the Western mentality, particularly in industrialized, wealthy countries. The idea of reaching a certain age, sitting in a chair, watching the news, and waiting for death? That seems absurd to me. I’ll turn 74 on March 4th. But always having goals. And those goals can also be translated into dreams, right? So, that’s what keeps you with vitality.”

Dreams were, in fact, where it all started; also our entire conversation. “Since childhood, I’ve always dreamed. It influenced me a lot. Alexandre Dumas, The Three Musketeers, Mark Twain, Robinson Crusoe, Treasure Island—those were my dreams. We all have dreams as children, but few manage to make their dreams come true,” Eduardo reflected and left me with this message: “Dream! But always with your feet on the ground. It's clear that if it hadn't been for a dream, there would be no Martin Luther King. Obama wouldn’t have become president. People wouldn’t have reached the Moon. All of that started with imagination. And if you can imagine it, you can achieve it!”

I couldn’t help but ask about nightmares. There, in the Caribbean at sunset, everything seemed idyllic. But I bet this nomadic life isn’t all smooth sailing. I asked him if he feared anything. “Fear is like a belly button. There isn’t a single person without it,” Eduardo replied. “Even John Rambo, Captain America, and Indiana Jones have fears. And those who claim they don’t are often the biggest cowards. But you need to know your fears, control them, and overcome them. Remember what I told you earlier about that Life magazine cover where your countryman stood in front of a Soviet tank? Even though he knew they could do to him what they did in Beijing, where people were massacred. That photo made him immortal.”

Thanks to Eduardo, I reaffirmed what’s essential: to have dreams, goals, and the courage to bring them to life, no matter the cost. Just like he chose to leave a system he didn’t fit into and live life on his terms, being his own master. Even if it means giving up comfort. But having dreams and pursuing them is vital. Without that, nothing makes sense.

Enjoy the Sunset and Go to Sleep

Finally, I asked Eduardo the question I pose to everyone I interview for the documentary: If you knew tomorrow was your last day, what would you do?

“Wow. That’s fascinating. It’s fascinating to think about what I’d want to do on the last day of my life. I’d live it to the fullest. Watch the sunrise. Watch the sunset. And go to sleep. Go to sleep in complete peace. Because that’s the most normal thing.”

To that, I’d like to add my own New Year’s message—hard-earned through 2024: The only thing you have, and always will have, is yourself in your purest form. Your mind, your heart, your soul, and the rest of your body. Take care of it, because nothing else truly belongs to you. Money will come and go, loves will come and go, your closest ones will come and go, your job, possessions, and even feelings of happiness will come and go. You can’t stop any of it, and if you base your happiness on these fleeting, uncertain things, your world will crumble when they leave. That’s why the most important thing is to care for yourself and give yourself what you truly need. Everything else will follow.

Here’s to a successful 2025—may you pursue and achieve your dreams!

V.

What could be more condemnable than death? Perhaps the people who openly embrace it? They bring offerings, reaching out to her. Mother Death. La Flaca, Niña Blanca. Or simply – Santa Muerte. I spent a year documenting those who pray to Holy Death to uncover the secrets behind the mysterious veil surrounding them.

They are deemed condemnable, one might say. Their nature defies the patterns imposed by those who seek to command and manipulate the masses. To such rulers, these people are outlaws. Dangerous. Simply because they chose to live differently than what the powerful would prefer. In a fabricated world of ideals, there is no place for them. And who would care about those who don’t fit? Perhaps only Death herself, when she comes for them.

They walk towards her. They sense that no one else wants them anymore. Only death remains—holy Death, Santa Muerte, the patron saint of those abandoned by all others. She is the saint of the faithful, forbidden to pray to the elite of heaven.

In the Vatican, they are rejected for being – different. But they too want someone to lean on, someone they can trust not to turn away. In the end... that terrifying skeletal figure with a scythe, unlike biblical heroes, is not selective. She takes everyone. And they follow her. They trust her more than their own kind.

Vatican: A Macabre Symbol of the Narcos

"We are faithful to Santa Muerte!" someone from the group forming in front of the chapel exclaimed, their voice fading into the void of the shadowy Doctores district. Around twenty people of all ages gathered around the altar with the larger-than-life figure of Death for a group photo, as if it were the end of the school year. Someone added, "And that doesn’t mean we don’t believe in God! Respect us! We are devoted to Santa Muerte but still believe in God!"

There was a shy chuckle. A few passersby glanced over but quickly moved on, paying little attention. The infamous Doctores neighborhood is already too close to death, so there’s no need to get any nearer. But anyone stopping by the altar that April evening would have noticed a particularly festive atmosphere. They were celebrating the 22nd anniversary of this despised sanctuary of the damned. Blasphemers, as some might say.

Santa Muerte, also known as La Flaca (The Skinny) or Niña Blanca (The White Girl), is a well-known figure in Mexico. However, most of proper society looks down on her, or even fears her, due to the myths surrounding her. The Holy Father, as hypocrites from all corners of the world title the head of the most decrepit mafia in human history, has labeled Santa Muerte as a "macabre symbol" of drug traffickers and equated belief in her with Satanism.

Yet paradoxically, it is precisely the Vatican and its rigid rules that have driven many believers into her embrace. Santa Muerte does not condemn so-called sins like homosexuality, promiscuity, or disobedience. Unlike celibates in their robes, hiding their erected body parts, she is tolerant. Everyone finds refuge with her, regardless of how they conduct their lives. Santa Muerte is for all, just like death itself. So, those whom spiritual leaders from their golden palaces have shut the doors of heaven to, have found a saint who welcomes them with open arms: Death.

She is blamed for guarding the local drug traffickers and other sinners. I’ve met narcos who prayed to her. And I’ve met narcos who didn’t. I’ve also met many ordinary, decent people who prayed to her. And even more ordinary, decent people who didn’t. It’s like with any faith; everyone has their own approach to it.

One of my previous reportages about Santa Muerte:

We shouldn't dismiss the reputation of Santa Muerte, though. Deep in the underworld, among sicarios or those practicing dark magic, she is truly a revered figure. In the past, her altars have been found in the secret hideouts of criminals or cults, often accompanied by human remains, drugs, and weapons. However, this doesn’t mean we can label every Santa Muerte follower as a delinquent, as you’ll see in my report below.

I can only speak from my own experiences. After a year spent documenting a neighborhood chapel of Santa Muerte in the Doctores district of Ciudad de México, I’m certain of this: I’ve rarely met a group of people as warm, humble, and friendly as these devotees. Many of them became my friends, and I’d trust some with my life. Even though I came as an outsider and we hardly know each other, I believe – based on how I got to know them – they would gladly jump into the fire for me. Where I was, I encountered more humanity than I often see in "proper" society.

Christmas miracle

It was last Christmas. Even Ciudad de México felt the festive atmosphere, with winter sneaking into the city. At 2500 meters above sea level, the cold really bites. One evening, we headed downtown with friends to enjoy a warm drink and take in the Christmas decorations.

We drove through the Doctores neighborhood, the unwanted and hidden neighbor of the polished Roma area, which serves as a safe haven for the western elite amidst the unpredictable city. But the people of Doctores come from a different world. You can tell from their gaze that life doesn’t mess around there. The neighborhood, built at the end of the 19th century on a former cemetery exhumed after an earthquake, was meant to be a prominent residential zone and even had the latest hospital. Today, its faded glory is barely recognizable in the decaying buildings. Every corner has a funeral home, and sometimes it's hard to tell where the street ends and the morgue begins.

At one intersection, something unusual caught my eye. By a taco stand on the corner was a moped with a trailer. Atop it sat a skeletal figure in a dazzling robe, draped in lights like a Christmas tree. It resembled a fair more than an altar to feared sicarios. But there was something about it that kept me awake. I had to find out what it was and who was behind it.

At that time, I had been delving into the cult of Santa Muerte for quite some time. Its mysticism and the dubious characters it attracted fascinated me. I made repeated visits to Tepito, the feared neighborhood home to the city's largest cartel and the most famous Santa Muerte altar. But that place had become increasingly popular with curious outsiders, losing much of its original mystery. In Doctores, however, I found that sense of enigma again.

It wasn’t too difficult to track down where the Santa Muerte chapel was located in Doctores. I got a tip from a friend and decided to scope it out one day. Luck was on my side. As I arrived, I spotted the Santa Muerte cart disappearing behind the chapel gates. The building itself was an unassuming, weathered house, blending seamlessly with its neighbors, except for a sidewalk display case featuring three figures: Santa Muerte, Jesús Malverde, and San Judas Tadeo.

I lingered nearby, intrigued by sounds of activity from within. Eventually, a young man emerged, having just parked the mobile Santa Muerte cart. I struck up a conversation, explaining that I’d seen his cart previously and found it fascinating. I also mentioned my experience documenting the Santa Muerte in Tepito. Unfazed, he shared that they operated a Santa Muerte chapel, using the cart to engage believers on the streets. He invited me to join their gatherings, held on the 1st and 15th of each month.

A Warm Welcome Party

I returned at the next opportunity, January 15th. From the outside, you wouldn’t suspect the place to be a shrine. It resembled a garage tucked into the ground floor of a building from the neighborhood's golden age. Only upon closer inspection did the elaborately decorated altar at the back of the room come into view. Dominating the space was a nearly life-sized Santa Muerte figure, surrounded by smaller statues and ritual items. Adorned fabrics hung from the ceiling and walls, though the rest of the room appeared modest and understated.

Santa Muerte also had a revered neighbor. In an adjoining room stood another shrine, this time dedicated to Jesus Malverde, Mexican Robin Hood from the early 20th century. His rebellious, outlaw persona made him an icon for Mexican criminals and drug traffickers. In this room, a life-sized statue of him occupied a raised platform, flanked by three stern-looking busts. The walls were adorned with fake banknotes, candles flickered throughout, and the ground floor shelves offered figurines and amulets of both Santa Muerte and Malverde for sale.

At night, the place felt much more solemn than during the day. Truthfully, I approached it with some trepidation, fearing how the locals of Doctores might react to a random white guy snooping around.

By seven o’clock, small groups of attendees began arriving. To my relief, there were no tattooed faces or armed individuals like in Tepito. Instead, the atmosphere resembled a friendly neighborhood gathering. Well-dressed people with kind expressions greeted each other and chatted casually. If not for the dramatic decorations, you wouldn’t suspect this was the prelude to something labeled occultism.

Spotting a boy I had spoken to earlier, I approached him with an outstretched hand, signaling to onlookers that I wasn’t just a random gawker. A few curious glances lingered our way, but once people saw us chatting amicably, they lost interest.

“Do you think I could take some pictures here?” I asked hesitantly.

“Sure? Just be mindful of the believers so you don’t make them uncomfortable,” he replied.

Finally, I brought out my camera, carefully photographing only the décor to avoid offending anyone. I planned to include people in my shots only after they had grown accustomed to my presence.

“Don’t photograph that,” he cautioned as I eyed the area behind Santa Muerte. At the back of the room, a curtained alcove concealed possibly another larger-than-life figure, visible only through something that reminded long horns protruding from a head.

After thoroughly exploring the accessible areas, I returned to thank the boy. A woman soon joined us, exuding an unmistakable authority. Despite her unassuming appearance—missing teeth, cropped hair, and a grandmotherly apron—her commanding presence radiated respect. She bustled around with a lit cigarette, shouting orders while cheerfully greeting newcomers with a wrinkle-creased smile.

She informed her son that the ceremony was about to start and asked if everything was ready. “What about the stream?” she asked, to my surprise.

“Stream?” I echoed.

“Of course, everything needs to go global these days,” she quipped.

“Global where?” I asked.

“TikTok,” they both commented. “We stream all our ceremonies on TikTok so people can join remotely. And also to educate others—we want them to know we’re not any monsters.”

“Did you establish this altar?” I inquired.

“I did! Twenty-one years ago! Can you believe that? Twenty-one years,” she boomed.

“What inspired you? And why Santa Muerte?” I pressed.

“My daughter,” she replied, gesturing toward a beautiful young woman in her mid-twenties. “She had a terrible car accident back then, leaving her with burns over most of her body. That’s when I started believing.”

“People criticize us because they don’t understand,” she continued. “They think we don’t believe in God. But we do! We believe in God, the Virgin of Guadalupe, and San Judas Tadeo. And we believe in Satanism. We believe in everything. Except humanity,” she said, erupting into hearty laughter.

Her laughter wasn’t just wild—it was defiant, the laugh of someone who had nothing left to lose and couldn’t care less about others’ opinions. It embodied pure freedom—a freedom that was unapologetic and absolute.

I managed to ask her name before she left. “Shakira Guadalupe Masturbeta,” she said with a laugh, cracking up once more as she sauntered off.

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“I have two daughters, and I had a son too. He died when he was 22,” Alejandro, a taxi driver, confided during a ride through the festively decorated historic district of Coyoacán in southern Mexico City. The cheerful conversation suddenly grew heavy—mostly on my part. I fell silent and assumed a solemn expression. Sensing my thoughts, Alejandro burst into laughter as if to lighten the moment: “Life goes on. I know we’ll meet again. In Mictlán. One day, we’ll reunite in Mictlán!”

Mictlán. The Aztec afterlife. A mythical underworld where the souls of the deceased go after death, governed by Mictlantecuhtli and his wife Mictecacihuatl. Before standing in front of them, the dead must overcome nine challenging levels, and at the end of this arduous journey, they find eternal rest.

The name of this place, translated from the ancient Nahuatl language as "Land of the Dead," is on everyone’s lips in Mexico at the end of October. The streets and squares light up with vibrant orange-yellow cempasúchil flowers, which, according to legend, glow like lanterns guiding the dead back to our world. In bakeries and cafes, pan de muerto—"bread of the dead"—fills the windows, a staple for welcoming returning souls. Everything feels even more colorful and festive than usual in Mexico.

It’s Día de Muertos—the Days of the Dead. Days that, in my home Czech Republic, Central Europe, are shrouded in a somber web of grief, sorrow, and fear. But in Mexico, they are a reason to celebrate. The dead return briefly from Mictlán to greet us and remind us that life must be savored while it lasts.

It’s a significant marketing success that Halloween, with its fun costumes and antics, has made its way to the Czech Republic. Yet, as far as I can recall, our All Saints’ Days used to be somber—a time of decaying leaves, darkness at 5 PM, rain, and flickering red candle flames dancing like will-o’-the-wisps around graves no one dared approach after dark.

I loved it. It carried that Slavic gloom. It was eerie, mysterious, alien, and distant. As if saying: "Don’t come here. This is ours now, and you don’t belong." It scared me, as cemeteries are supposed to.

In Mexico, it’s the opposite. It’s as if they’re inviting you to a never-ending fiesta among the dead. "Come on in, it’s lively here!" they seem to say. On these nights, families and friends gather around the graves of loved ones, savoring the moments together. Some even spend the night there. There’s no reason to fear.

Starting mid-October, everything in Mexico revolves around these celebrations, peaking between the last day of the month and the night of November 2. During this time, the paths from Mictlán are most crowded, and the streets of Mexican cities and villages buzz with life. There are festivals everywhere, always with plenty of food, loud music, dancing, and festive attire.

People build ofrendas—colorful altars with offerings—in their homes, workplaces, or even in public spaces. These altars feature pan de muerto, sweets, perhaps a splash of alcohol, or anything the deceased loved in life. When Día de Muertos arrives, the festivities reach full swing. People feast, drink, sing, and reminisce. On November 1, the spirits of deceased children and pets are remembered; on November 2, the adult dead are honored.

In Mexican culture, life and death are not opposites but interconnected parts of existence. The ancient civilizations believed human life doesn’t end with death—it transitions to Mictlán, a place of peace and tranquility. This may explain why Mexicans seem so accepting of death.

In a country where many survive on just a few pesos a day, and where an average of four people are murdered every hour—those known to authorities, that is—people remain unshaken. They appear optimistic, grounded, and unconcerned with trivial matters. Sometimes, they seem unfazed even by the greatest tragedies.

About two years ago, I had breakfast with a middle-aged Mexican woman, a cleaner for wealthier compatriots. By European standards, she was merely surviving, not living. Yet, she radiated a healthy and balanced energy. Between bites, she casually recounted attending the funeral of a relative’s baby, describing the customs: selecting the coffin, baptizing the body, and dressing the infant. Her tone was so matter-of-fact, you’d think she was talking about what’s for dinner.

This isn’t to say Mexicans are cold-hearted cynics—they’re far from it. Instead, it reflects their approach to life: enjoy it, don’t dwell on it. As one Mexican friend often reminds me when I’m overwhelmed by responsibilities back home in the Czech Republic: "Life isn’t for overthinking—it’s for living."

Of course, it’s easier to say that in a country where you don’t spend half the year in fog and mud. In a country ruled by corrupt sirs, but at least they don't prey primarily on the least fortunate. In a country where you can always get food at a reasonable price, and if you can't, people share among themselves without talking. Here, most accept their modest lot, choosing to live simply rather than burn out in the rat race.

And so they're dancing this tango with death. Norbert Frýd, Czech writer and diplomat, illustrated how Mexicans interact with death in his book Mexico is in America, recounting an incident at a bullfight:

"During a bullfight, a particularly wild animal was released into the arena. The crowd was furious and whistled because the experienced torero seemed unsure of how to handle it, perhaps even afraid. Then, out of the crowd, a 16-year-old boy jumped into the ring, almost landing on the bull. As soon as he regained his balance, he began teasing the animal with a red cloth. The bull charged him, but the boy deftly dodged, following the torero’s art. The crowd screamed in excitement...

Nothing happened, an espontáneo,” my Mexican friends shrugged when I later asked them about it. “An enthusiast, it got to him and he jumped into the arena—this is a common feature at many fights."

"But the bull could’ve killed him?" I asked.

"Sure, and sometimes it does happen. If it wasn’t dangerous, the boy wouldn’t have done it..."

After reading this passage, I realized that this is what attracts me to Mexico—the life on the edge, flowing from their indifferent attitude toward danger and death. And that much greater passion and love with which people here approach life itself, no matter how hard it is.

It does, however, have its caveat. I immediately wondered if this passion and lack of fear might also be fueling the violence happening here. I did some research and found that scientific studies have already been conducted on this topic. For example, local anthropologist Claudio Lomnitz speculates in his book Death and the Idea of Mexico that Mexicans’ tendency not to shy away from death may be linked to their willingness to confront the violent aspects of life. According to him, the long-standing tolerance of death could create a culture in which violence is partially accepted. As we sadly see today.

This is further supported by the ubiquitous and especially in recent days increasingly popular narcoculture, which celebrates aspects of the gangster lifestyle, as we know it, for example, from Netflix. Mexican culture expert José Luis González, in his text La naturalización de la muerte en México (The Naturalization of Death in Mexico), points out that in its depiction in pop culture, violence and death are often either glorified or accepted as a common phenomenon.

In his book The Labyrinth of Solitude, Octavio Paz writes about Mexicans, saying that for them “living means risking and loving every moment,” a perspective that can also be attributed to their acceptance of mortality. And yes, we could take an example from that—living wildly, uncompromisingly, “here and now.”

And to conclude, I would like to remind you of the words of director Guillermo del Toro. When asked how he manages to explore the darkest aspects of life in his often harrowing works, while still being such a pleasant and kind person, he answered: “Because I am Mexican. No one loves life more than we do—because we are aware of death. The preciousness of life stands side by side with that one place we all head toward. We’ve all boarded a train with the final destination Death. So in that train, we will live! There will be beauty, love, and freedom.”

Eight years is enough time for a preschooler to become a teenager. It’s how long the New Horizons spacecraft traveled to Pluto, covering five billion kilometers. In eight years, a sapling grows into a sturdy oak with roots tangled deep into the earth. And eight years is also how long a Corvette can remain parked in the same spot, quietly marking the passage of your journey through a foreign land.

How could it happen? How could eight years just pass like that? More than I’ve ever spent in one place. More than I’ve ever dated anyone or worked at any job. What would my past self, waking up on that first morning in a strange megacity, have said if I told him this place would become my second home? That I’d know it better than Prague or Czech Budweiss? That it would know me, too—that we’d grow accustomed to each other and find comfort in the familiarity.

Back then, it was just a vacation. Nothing more. A chance to clear my head for a few weeks because the opportunity had presented itself. It was only the fourth time I’d ever traveled outside Europe. A trip to Mexico sounded as exotic and distant as a voyage to Pluto. Today, I couldn’t even count all my flights across the Atlantic, and my wallet holds an ID card declaring Ciudad de México as my place of residence.

When I woke up that October morning in 2016 to the gray smog of a modest apartment belonging to a girl I barely knew, it couldn’t have been further from my idea of an ideal holiday. The place felt hostile and unwelcoming. Just concrete, grime, too many people, chaos, noise, unfriendly stares. Grime—I’ve mentioned it already, but it bears repeating.

We stepped out into it all. She led me toward one of the city’s many multi-lane highways, where thousands of cars, in varying states of disrepair, rushed by. Before we crossed the street, something else caught my eye. A stunning vintage Corvette, beautifully preserved. Not so unusual, perhaps—except that its front axle was chained to a lamppost. I couldn’t help but laugh and took a photo. Nobody back home would believe this.

We nicknamed the vehicle Don Vergas’ Car—a local term that roughly translates to Mr. Dick’s Car. If someone screws up, they’re called Don Vergas. If someone parks like a jerk, they’re Don Vergas. And if someone chains a sports car to a lamppost? Definitely Don Vergas. So, that’s what we called the beautiful old Corvette.

I was relieved to leave that smoggy, smoky chaos behind a few days later to experience the “nice” Mexico—the kind people travel to the southern state of Oaxaca or the Caribbean for.

But fate had other plans. A year later, through a series of unfortunate coincidences, I found myself back in the same neighborhood, walking past the same house. And there it was—the car. Or rather, it was still there. By then, it was shortly after the devastating earthquake of September 2017, which left parts of the city in ruins. That’s when my story in Mexico really began. More coincidences piled on until they no longer felt like coincidences. When I returned deliberately a year later, I couldn’t resist checking if the Don Vergas’ Car was still there. And it was.

By then, I was coming back to a different home, on the opposite side of the same artery, with something resembling a family waiting for me. Every autumn, I’d make a point of visiting the Narvarte neighborhood, just across from Parque Delta, to see if the car was still there. And it always was. A little dustier, covered in more leaves, slowly fading with time.

It became my chronicle, my personal Mayan calendar, reminding me each year that another cycle had passed since I arrived for a few weeks and stayed for years.

When I took my second photo of the car, in the summer of 2018, campaign posters for the political party Morena were everywhere. One, with the cryptic initials “AMLO,” loomed from a massive billboard across the street, watching us as we climbed onto our rooftop to marvel at the vast human anthill below during sunsets. Later, I learned what those letters meant—an acronym for Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the man who would become Mexico’s president a few months later.

I was there when AMLO, as he’s widely known, swore loyalty to the Mexican people in December 2018, standing in the heart of Zócalo square. Indigenous leaders enveloped him in ceremonial incense, a spiritual cleansing. The vast plaza filled with the scent of copal.

After years of lamenting his predecessor Enrique Peña Nieto’s bloody legacy, people soon realized that under AMLO, things weren’t improving—in some cases, they worsened. Even as we witnessed drug lords arrested, like one of El Chapo Guzmán’s sons (who, as I later discovered, also enjoyed hanging around Parque Delta), doubts grew.

Then, this spring, Morena posters returned to the streets, now in a deep reddish-purple hue.

By then, I had taken my eighth photo of the car and accepted that one day, this series would have to end. As expected, AMLO’s protégé Claudia Sheinbaum won the June elections, and a few months later, I was once again in Zócalo, where the air smelled of incense as Mexico welcomed its first female president. It hit me then: I, who came here EIGHT! years ago for a visit, had now lived through three Mexican presidents—just one fewer than I’ve experienced in my home Czech Republic.

And last weekend, I snapped the ninth photo of the car. Yes, it’s still there. Covered in leaves, its headlights smashed, long since freed of its chain. Dusty, with a note on the windshield saying someone would like to buy it.

I wonder what that younger version of me, who took that first innocent photo before getting dropped off by a friend at the Balderas metro station (where he immediately got lost), would think of the man now writing these lines just five blocks from there—calling this place “home.” What would he say about having lived through the best and worst life has to offer here? He’d be stunned by all that’s changed. He wouldn’t believe it.

It’s been eight years. Eight years since I landed in the middle of this madness. Eight years since that Corvette first caught my eye. Eight years I’ve spent trying to figure out why. Just as I’m still trying to figure out what the hell, at the start of this ninth year, I’m still doing here.

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It was Monday noon, a bit early for lunch in Mexico, but I needed some air to fight off the dullness. I was just fixing my hangover with broth at a street food restaurant in the Juárez district, where they serve a four-course menu for 5 bucks, when Ricardo called me. The guy who was kind of responsible for my current state. What the hell does he want? I mean, we just met last night! I finally picked up the phone.

"Checo!" he shouted, the name I'm called around here by those who can't remember my real name or can't pronounce it. It doesn't matter in the end; I've gotten used to it.

"What's up, Ricardo?"

"Did you hear the explosions? Terrible blasts! Several in a row. Petardaaaazos!"

"No. I don't know anything. Where?"

"'Twas terribly powerful detonations here in Juarez. Now there's smoke rising from here, at the Ministry of the Interior. I just thought you might be interested. Maybe it was those from Ayotzinapa," he said, and I regretted suspecting him of being annoying.

Of course, I was interested. I just paid and ran that way. The Secretaría de Gobernación, or SEGOB, is only about two blocks from my apartment.
It was a bummer that I was having lunch in the opposite direction just then. I got there just to be passed by the returning TV crews. Photographers were sitting on the sidewalk, racing to see who could send the pictures to the newsrooms first. Talking heads were repeating stand-ups in front of the building, with only a few National Guard men and women stomping by in boredom. I missed the best part.

At least there's something left as a memento: walls spray-painted with the obligatory "43" and "Vivos se los llevaron, vivos los queremos!"—"They took them alive, we want them back alive!" So yes, it was "those from Ayotzinapa"; this is their signature.

As I soon learned, there were about eight shots fired before I arrived. Homemade explosives embedded in PVC tubes flew from the street behind the high fence of the office, blew out the windows, and caused a bit of a disturbance. So the protests began— a little earlier and a little more intense than I had anticipated.

Unexpected Party

But to get back to the beginning of the story. On Sunday evening, I was wandering around the darkening Juárez, sort of casually, not wanting to go home, until I decided to carry on an old tradition. This consisted of going at this time of the week to sit down and have one or two of the "better" beers from the local microbreweries. It was my recipe for beating the depression from the ending weekend, also known as the Sunday afternoon blues. Just to make that last-minute Sunday a little bit more pleasant.

So, I snuck into a nearby pub and, over an IPA from the local hipster district, dug into the articles and news that had caught my eye during the week. Two other guys were sitting there, just like me. We were each quietly drinking at our own tables, minding our own business. It didn't go unnoticed when one of them approached the other with the words, "You're a publicist, aren't you?" ...and put a magazine in front of him. "That's what we just published. What do you think?"

I soon felt like I was at a sort of journalism meeting. I tried not to listen for a while, but then I couldn't stand it. "Are you journalists?" I asked when their talk about papers stopped for a moment. They weren't. One of them, Niklas from Finland, who had lived in Mexico a little longer than I had, owned a marketing agency. The other, who had come to him for advice, was named Ricardo and lived nearby. I don't remember exactly what he had to do with the magazine he brought. Anyway, they invited me to join them, and we started to think together about what could be improved with the magazine—how to make the pages better, where to put the headlines next time, and so on.

The planned two beers suddenly became "I don't know how many" beers. We remained till closing time and sorted out a lot more than just the type fonts and colors. We discussed life in Mexico, politics, the upcoming change of presidents and government, and so on. I mentioned that it would now be ten years since the Ayotzinapa incident on Thursday, September 26, and that I expected things to heat up in the city. "Yeah, it's definitely going to be wild," Ricardo nodded.

We had time to exchange numbers before we were kicked out at around midnight, and we each slipped away to our own homes.

This unexpected party resulted in me being somewhat useless on Monday morning. But I did come away with some new knowledge and interesting contacts. Who knows, maybe they'll come in handy someday, I thought as I went to fix myself with broth at noon. And then the explosions at SEGOB and the inscriptions in memory of the 43 missing students happened. And the phone call from Ricardo.

The Scar Called Ayotzinapa

The case of Ayotzinapa is so extensive that it could be taught as a year-long course in college. It probably is. It is so important for illustrating what is happening in today's Mexico. No other case shows in direct light what the state-narco-crime nexus is really like here. But it is also quite complex, so for our purposes, I will describe it only in the most important outlines. For those who want to know more, I recommend the Netflix documentary Ayotzinapa: El paso de la tortuga.

The rural school Ayotzinapa (that's its name) in the south of Mexico is a specific institution with a long tradition of educating future cantors, and as a school in a humble area, it is also very community-based.

Like other similar rural pedagogical schools, it is characterized by, among other things, a strong relationship to the social movement and a tendency toward political activism. It is common for students and teachers there to participate in various political rallies. They usually transport themselves to them by commandeering public transport buses and directing them to their destination.

This was the case on September 26, 2014, when over a hundred students from Ayotzinapa seized several buses and took them to a commemorative event in Ciudad de México. But this time, not everything went according to plan. The local police cut off the buses in the town of Iguala and opened fire on them. Three students were killed. Some of the others were pulled off the buses by the police and taken to an unknown destination. In total, there are 43 students who have not yet returned home.

After heavy pressure from local people and foreign organizations, the then-attorney general came up with the version that the students had been executed by a local cartel and even presented several alleged perpetrators. The remains were said to have been burned in a dump and thrown into a nearby river. Such a story should have been enough for the public to silence the doubters. However, later investigations by foreign forensic specialists showed that it could not be based on truth for many reasons. Instead, suspicions of military involvement and links to the upper ranks of politics began to surface from various sources. The now-former attorney general, Murillo Karam, was arrested two years ago and accused of enforced disappearance, torture, and crimes against the administration of justice. He was recently released from detention to await the court's decision under house arrest.

It was the subsequent investigation that exposed the rampant corruption and the intermingling of organized crime with the state. Strings have been spun between local politicians, the police, the military, and the government. But the case was never completely closed, and all those involved were not brought to justice. Instead, Mexicans witnessed a despicable sweeping of evidence under the carpet, cover-ups, blame-shifting, and silly excuses.

Years later, Anabel Hernández, a respected Mexican journalist specializing in drug cartels, claimed that her findings showed that at least two of the buses the students commandeered were loaded with a $2 million shipment of heroin destined for the USA and that the order to stop them came from the military. The attorney general's indictment of specific individuals was fabricated to cover up the real perpetrators. The missing students were never found.

Streets in flames

The case has become a septic ulcer in the already quite crippled state of modern Mexican society. People can't forget this sore. And it's a good thing they can't forget it.

Furthermore, there is an anomaly in Mexico: people are actually fighting for their human rights. The locals will endure anything, low wages, and miserable living conditions, but when someone takes away their right to freedom and dignity, they won't be silenced. Here, when something stinks of injustice from above, they take to the streets. And the streets burn.

On the anniversary of the tragic event in Iguala, one of the most massive protests is held every year. This year, moreover, it was expected to be even more violent, as it was the milestone anniversary.

The protests therefore began on Monday, as I described above, even though the anniversary fell on the night of Thursday to Friday. After my belated visit to SEGOB that day, I still rushed to the main avenue, Avenida Paseo de la Reforma, where a resistance center dedicated to the events surrounding Ayotzinapa is permanently set up in a giant tent complex in front of the US embassy – yes, this is also common here, with permanent tent cities being set up in front of important institutions in protest.

About twenty buses from Ayotzinapa were parked along the boulevard, and the youth with typical bandanas around their necks or over their faces were just enjoying a simple lunch after a successful action with explosives. I learned from one of the guys standing by that another such event was scheduled for the next day, this time in front of the Attorney General's Office in the Doctores district.

As this is exclusive content, on which I have invested hours and hours of work, involving even some dangerous moments, the rest of the text is only for paying visitors. You will learn how I documented the violent protests over several days, and on top of that you can see a full gallery of the demonstrations. For six dollars you can also access all the other exclusive photo essays and the entire archive. You can then cancel your subscription at any time.

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What would summer be without a visit to the Moravian underground? I am of course referring to the wine cellars in Moravia, the east-south part of the Czech Republic. Those cellars where you go down with excitement and a little bit of caution, and come out in a blissful drunkenness.

This year's visit was particularly rewarding. Unexpected, spontaneous, all the more pleasantly surprising.

What more can I say? The Open Cellars event in Jaroslavice in the Znojmo region, where we got involved partly by accident, and partly by planning, had everything one would expect from such an event. Cheerful atmosphere, fun, great people, and best of all wine. All of this in the environment of just a big village or town, which has its square with little pubs and shops, one place a bit more classy, then the Upper and Lower Pond, and then 25 wine cellars, which together on the first Saturday in August created an oasis for all those who came to soak up... something of the legendary Moravian hospitality.

And that there was a lot to stand for. After all, already on Friday, a kind of warm-up round took place. We, the strangers from South Bohemia, tried not very successfully to calibrate our livers to the local wines and spirits, which I can't say was entirely successful. I suspect that to endure the frantic pace of the seasoned visitors, we would have to practice a slightly different technique than we are used to.

Even Friday's introduction party gave a hint that Saturday was going to be a ride. And it was. At noon, we paid the cover charge, got a drink, and got swept up in the merry-go-round of tastings and random encounters, and all sorts of informed conversations that were immediately lost in the next round. Then there was eating, drinking again, and perhaps a little dancing at the end. But at the same time, everything was carried out in the kind of dignified manner that goes with wine. And in a sophisticated joy.

However, what can I tell you, after successfully passing through all 25 stops on this Moravian trail of courage, not much has stayed in my memory. And there is not much to tell of what has stuck with me, as not everything was perhaps too well-mannered to be discussed here.

I also took photographs. Boldly, with commitment, with enthusiasm, very tenaciously, I pushed myself everywhere, even challenging the winemakers to pose for me, throwing myself into creativity, as it happens when you have a hectolitre or two of wine to go with it. It turned out that out of the many photos, I sorted out about ten that at least show the subject of the event (see the gallery at the end of the article, or my IG). The rest went hopelessly into the trash. But even this is such a testimony to how much fun it was in Jaroslavice.

So thanks so much to all the locals who made for an amazing experience and who were so very kind to us. I believe that now we won't return randomly, but that this event will become an essential part of every summer from now on.

Check out the full gallery:

If I had to explain the meaning of the word "penance" to someone, I would bring in the so-called Engrillados of Atlixco, Mexico. The faithful who have chosen to wash away their sins through the path of suffering at Easter. 

Engrillados of Atlixco - Easter tradition in Mexico

It's Good Friday, high noon, and a crowd of curious onlookers huddles outside the church of St. Francis in Atlixco. The early 16th-century church sits on a hill above the town, and it takes a lot of strength just to climb up to it in the March midday heat. It's now causing sweat to pour from all those watching, trying to snatch even an inch of shade for themselves.      

But this is a poor distillation of what dozens of local worshippers will taste in a few minutes. For, as they do every year, the engrillados set out on a journey of penance in this town about 150 kilometers southeast of Ciudad de México. In English, it probably translates as " the shackled".

 As you have probably already noticed from the photos, this is because these volunteers are carrying around 20 kilos of iron. Most often in the form of chains strapped across the hull, sometimes accompanied by giant screws, hooks, or horseshoes. Other heavy chains are dragged behind them, attached to their ankles.

At the beginning of the Easter tradition was a stolen finger 

And what's the point of all this parade? This tradition has a history of about a century in Atlixco, and its first practitioner was a certain José Muñoz. It's quite a dark story. 

Legend has it that José Muñoz fell in unrequited love. He decided that for the heart of his chosen one, he would sacrifice himself to black magic. A local witch advised him to go to the cemetery and make an amulet out of the corpse's ring finger. 

And so he did. Instead of his beloved, however, it gave him nightmares. According to witnesses, he ran around town at night like a maniac, haunted by the ghost of the finger's owner. The man of stocky build was so desperate that he vowed to walk around the city on Good Friday for the next 50 years wearing heavy chains just to wash away his sin. As he did so each year, he was joined by other residents who wanted to cleanse themselves before God. 

The custom has survived to this day. Every year on Good Friday, dozens of engrillados set out on a roughly three-kilometer journey through the city. They are not necessarily just sinners like the aforementioned José Muñoz, but some want to thank the heavens for their kindness, ask them for something, or just express the strength of their faith. 

Crown of thorns and cactus spines in the skin

From early in the morning, they meet at St. Francis Church, where they get dressed. In addition to shackles, they have cactus spines stuck in their skin and a scarf over their face. This is so that the neighbors won't recognize them, the locals told me. According to the more noble version, it's for anonymity and therefore humility before God.

They put a crown of thorns on their heads and entrust themselves to the care of guides who support them along the way and point the way. Supposedly, the engrillados have been preparing intensively for this journey of their lives for three months, both physically and mentally. I came across a quote somewhere that the pain of this harrowing journey lasts for a few days, whereas the satisfaction that follows is for the rest of their lives. 

 When the drums crashed over Atlixco that Friday noon and the rattling of chains rang through the stone streets, it was a breathless moment. All eyes were on the dozens of sufferers, and one couldn't help wondering what could have driven any of them to undergo such a thing. At the head of the procession walked a man of advanced age, with sagging muscles and unsteady steps, and you involuntarily wondered what had induced him to go through this harrowing spectacle before the whole town and strangers. Then there was a gigantic man, who, though deprived of his sight and mobility, was terrifying. One man had thorns stuck in a tattoo of St. Guadalupe, the patron saint of Mexico, and another had the cacti stuck in a tattoo of an unknown female gunman on his bicep.

The procession descended from the church towards the main square and then turned west into the Guadalupe neighborhood. Each time after a few steps it stopped to pray. From the beginning it was evident in the "shackled" how immense the fatigue was wearing them down, their guides increasingly becoming assistants, who arranged the chains that imprinted deeper into their skin with each step. 

Chained to the Makario's bar

I had enough myself after the fourth stop. The afternoon heat was unbearable. I had been walking through the hot city since early morning, taking pictures of residents decorating the streets with colorful mosaics of colored sawdust. Even then, I was drawn to an adjacent bar called Makario. From the looks of it, a poor bar, complete with a sign on the facade that read "Donde todo se puede" - Where everything is alllowed. 

 I knew I was going to end up there sooner or later that day. 

Now, as the procession of suffering sinners passed by, I left them in the distance ahead of me and raised my eyes from the ground to the entrance of this cathedral of booz and wild stories. The barman stood there and winked at me mischievously. I accepted this as a sign from Above and approached. The beer, costing 25 pesos, just hissed inside me. The bartender let me choose the music and brought me a bite to eat as the drums and the clanking of the engrillados chains faded away. "I'll catch them again at the finish line when they are more tired," I promised myself and ordered one more Victoria beer. "I'm not such a sinner as to have to go all the way with them."

I finished my third beer and hit the streets. I couldn't find the engrillados anymore. That's just to explain why I can't tell you if they all made it to the end safe. But let us trust that all who made such a sacrifice for their purity found their goal in the end. As I did at Makario's Bar.

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Notes on wandering the world, especially in Mexico... By one Czech Vagabond

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Tens of thousands of missing people, a state apparatus on the payroll of drug cartels and mothers digging up the corpses of their children. Welcome to Mexico, a land of colours and contrasts.

ČESKY (Czech Version)

No, this is not meant to be a criticism of Mexico. It's my second home, I adore it, and every day I see what wonderful, admirable and kind people live there. But it has its problems, like everywhere. And they need to be talked about too, because Mexico is not just about breathtaking beaches, majestic pyramids and the most famous cuisine in the world. Unfortunately, it's also a place of extreme crime and corruption.

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Kidnapping as a pillar of the underground economy

They say they have nothing left to lose. That's why they're also doing everything they can to find their missing parents, children, brothers and sisters. Alive or dead. It doesn't matter. They don't want revenge. They just want a dignified end for their loved ones and peace for their own souls. They call themselves "the seekers" and have dedicated their lives to finding missing people.

Abductions are either directly for money - especially relatives of rich people, who are then forced to pay a hefty ransom - or also for money, but as an express kidnapping, where the victim is dragged to an ATM and forced to suck it dry. Or again, for money, but in the form of labour. The men go to marijuana plantations or secret laboratories, the women to brothels. You could say that kidnapping is one of the pillars of the Mexican underground economy.

I took a closer look at them in an interview with a well-known Mexican criminologist and negotiator in this article:

If you can't rely on the ordinary policemen on the streets in Mexico not to rob you, how can you ask for anything more from their superiors, the prosecutor's office or the government. The relatives of the kidnapped are learning this the hard way. As you will read in the testimonies below, the state is making fools of them, not communicating and sweeping their accusations and evidence under the carpet in broad daylight. Desperate people have no choice but to help themselves. They form search teams, learn forensic science, pinpoint areas where the missing might be. And then they investigate, searching brothels, hospitals and morgues or secret graves in the ground. Often, they find their loved ones there.

The prosecutor's office is connected to the kidnappers.

"We found evidence, we found a safe house (the term for cartel hideouts - author's note) , we know who kidnapped them and everything. But the prosecutor's office does nothing," Jessica Nalleli, who is searching for her brother Ricardo, told me last week. Along with about two dozen people with similar fates, they gathered that hot March morning at the Monument to the Disappeared (Glorieta de las y los Desaparecidos). The aim was to inform about their plans for May 10, which is Mother's Day in Mexico, and the so-called "madres buscadoras" ("seeker mothers") are using the occasion to call on the state to help prevent an increase in crime.

Ricardo Gomez Santos disappeared seven years ago in Acapulco. He and a colleague were on their way to work. Then they went missing. Or that's what the state apparatus says, as Jessica told me. "The prosecutor's office is connected to the kidnappers. Of course, yes, we know who kidnapped them, it was people from the state administration, they kidnapped them, we have evidence. We found my brother's car down the street from the prosecutor's office. We searched for it all day, and when we alerted the public, it suddenly turns up outside the prosecutor's office two hours later. Does that seem normal to you?"

The prosecutor's office reportedly defends itself by saying that it knows nothing about anything and that the brother's car just appeared out of nowhere. But Jessica doesn't believe them. "They say they have nothing. How do they have nothing? In our searches, we found photos, a ticket from the tunnel, safe houses, we saw surveillance footage. But they don't care, they just reject us," complains the young woman.

All the criminal reports they filed have disappeared, she says. "They tell us that they send them from place to place, but that's not true. They have simply been withdrawn from the archives," Jessica is clear, and she says she has an idea of what happened to her brother: according to her, he was taken to work in the opium fields, of which there are many in the mountains around Acapulco.

The state has many eyes that don't want to see.

"We are not the only case like this, there are many more in Acapulco," says Jessica, and her colleague Ethel Lozada Gonzales agrees.

"My son also disappeared in Acapulco, on August 10, 2021, when he went looking for work," Ethel Lozada Gonzales tells me, "there was a shooting in which he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Unfortunately, there is evidence that he was detained by the police. I haven't heard from him since. I filed a criminal complaint, but I guess it has also disappeared because no one is answering me," she told me.

She shares the view about the involvement of the state apparatus in the abductions. "As my colleague said, the state administration is unfortunately involved in the disappearance of so many people," she stated.

In a little over a quarter of a year, Mexico will hold the biggest elections in the country's history. Over 20,000 representatives will be elected, including a new head of state, a two-chamber parliament and some minor municipalities. "We hope that the new political leadership will help us. There are so many disappeared, thousands and millions of them, and every day they are increasing," laments Ethel Lozada Gonzales. The state is working with a figure of 114,000 disappeared, but members of search groups say this figure is false and that in reality there are many more disappeared.

This year will be the first time in history that a woman will head Mexico. The candidates competing are the successor to the current president from the leftist Morena party and the candidate of a three-party coalition of right-wing parties. But Jorge Verasteguí is clear that that neither of them will bring change. "Either of the two candidates will follow in the same footsteps," said the brother of the disappeared Antonio.

"The state has many eyes that don't want to see," he said, summing up the essence of the problem, "it doesn't necessarily mean that the president sits at the same table as with the capos, but that the administration under his leadership tolerates many acts that allow criminal organizations to continue to operate."

Mexico has a long history of high crime rates. The steep rise began in 2006 with the declaration of the so-called war on narcos. That's when the army cracked down hard on the biggest trafficking aces, and some big names did indeed go down with great glory. But instead of calming down, it triggered an even bigger wave of bloodshed. Currently, over 30,000 people are murdered in Mexico every year.

"There is always a dark figure (a term referring to unreported crimes - author's note). We must remember that the dark figure for crimes involving deprivation of liberty is around 97 per cent. This means that we only have three percent of the officially reported missing," Jorge said, adding that there is no real figure for the number of disappeared people in Mexico.

"We're still hoping to find them," Ethel Lozada Gonzales believes, "he's my son and it hurts me a lot. All I really want is to find him. Let them tell us where our disappeared are. We're not looking for the people responsible, just let them tell us where they left our loved ones."

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I fulfilled a dream I've had in my head since forever. As soon as I saw the first images of Cuba as a child a long time ago, I knew I wanted to go there one day. And the older I got, the stronger that desire became.

And so, suddenly, I was there. The year was 2016 and I landed in Havana, in the middle of my long-ago dream image. Only it soon became a nightmare.

The trap next to the trap

I didn't know a word of Spanish back then, and I wasn't prepared for the fact that there, as a solo tourist, I would be an easy target for all the street chasers for whom you were a goldmine in their poverty, somehow deserving to contribute, willingly or unwillingly, to their livelihood. They were all simply trying to benefit from you - and I don't condemn that, but I wasn't comfortable with it at the time either.

No sooner were you on the street than they were already gathering around you like wasps on honey. The worst thing was that in Havana, the capital of what was then still a pretty strictly isolated "Island of Freedom", you couldn't do without the help of the locals. Whether you needed a place to stay, basic food, or to ask for directions. So you always had to meet the wasp swarm. In the end, you were just handing out money on all sides and unwittingly got caught in one tourist trap and lies after another.

And then there was the other factor. And that was the general hostility towards white tourists. Now, after years in Mexico and seeing under the hood of the remnants of colonialism, I'm not surprised. To some extent, I've picked up on it too. But then it all got so far that in the middle of my dream trip, I found myself locking myself in my room for the first time in all my travels around the world and not wanting to go out.

The only island where I was somewhat comfortable was the bar La Farmacia in the center of Old Havana. I stumbled upon it about an hour after arriving. I threw my stuff in my room and went looking for a place to grab a drink and start soaking up the atmosphere. This bar in the backdrop of a former pharmacy seemed like the perfect place from afar, so I didn't hesitate to step closer.

Behind the bar, a guy with dreadlocks tied over his head like the crown of a palm tree was brimming with energy. He was all tattooed up in a similar style to the kind of what I like. He asked me what I wanted. I asked for a beer. He handed me a bottle and asked in English where I was from. He was the first and last person in Havana who didn't mind speaking to me in the language of the imperialists and who didn't want to extort money from me.

I complimented him on his tattoos and he said that his friend Pepe, who was just celebrating his birthday in the backyard, did them for him.

And he was already taking me to him to introduce me. It didn't make his company too enthusiastic. Pepé seemed rather reserved and rather silent. But one of the girls in particular was very ostentatious in letting me know I wasn't welcome there. So after a while, I said goodbye to Yunior, as the dreadlocked bartender was called, and went home.

The next day, however, I returned. Because despite all that, I never felt as welcome in Havana as I did at the bar at La Farmacia. It was mostly Yunior's fault. His energy was contagious. He was radiant and gave the place a lively atmosphere, even if it was noon and the place was empty. We instantly became friends and talked about all sorts of things.

Memories on the skin

Yunior urged me to get a tattoo at Pepé's. And he didn't have to try very hard. I went on this lifetime trip - which was preceded by a week in California and three weeks in Mexico - with the idea that I would come back with some kind of memory on my skin. I've just been rather distant from that idea in the last few days. Mostly because I couldn't find a convenient place I could trust. But now Pepe was here. And Yunior had promised to set up an appointment with him for the following week when I returned from my trip around the island.

It should be noted that it was a completely different story in the countryside. The people were amazingly nice and hospitable. Exactly as I knew it from documentaries and as I dreamed of it. The nature was beautiful, and the atmosphere relaxed. If it hadn't been for my meeting with Pepe, I wouldn't have returned to the city. But I didn't want to disappoint Yunior or Pepe with my lack of punctuality. Yes, how naive, at that time I still thought that maybe in Cuba someone cared about time or deadlines.

No. In fact, they didn't even care about addresses. So Yunior repeatedly drew my plans to get to Pepe, and I repeatedly came back with nothing. It wasn't until the third day back in Havana that I got lucky. The problem was that this was not the tattoo studio we are used to and that I expected. Pepe only had a small corner in his parents' house reserved for him. It was also entered through the hairdresser's shop in the front, so when you walked by, you didn't even think to go in and ask for Pepe. I only got a hint when the mouthy girl from the first night appeared in the doorway of the hairdresser's just as I was desperately looking around again. Pepe's sister, I now discovered.

Pepe opened an ancient laptop with some prehistoric version of MS Word. He let me type the Vagabond sign with a red Cuban star instead of the letter A, and then we started choosing from about twenty available basic fonts.

Fortunately, the one I was interested in was among them. Pepe then took a transparent paper, put it on the screen, and with his other hand traced the lettering. So if you've ever seen my wrists and wondered why the tattoo is so crooked, here's your answer.

As soon as we finished, I went to La Farmacia to celebrate. Yunior ripped the protective film off my wrist, which I was going to leave on the wound for a few days just in case because of the dust and dirt all around. "Let it breathe!" Yunior shouted. And he insisted that I go with him to Pepe's the next day because he was going to get something new too. "And you're going to tattoo something on me too. As a souvenir to our friendship," he said.

For I shared with him that I had made a couple of tattoos on myself. So now he's come up with the idea that I'll fill the one vacant spot on his elbow with a simple triangle on a stem - a martini glass. I didn't want to do it anyway, but Yunior didn't want to hear any talking back.

Rum and a circle of trust

The next day we met at La Farmacia. It was my penultimate day in Cuba. Yunior whizzed in on his skates and together we went to Pepe's. A whole bunch of people I knew from the birthday party 14 days before were waiting there. This time they didn't look grim at me anymore, but greeted me and complimented the new picture on my skin. They also handed me a glass of rum to welcome me, like everyone else was holding, and sipped while Pepe tattooed one of them. We sat in a circle, drank rum, and talked about tattoos and all sorts of things.

Yunior kept insisting that when Pepe was done with the boy, I would take up the needle. He even bragged about it to the others. I, on the other hand, wanted to do it less and less with each glass of rum. And then there was the "Circle of Trust".

"Come with us to the Circle of Trust," Yunior invited me to follow him and the rest of the boys up the stairs toward the attic. I was too drunk to care what was going to happen there. In fact, there was a dark and semi-decayed attic of Pepe's family home. His father followed us there, a skinny guy with sharply cut lines and a hard, yet kind, look. I fumbled around in the darkness wondering what was going to happen. Then Pepe's father walked around us all and put a thin joint between everyone's fingers. Almost as thin as a match, which then circulated and we all lit up. "Welcome to the Circle of Trust," Yunior grinned at me. The circle meant that everyone always took a pull from the joint and passed it on to its neighbor. And round and round like that until we'd all finished smoking and thrown the butts on the floor.

We went back into the room and finished another bottle of rum. After the weed, though, fatigue began to overwhelm me and my head began to spin. I suspected that I was coming to a swift end and that if I didn't get out now, I would have a hard time waking up in the morning, let alone packing my things and crossing from Havana to Varadero, where my flight to Europe was leaving that afternoon.

I told Yunior I had to go pack, but I'd be right back. And I really meant it. I just closed my eyes for a moment back in my place. And I passed out at that moment. When I woke up, it was after midnight. I ran out into the quiet street and headed back to Pepe. But the front door of the house was boarded up, and there was no sign of my fellows from the Circle of Trust. I headed toward downtown Old Havana to see if I could find them there. After all, they had mentioned dancing earlier and the night was still young for Cuba. But Yunior and co. were nowhere to be found. I went back to my room and after a few hours of poor sleep, I took a cab the next morning, hungover, past the locked Farmacia to the north of the island.

Yunior and I had managed to exchange contacts beforehand, so when I got home we occasionally texted. I was particularly interested in how things were going on the island now because the day after I left they announced the death of Fidel Castro. My journalistic soul mourned, and still on the plane right after landing and learning the news, I was looking for a way to get back as quickly as possible. But it was too late.

So, at least at home, I opened the bottle of rum I'd brought, lit one of the many cigars from the Cuban countryside, and reminisced about how the island, after all, had grown on me and had provided a great experience after all. Along with the booze and smokes, I also brought back a great friendship and memories that not everyone who visits the island has. And a tattoo from Pepe sealed the deal. Every time I look at it, I think of the party at his house, the Circle of Trust, and the dreadlocked boy bursting with energy who welcomed me into his people and was the only one who didn't turn his back on me.

A random reunion

Six years have passed. By then I was living in Ciudad de México and returning to the Czech Republic once or twice a year for a visit. I lost contact with the Cuban guys. All I knew, thanks to social media, was that Yunior had moved to America, cut off his dreadlocks, and become a smooth, handsome man with a haircut and mountains of muscle.

On that March day two years ago, I was just returning from the Czech Republic to Mexico, and on the way I took a one-day break in Miami. I got to the bus terminal from the airport to get to my hostel as cheaply as possible. But I was a little lost there. It was a deserted place with lots of platforms and no system that made sense to me. I had no idea where my connection was coming from or when, so I walked from station to station trying to get my bearings on the timetables.

On one bench sat a hunched-over skinny guy with dark glasses and a chain earring. I was intrigued because he was all tattooed in the exact style I like.
"Oh shit!" I paused and started to look him over. Until he looked up at me suspiciously.

"Yunior?" I asked. "Is that you?" He straightened up a little and looked at me grumpily. He nodded in astonishment and quietly muttered that he was. Aside from the fact that he didn't look very cheerful, he now seemed quite confused and even a little annoyed that I was bothering him.

"We met in Havana," I blurted out, pointing to my wrist. "Remember?"

By then he remembered, smiled, high-fived, and hugged me.

I couldn't believe it and was blown away that we were meeting. I was about to suggest we go out for a beer that night, but I didn't feel the same enthusiasm from the other side. The vibrant energy was gone. Conversation was as stalled as on a bad date, we just said in a few sentences who was doing what where, and then there was silence.

"Do you still remember the guy who tattooed you?" Yunior broke the silence after all.

"Of course I do. Pepe," I replied. How could I forget him!

"He's dead," Yunior said.

"What? That's impossible. What happened?"

"It's been a long time. He came here before me. He took too many drugs. Then he went back to Cuba and hung himself."

"Shit."

This initially happy encounter got a bitter aftertaste too quickly. It wasn't the laughing boy with the dreadlocks who roller-skated through the rutted streets of Havana to get some new nonsensical tattoo almost every day and then went on to salsa dancing. I don't know, maybe he just didn't have a day, maybe I didn't have a day. But it wasn't the same encounter as the other day at La Farmacia in Old Havana.

So when I sensed that our conversation was really winding down and Yunior was playing more and more with his headphones in his hands, I asked him one last time if he had any idea where this bus was coming from, and that was it. He had no idea. We shook hands and went our separate ways.

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Bullfights has returned to the Mexican capital Ciudad de México. But not only it flooded the Plaza de toros arena with blood, but also streets with people protesting against violence against animals.

Plaza de Toros in the central zone of Ciudad de México is the biggest bullfighting arena in the world. It seats up to 42 thousands spectators. But in recent years it has been used exclusively for purposes other than corrida.

Until now, when the court first allowed bullfighting to return to the capital. Then it reversed its decision, and then it reversed the reversals. So, on the first Sunday in February, those interested in this bloody spectacle native to Spain could enjoy themselves.

But they had to accept being booed on the way to the arena by a crowd of several dozen animal rights activists. With transarents and improvised musical instruments, they shouted at the visitors that they were murderers and psychopaths if they supported such entertainment with their participation.

Below you can see the photos I took on the place:

Even a month after the hurricane hit, Acapulco, Mexico, is not out of the woods. We visited again a few days ago and I was able to catch a glimpse of how locals are trying to cope with the aftermath of the disaster.

Even two weeks after the devastating hurricane Otis hit, the locals couldn't rely on the government for help. Most places continued to lack electricity, drinking water, food and signal. But people gradually began to return to their devastated homes and businesses to try to rebuild their property on their own. The tourist season is approaching and they can only hope that life will return to the resort.

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The first of November is the day of Santa Muerte, the patron saint of outcasts of all kinds. I couldn't miss the mass of her followers at the altar of Saint Death in the dreaded Tepito district of Ciudad de México.

The first of November is the first day of the Mexican Día de Muertos, but also the day of Santa Muerte. Thousands of her followers, usually unconventional personalities, make their way to her altar that day.

The Tepito district, near the historic center of Mexico City, has earned a reputation as a gangster neighborhood, a dreaded corner of the city where decent people don't go and where even the less decent are wary. But on the day of the celebrations, the atmosphere couldn't have been friendlier. After all, this stigmatized place has gradually opened up to the outside world in recent years. Yet it retains the appearance of something that has little in common with the rest of the metropolis. It's more like a community, a community of people raised by the rough streets.

Santa Muerte has a home in Tepito

And then there are other animosities. On the first of every month, for example, the devotees of Santa Muerte gather at her altar, which was placed there more than twenty years ago by Doña Queta, a local icon who still guards the shrine and can be encountered in the neighborhood.

The main feast of this unconventional saint in the form of a reaper takes place on the first of November.

As this is exclusive material, the rest of the report is for subscribers only. You can unlock it for $6 a month and have access to all the exclusive content. Or continue to the unlocked posts.

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To say that Acapulco is recovering from the tragedy would be far from the truth. The tragedy in the city of milion people is happening right now, even though Hurricane Otis devastated it last Wednesday. The city remains virtually isolated, without much outside help. 

Note: This text was written on Sunday night. Since then some things could have slightly changed.

The southern Mexican port of Acapulco is a five-hour drive from the capital Ciudad de México, about an hour by plane. Yet in recent days the distance between these cities has become almost unbeatable. The resort found itself isolated after a fifth-degree hurricane, with speeds of up to 270 kilometers per hour, swept through the area on Wednesday night, claiming at least 43 lives. 

The local airport is partially under water and flights have been canceled, while access by land is complicated by hours-long queues due to destroyed infrastructure, which locals say gangs are taking advantage of by ambushing parked cars. The town is without signal and internet, so many people have no way of contacting their loved ones to tell them they are okay. 

Acapulco totally isolated and falling apart after the hurricane Otis

so we decided to go...

This was also the case for a friend Jose in Ciudad de México who is from Acapulco. Since the hurricane hit, he lost contact with his family and had no idea if they were okay until Friday. In the first moments, there was no way to get into the city. On the other hand, we were joined by José Miguel, who was supposed to return to his family in Acapulco on Thursday, but his flight was canceled. On Thursday, however, reports also began to come in that the road was complicated but passable. So we decided to go on Friday. 

The three of us spent a long and cheerless night over a bottle of tequila thinking through the logistics of the trip. And most importantly, we took courage from reading all the messages that came to us from different sources, which always started with the words: Don't go to Acapulco under any circumstances! Acapulco insiders who got to places with the occasional signal to call described how every part of the city was collapsing and armed gangs were rampaging through the driveways, not letting a single car pass unharmed. Some eventually had their very cars stolen. 

It seemed that we had no chance of arriving in Acapulco in one piece and with a load of food. So... we rented an ambulance. We hoped that by joining the medical convoy, we would have at least some chance of getting into the city without any problems. A friend organized such a relief flotilla and invited us non-medics to go check on and provide for our friends. 

On Friday night we met at the arranged place and filled three ambulances with food, water, hygiene supplies, and canisters of diesel and gasoline. An hour after midnight we were finally ready to leave. At two in the morning, we passed the nearby town of Cuernavaca, at approximately two and five minutes smoke started coming from the ambulance in front of us and we had to stop at the nearest gas station. At four in the morning, it was decided to leave the third car alone at the gas station in Cuernavaca and split its load. Around seven thirty we entered the border of Acapulco. 

Long before arriving in the town, traffic queues began to form, with people of all generations passing by, heading to the far corners to get food and drink. At that moment, food was worth more than money, which is now worthless in Acapulco. Fortunately, none of those whom all our informants had warned us about appeared. We whizzed through the devastated city with the other ambulances. 

Trees and power poles lay scattered around, some roads were under water or covered with mud, houses had lost their windows and roofs, and some buildings were left with only bare structures. People were swarming through the town looking for supplies. All the shops had been looted by this time, and dozens of pairs of shoes were piled outside one of the malls - perhaps a charity from a store they would have come to loot anyway. Nearby, people were stacking cartons of beer on their carts - the alcohol, oddly enough, was the last thing left on the shelves this time, as no one wanted to risk the thirst and hunger that comes with it. "It's one thing to go to a closed shop to get food for the family. It's another thing to take a TV set from there or vandalize someone else's property," the locals fumed. 

Even the experienced medics in our convoy feared that frustrated people would gather around us and start demanding help. We also adjusted the arrangement of the contraband so that the "excited crowd" would get to some things first and others last. Let alone our personal belongings. In the end, however, there was no need, we encountered no danger during the whole day of cruising around the city. On the contrary, the people were kind and grateful. Several times they came up to us and asked for some supplies, we gave them what we could, or at least gave them a ride if they needed one. Public transportation hasn't been working here since Wednesday. 

Where is the help for Acapulco?

There were a surprising number of Marines and National Guard soldiers on the streets. From what the locals tell me, their numbers have only now multiplied. Maybe that's why the streets weren't suddenly so dangerous. Unfortunately, it cannot be said that humanitarian aid arrived on the scene with them. At least in Mexico City, aid intended for Acapulco began to be collected from the first day. At the same time, however, suspicions began to spread that they were ending up with the authorities who were supposed to distribute them. "Acapulco is currently a state without a government," an Acapulco friend described to me, lamenting that the government was not delivering any of the promised aid.

In an entire day of pendulating from one end of a city of a million people to the other, I saw only one miniature army checkpoint where, according to the signs, they were dispensing some kind of aid. But most of the people I talked to had eaten essentially nothing since that fateful moment, had drunk little, and many had health problems and, not least, had lost property. Many even lost loved ones. 

It was only after we had delivered the last aid package in the dark that I realized what it means when a city like Acapulco is without power and signal. The debris-filled streets were dark, as were the houses. The people in them were lying down, with no way to wash, in hot rooms where, without fans, they were easy prey for mosquitoes. Only to wake up the next day to another nightmare without basic necessities and with little hope that things would soon improve. It will, but it certainly won't be soon.

Note 2: After days, it seems to me from the news coming from Acapulco that more help finally began to arrive. Also, the rumors of the rise of violence seem to be mostly debunked. And finally, it seems even politicians woke up. 

The yellow-orange dome-shaped flower represented the sun's rays in Aztec culture. According to legend, it was supposed to illuminate the world of the dead and show the deceased the way to the world of the living on Día de Muertos. That's why Mexico is covered with these flowers every year on these days. 

In some countries, it is also known as Mexican Marigold, Aztec Marigold or African Marigold. Botanists will forgive me, I ignore the minor nuances between these. But we can also call it the Flower of the Dead. For it is, at least in the case of Mexico, which will be discussed, inherently linked to the celebration of the Day of the Dead, which has a tradition as strong here south of the Rio Grande as anywhere in the world. 

For a month or more in advance, the outdoor markets and street decorations in general are painted orange. Cempasúchil is used to ornate tables in restaurants, planters in windows, public flowerbeds and, last but not least, as an integral part of the traditional costume, the so called Catrinas. People buy the plant for their homes to grace their private altars. This is because they believe it will attract their deceased loved ones. On the Día de Muertos, legends say they return to the world of the living. 

According to pre-Hispanic traditions, yellow is the colour of mourning, but cempasúchil, which translates as "flower of twenty petals", was also considered to embody the sun, and people believed that it illuminated the world of the deceased and showed them the way to the living world on the Day of the Dead. 

Beer and cigarettes from the flower of the dead

"No one loves life more than we Mexicans," the famous Mexican director Guillermo del Toro once said, "because we are so sonscious about death. One place we are all going through. All of us on this planet have boarded a train with final destination Death. So in that train we are going to live," he added, when asked how does he balance to be a cheerful human being on one side but also looking for the dark aspects of life in his art on the other side. 

Mexicans are famous for this. Living on the edge is part of their mentality. Like the fact that no problem makes the locals crumble. And even in the worst of times, they don't lose their passion for life or their appreciation for simply being. That's also why the Day of the Dead here are a celebration of life, not death. That is why it is a time when people rejoice and remember their dear ones with love, and it is no exception that they come to make a small fiesta directly on the grave of their deceased. 

In one village that I had the opportunity to visit, and which I wrote about here recently, they even take out and display the bones of their deceased loved ones on these days as part of an old Mayan tradition:

But back to the cempasúchil. Mexico grows 14 000 tonnes of it a year and its production feeds many farmers. The main production is concentrated, among other places, in the state of Puebla, neighbouring the capital Ciudad de México. There, the town of Atlixco takes the lead, where I went in mid-October to document how the flowers are thriving in the valley below the Popocatépetl volcano. 

By the way, this is an important point, because it is the presence of the volcano or volcanic soil that creates an exceptional environment for growing crops, so it is no coincidence that production is concentrated here within sight of Mexico's second highest peak (5,426 m). 

Every October, the fields near the foot of the volcano turn yellow and orange - sometimes even red, as a special red-pink variety of cempasúchil is grown there.Then, when the season is at its peak, farmers take the flowers to markets near and far, where they are being sold for about 30 pesos.

But look out. Mexicans are also incredibly creative and aren't content to just put flowers on the table or decorate Catrina's headbands with them. The obsession with the cempasúchil is so strong that the flower has been turned into things like ice cream, a seasonal beer special, and this year I even purchased a hand-rolled cigarette filled with orange petals at a market. They said it wouldn't do anything but relax me. 

Then, on the main avenue in Ciudad de México, there's a festival dedicated to these flowers throughout the second half of October, where you can buy them in any form imaginable, or as an ingredient in all sorts of products. And last but not least, as a decoration for the Dia de Muertos masks.

Ciudad de México, the city of Aztec descendants, the city of poverty and dirt, the city of glitter and opulent decadence, the city of sirens and red rooftops, sinking deeper into the swamp under the torso of the ancient ruins of Tenochtitlan year after year. The city of gangsters, the city of artists and wild souls, the city of love without boundaries, the city where nothing is crazy enough to happen here.

"There is no way I’m going back to Mexico. I can’t stand to be in a country that is more surrealist than my paintings," famously declared the Catalan painter Salvador Dalí after he visited the land of tall Mayan pyramids and deep smuggling narco-tunnels. Surrealism, of which he was a representative, describes dreamlike imagery and bizarre scenes infused into everyday situations. Mexico is just like that. It surprises you every time with something seemingly unreal. And after living there for several years, I can say that its capital, Ciudad de México, is - as the locals would say - the "mother" of it all.

Mexicans even have a saying they use when they see particularly crazy scenes: 'Imagine living in Switzerland and missing this!' In a rich, clean, and orderly country below the Alps, you probably wouldn't expect to see pudgy policemen grabbing tacos from the bonnets of their cars with greasy hands while cars run red lights behind them. You probably wouldn't meet an old man on the subway there, with a fancy fighting cock crowing from a bag on his lap. You certainly wouldn't try food like ice cream in a bun there, and you couldn't engage in a mundane battle between musical subcultures or marching feminists with hammers and molotovs on a quiet afternoon.

Nothing is far-fetched enough that it can't become a reality in Ciudad de México.

Beer and shrimp and glory Sunday

"Touch your eggs, not my merch," reads a sign in the middle of a table on which boxers and switchblades are laid out, just below shelves of caps with drug cartel emblems. We're in the Tepito district, a dreaded corner of the city, synonymous with the local narco-trafficking scene. The local black market offers everything from USB drives with collections of downloaded music to homemade porn, fakes of all kinds, and drugs of all kinds, to a hole in the belly.

It's Sunday and the vendors are shouting as if the world is about to end. They're screaming over the music that's playing all around. In an improvised beer hall between the stalls, where toothless drunks mingle with amorous couples at a few tables with bar stools, a self-proclaimed singer has erected a scaffolding over the heads of the others. He has carried equipment on it and now floats on it like a stage, singing songs of love and death. The first noontime beers of the guests blend in with the ending fiestas of the night before.

Some people look like they are about to collapse under the table from overjoy and celebration, others take giant cups and go to see what the market has in store for them. But it's not beer they have in liter jars, it's michelada. A drink that brings you back to life in the heat of the moment or after a hangover. The base is a sour-spicy syrup poured over beer, drizzled with lime, and topped with tomato juice. The edges of the cup are dipped in a sticky salsa that dyes the mouths of consumers red. The first sip will make you grin, but it will bring you joy.

Remember, however, that you are in Mexico, where everything goes to escalate. It would be a shame to end up with just a beer and tomato juice when you can also have gummy worms, bears, or cooked shrimp swimming in it. And if that's not enough, you can get them served in a plastic replica of a penis. People walk around the market in Tepito with these too.

Through its tiny streets, young men whizz among the visitors, their carts loaded with mysterious boxes and parcels, which they disappear with into the guts of the adjacent safe-houses. Tattooed gangsters walk with a judicious stride, with stern looks, to the lustful gaze of street princesses, displaying their definitely not minimalist curves leaning against the walls. But there are also whole families with children who have come to buy Louis Vuitton handbags for a hundred and fifty pesos or Rolexes for two hundred (that definitely wouldn't happen in Switzerland!).

Cause for the weekend, the heart of Chilangos, as the residents of the Mexican capital proudly call themselves, pulls on the tianguis. That's what they call the markets, whether it's the permanent set-up outdoor stalls like here in Tepito or the occasional blocking of parts of the streets with tables of trinkets and homemade cheese that locals like to walk among. They go back and forth, meet friends and buy things they had no idea existed before. You'll find beer bottles from the Mexican Revolution, as well as paintings by local masters, an eagle's claw, and a python belt. Who could pass up a stroll through the selection of jewelry modified for snorting cocaine or past collections of hundreds of Lego figurines or collector's cards?

Visitors eat elotes, or boiled corn cobs smeared with mayonnaise and speared on a skewer, a thousand types of tortillas or roasted grasshoppers. They are cheerful because work doesn't start until tomorrow, and who cares about tomorrow?

Sunday in Mexico City

Sunday is a day reserved for family activities and gathering with friends. There is a need to fix the hangover from a night of dancing. And there's no better cure than tacos de barbacoa. This is slow-roasted lamb, ideally in traditional underground ovens, served sliced into small pieces in corn tortillas and accompanied by a strong broth. No other dish here symbolizes the end of the week quite like this one, and families have been forming in the street by the stalls selling this delicacy since morning.

Some then head out to cool off and take a break from the concrete in the sprawling Chapultepec Park, where a day can be spent around the once-presidential castle and adjacent gardens and ponds. Others head to the southern edge of the metropolis to the lagoons of Xochimilco. Gondolas sail there like in Venice, only here they're not so much loaded with couples in love as with groups of alcohol- and other-substance-enhanced friends who have anchored a cooler overflowing with beer and tequila bottles in the middle of the boat and are now dancing beside it on their way past the Island of the Dolls, a horror-ish view at one of the cottages, which its owner has gradually decorated entirely with shabby children's dolls.

The younger and more modern ones spend their free time hanging out in the parks of España or México in the Condesa and Roma neighborhoods, which are known for their multi-nationality and have in recent years been suffering from the influx of wealthy ex-pats from the US, Canada, and Western Europe. Many of them sip their caffé lattes with bare feet and write soulful poems in tattered notebooks while their colleagues play ukuleles or some experimental synth stuff. These districts have little in common with the rest of Ciudad de México, but without them, the city would lose a valuable center of the artistic and pseudo-artistic scene, which in turn takes over the local nightclubs, more or less alternative. It would also lose 98 percent of its vegan and vegetarian eateries, that - dare I say it - will not break the heart of the average Mexican, who is usually a sworn carnivore.

The sirens and chilaquiles

A typical morning in Ciudad de México smells of lavender, because if anything beats the ubiquitous smell of corn tortillas here, it's the scent of Fabuloso lavender floor cleaner, which cannot be missing in any household, and which every proper housekeeper always uses to scrub the flooring at the start of the day, as well as the pavement outside the house. This gives the city a spring freshness every morning, even when it's cloudy and autumn-ish.

By now, the sounds of bells, whistles, and loud voices are already echoing through the empty streets, as vendors summon the inhabitants to their stalls with sweet bread, and even sweeter instant coffee, like modern-day Mexican ratcatchers. Or the local breakfast delicacy of chilaquiles, which are tortillas ripped into pieces, soaked in green (always go for green!) or red (if you know anyone who preferres red over green, let me know) salsa, topped with chicken or chorizo chunks, onions, and cheese.

Food, after all, is not just a simple intake of nutrients in Ciudad de México, but a separate and important chapter of life there. The sweet-stale smell of toasted tortillas hits your nose as soon as you disembark at Benito Juárez Airport. The smell is ubiquitous, as are the ubiquitous stands selling tacos, sopes, huaraches, pambazos, tamales, tortas and, of course, quesadillas, the folded tortillas that - as the name suggests (queso = cheese) - are supposed to have something to do with cheese, but only here in Ciudad de México are quesadillas served without cheese for some reason. You have to ask for it, which also reveals to everyone around you that you're not a true Chilango. A true Chilango enjoys all this from breakfast to late dinner, exclusively around the tin stalls on the street, sitting on doubled plastic stools.

Just as every city has its smell, it also has its sound. And Ciudad de México, the 25-million wonder beneath the Popocatépetl volcano, is a musical entity itself. It's a gorgeous orchestra that you start to hate with your first morning wake-up call to the sound of car horns, and police sirens that serve no purpose to law enforcement other than greeting taco vendors on the corner. Gas and water vendors don't pass a single street in the entire city with their trucks, shouting a monotonous and drawn-out "Aaaaaaa" into windows. You will learn to recognize the range of products on offer only years later when your already trained ear can distinguish that 'Aaaaaaaa' means agua (water), while 'Aaaaaaaas' is gas.

But this town couldn't function without sounds, because how else would you know the garbage men have arrived and it's time to run to their truck with the garbage if they weren't already ringing like crazed big cowbells from the turn until they wake up even the most capable sleepers? And that goes for another of the sounds the locals like to hear least of all, the seismic alarm. It warns people of an earthquake, which you can easily guess by the fact that it sounds like the soundtrack of a disaster movie. Whenever it goes off, people have only a few seconds to run out of their beds or offices and gather outside their houses. Whether they're in their pajamas, naked, with curlers in their hair, or in the company of a lover or mistress. When the alarm sounds, all CDMX residents are equal. At that moment, all the surrounding noises are silenced. But when it turns out to be a false alarm - which is not infrequent - it only takes a few seconds for the Mexicans, with their black humor caricaturing themselves most often, to start cracking jokes about how many bolillos need to be consumed to calm down from the shock, and the car horns, the music of street musicians and the screams of drunks are all back.

But everyone knows what the unwritten anthem of this city is. It's a song you can't escape from your first moments in Ciudad de México - no matter which part of the city you're in. It comes from the vans that crisscross the metropolis from the center to the periphery, and which, for a fee, rid residents of large appliances and other excessive waste. "Se coompraaa, colchoones, tamboooores, refrigeradoooores," sings a girl's voice from the mufflers on the vans, and you know you're in Ciudad de México even if you've been kidnapped the night before (it happens, too) and carted from place to place with a black hood over your head. You'll have that sound in your ears for the rest of your life, it's like a local form of tinnitus (chronic ringing in the ears). Tinnitus Chilango, this tune might be called, and it's only a matter of time before UNESCO lists it as a cultural heritage next to the mariachis, the refined musicians in traditional outfits who still sing serenades now and then under windows, next to busy highways or shopping malls.

After all, the streets are full of musicians here: they walk from lunch to late dinner around restaurants and the corners of houses, hoping for the generosity of passers-by or those who throw change right out of their windows. Their talent usually has no effect on the amount of money they earn.

The locals are used to sharing the little they have, so no wandering artist ever comes up short. This is also true of those who regularly drop the same dreadful tune right under your window at the same time and day, which they have been playing falsely for twenty years, but still get a few pesos for it.

In the concert hall called CDMX, you will hear a variety of instruments, which at first glance are not related, even disturb each other, but together they form one wild band. And whether the audience likes the concert or not, it doesn't matter to the smiling conductor.

Of Passion and Death in Mexico

Art as such plays an important role here. It's not at all about the performer making a living from it or having millions of fans, as we in first-world countries think of it. It's about the creative impulse that perhaps everyone here has within them, and which is written into everyday life at every turn. No wall escapes graffiti or street art posters, and every lamppost or traffic light is dotted with homemade stickers. Photographers and film crews can be seen everywhere, amateur exhibitions are held in cafes in the modern neighborhoods, dance lessons in parks, and regular early evening rap battles in the big squares. The passion for creating and expressing the inner voice is simply part of the DNA here. And it doesn't have to be just art as we know it. For example, outside my favorite cantina, which is an ancient dingy hangout in the crudest sense of the word, every day a female mannequin is pulled outside the pub, and the bartender with a menacing scar across his eye caringly dresses in a new outfit each time. To me, this is sort of an art.

After all, art is often used here for political activism too. It has a similarly strong tradition here. Just because it is not news to people here that politicians take them lightly doesn't mean they put their heads down and let it happen. Not a day goes by that there isn't a demonstration at the Revolution Memorial or Angel de la Independencia square, whether it's by the unions, mothers searching for clandestine graves with their murdered children, or naked people calling for I don't know what. Whichever group it is, it is ready to fight for its ideals. A case in point is International Women's Day on 8 March, when thousands of people take to the streets every year, and the most radical, represented by the hard feminist core, storm (literally) the state forces into the night, lighting fires near government buildings and marking with hammers everything in their path. In a country where the common person has no tools against the nepotism of power, they often have no choice but to ask for their rights in the most extreme way.

CDMX: The Paradise of Craziness

You may be wondering if it's dangerous there. Yes, kind of (...and kind of less for foreigners). Living in Mexico City means living on the edge. After all, where else do you get robbed of everything you have on your person by the same guy on the street, who also immediately warns you to beware of thieving gangs in these places? Ciudad de México is suffering a lot of pain and tragedy. Perhaps that's why it's so unbridled, living like there's no tomorrow.

There is much that is remarkable and beautiful in all of Mexico. The Mayan pyramids, the Caribbean sands, or the diverse flora and fauna will come to mind. But above all, it is the local people and their immediacy, their courage, perhaps born of the warm concept of death here in the land of the warlords Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata. Death lurks around every corner here, so why bother with work or money when the world could end tomorrow?

The important thing is freedom and to be able to get the most from the one's life. And the rest? Me vale verga, the common resident of the Distrito Federal, as the Ciudad de México used to be called, would say, meaning something like: I don't give a fuck. There's nothing a Chilango can't handle. Often in the strangest and least expected way. And so sometimes the streets are more like a museum of curiosities.

You will see laughing volunteers pushing a police car with law enforcement officers inside along a five-lane road. You'll see a man heading to the local taqueria for dinner wearing a lucha libre wrestler's mask. You'll also see plenty of real Lucha Libre fights, where a grandma in the front row beats an overgrown muscular wrestler with a stick, or many drag shows where men in wigs and fake boobs dazzle the audience. You'll see guys pulling a new luxury couch up to the top floor of apartment complexes on ropes, bouncing and bouncing off balconies on the lower floors, where nervous neighbors watch in mute amazement. You'll see hundreds of bulldog owners meeting their pets in wheelbarrows, but you'll also see hordes of motorcyclists rolling through the city at midnight, helmetless and on their back wheels only. You'll see a reenactment of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ in a neighborhood with a record of one murder a day, you'll see pensioners dancing in parks, people selling witchcraft items in local markets, you'll see bizarre food combinations from sandwiches in sandwiches to fried scorpions. You'll see a lot of strange things and a lot of strange people.

Such is life in Mexico City. You never get bored, you never stop wondering. Nothing is crazy and surreal enough. You're always surprised at how far the boundaries of the possible can be pushed, to what levels the craziness can be taken.

No one could seize this big city even in three lifetimes. It's so vast and so disparate and so full of sensations that it's impossible to take it all in, but when you soak up its outwardly grey but under the surface vibrant and colorful atmosphere of quiet restlessness and endless possibilities, it infuses under your skin as soon as you see its darkened streets and shabby buildings, as soon as you walk into the first dingy bar and order a mezcal and micheladas and start tapping to the rhythm of cumbia. Every time I leave it, I feel like I have to leave the party at its best.

Do you agree with me? Or disagree? What is your experience with Ciudad de México? Let me know:

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Why I went to see the Aztecs and why you should too. A photo story from the pre-Christmas Tepoztlán, one reflection and one thank you.

Sometimes you just happen to get up in the morning and want to see the Aztecs. Then I can't do anything, I even skip breakfast and have to go. Anywhere to the pyramids. Where the mysterious power lies. And peace. Anything beyond 25 million souls encased in concrete with no horizon. And you only have to go a short distance to the ancient artifacts to get a charge. Whether it's the castle of Chapultepec, or Tepoztlán with its pyramid and UFO rumors, or Teotihuacán, which came from nowhere. Or the ruins of Tenochtitlan, where we now live and feel the quakes of the earth. It has shaken countless times in the past week alone.

It was the morning after the first Tigres vs. América final. And that's what it looked like the morning after. The morning when you don't know if you'll survive the day. I went for a walk in the misty haze - most people think that here in Mexico, everything is eternally covered with sun. But for the past two weeks the sun hasn't shone, the streets have been covered in cold fog since morning, and the temperature drops below ten degrees in the evening.

I bought an over-sweetened cafe de olla for about approximately one dollar at a stand on the corner of Cuahtémoc Avenue, which divides the hipster Roma Norte district from the barrio of Doctores. I was sipping it in the Jardín Dr. Ignacio Chávez park, and suddenly was seized with this crazy urge to get away somewhere unfamiliar and free of the noise of the biggest city in the Western Hemisphere.

It's happened to me a few times. You wake up in the morning and you know you have to do something different. Once, sometime last year, with burn-out from work and all, the Aztecs appeared in my dream, and I suddenly woke up with a jolt - the kind of thing where, like in the movies, you rise straight from sleep into a sitting position and look like a zombie. In the shock, I was delirious: I must see the Aztecs. And so I ditched work and the whole routine and went to Chapultepec Park, the largest park in Latin America, with a castle, a zoo, a botanical garden and several museums. The park has preserved artifacts proving that it was inhabited by indigenous people some three thousand years ago. And it's in the adjacent museums that you'll learn the most about Mexico's history.

I'm not generally a fan of exhibitions and galleries and museums. It's too passive entertainment for me. But here, I was mesmerized. I've seen Aztecs, or rather examples from all periods of the history of the Mexican people. Plus all sorts of artifacts from pre-Hispanic times. Tzompantli, towers made of the skulls of sacrificed ones, pierced with stakes like some beads in a counter, which used to grace Tenochtitlan, the predecessor of our city. A representation of the times when Moctezuma and Cuahtémoc defended it as the last of the Mohicans against the white colonizers. And so on. Mostly, though, it was peaceful. The peace of breaking the stereotype dictated by the hectic times: have breakfast, create value, rest, die. And then again and again. Here, it was the other way around. After all, in Aztec culture, death was an honor.

A similar urge to reverse this order caught me that Friday morning, then more like noon. I knew I had to go look for the Aztecs. And once again, break out of the stereotype of the doomed cycle. I longed to wander into some barrio, what they call isolated, usually local gang-dominated neighborhoods, "hoods" in English. But I decided that I lacked the sober judgment to do so at that moment. So I finally decided to go to Tepoztlán, the most famous Pueblo Mágico in the area.

Pueblos Mágicos, magical towns, are villages or smaller towns particularly notable for their picaresque and historical value. They are usually inhabited by descendants of the indigenous people, and boast many historical artefacts. It's a bit like going back to the Middle Ages. And for the record, they're not necessarily Aztec cities; Tepoztlán, of all places, was inhabited by the Xochimilcas. My point, however, was simply to get to those magical places of ancient cultures.

So, I took the subway to the southwest corner of the city. Inside, as always, it smelled rancid, and there had been no movement on the train since the switch at Chabacano station. But at Tasqueña, all was back to normal, with homeless people lying outside and lovers kissing goodbye, and inside, you could buy tickets to the farthest reaches of the country, where you either fly three or four hours or take a bus for three or four days. I bought a ticket to Tepoztlán, which is normally one to two hours away. And even at that point - it was after one in the afternoon - I suspected I would miss my intended purpose for the trip, which was to hike up the Tepozteco pyramid, perched on a cliff high above Tepoztlán.

I didn't say it out loud, but I was kind of just going for the michelada anyway. A beer lemonade popular mainly for its refreshing, healing effects, especially in times of major hangovers. A drink based on sour juices and salt can sometimes work wonders. And in Tepoztlán, it's available in liter cups at every turn. It was there I tasted it for the first time in my life, and I was going crazy like every good Czech, because you don't spoil beer with some juice.

I walked through the beautiful stone streets of the city. In the pre-Christmas rush, they were surprisingly not full of tourists as they usually are. Beyond the horizon I could already see a rock massive scratching into the clouds, and on its top the aforementioned pyramid. Rumour has it that a UFO landed there. But - as a knowledgeable local friend of mine once answered me - magic mushrooms are also widely consumed in the area, so who knows. But seriously, Tepoztlán is a truly mystical place and I wouldn't be surprised about the UFO.

At this point, for me, the mystique this time was going to end at the second cup of michelada I got on my return from the entrance gate to the trail to the top of the mountain. I verified that I had missed the opening hours, so I was determined to treat myself to a second drink and head back to Ciudad de México. Even a short visit to the origins is sometimes enough.

But as I approached the main square, I saw a truck pull out of one of the adjacent streets, on the back of which sat children clutching a kind of masquerade, a giant man's head made of a canvas-wrapped wicker ball, like a big balloon, as they do in Mexico. In that pre-Christmas time of parties and festivities, I was not surprised. But then I saw other masks and various musicians gathering in the heart of the city, and decided to wait a while for their performance.

In a little while, it was decided that I would stay. That's when several ladies from the aforementioned company approached me and handed me a shot glass-like container made from the tube of a severed bamboo branch. They filled it to the brim with Mezcal from an unmarked bottle and I, of course, did not protest. On the contrary, apparently due to the action of the mystical karma here, the jar filled up again after a while and then several more times. In the meantime, the group in costumes, masks and musical instruments formed up to march together through the town.

I discovered it was a rural school from the state of Oaxaca, south of the country. Their professor, who led the parade and fired fireworks into the air set in a bamboo stick, explained to me that the locals had learned that they were the ones who could do these village fiestas very well, so they had called them in. I did not, however, learn much from him about the significance of such a procession. It was simply a celebration of life. Of which there are many in Mexico.

Together with a large group I walked through the city. The mood was cheerful. The girls at the head of the procession, dressed in colorful dresses, gave out smiles and twirled their colorful skirts. The boy leading the procession deafened the streets by cracking a thick whip on the ground while others threw homemade tortillas and plastic bags with the famous coffee from Oaxaca among the spectators.

At dusk and the pattering of rain, the group scrambled high above the city to the church, where an audience was already waiting. The students went to change and were soon on stage performing traditional dances. Fireworks were flying through the air, mezcal was circulating in the audience and the dancers were dancing wildly on the stage.

I finally enjoyed one more michelada and had to go home. As you can see, I ended up spending more time with the natives than I expected. And again, I experienced something I didn't expect. Only because I decided to break the routine.

Break the routine!

For those of you who have read this far, please know that at the beginning of the writing process, I was expecting a maximum of three paragraphs. But that's what happens sometimes, that you forget to stop. That's what sometimes happens when you're doing something that makes sense to you.

I wish these writings of mine would make sense, and not just to me, in the coming year. I will be glad if you continue to keep me in your good graces and feel free to write from time to time what you have to say, what you didn't like, or what you would like to read. Or if you'll say a word about this project in front of your friends, I'd absolutely love that. After all, in these overwhelmed times, being an indie creator is a bit of a path through the thorny bush, and every additional mention or subscription makes it a little more pervasive.

In any case, I'm glad I started this project this summer. Even though it was a journey into the unknown. I've been motivated by the steadily growing readership to keep going and to add more and better posts. For that, I would like to thank everyone.

And finally, one wish for 2024: Don't be afraid to break the routine. And go looking for Aztecs every now and then. Even though it may seem unfeasible, if not dumb, at first. When you throw away fear and habits, life will reward you with new adventures. And that's worth the risk.

So let's get to the pyramids!

PS: Are you looking to go to Mexico but don't know where to start? Download my itinerary for a three-week trip with the most important things to see in Mexico. Now is the best time to go.

PS2: Those who would like to help contribute to this project might consider upgrading to the paid version. It's something like $6 a month, and in exchange you get access to all the content, including exclusive subscriber-only articles.

So once again, happy holidays to all and see you in 2024.

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Notes on wandering the world, especially in Mexico and surrounding places... By one Czech Vagabond

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