Ignoring her father’s warnings, a female traveller ventures to Mexico alone, where she experiences the chaos of Lucha Libre wrestling before losing herself in the succulent flavours of Mexican cuisine.
When I told my dad I was going to solo travel in Mexico, this was his reaction: *Deep sigh.* “Hannah. Mexico is one of the most dangerous countries in the world, you know that, right? You know there are gangs everywhere? You have got to be careful, don’t do anything silly. *Disgruntled huffing.* There was a story in the newspaper last week about Mexico, actually, about a pair of twins on a canyon tour. They went swimming in the canyon because the guide had told them it was safe to do so, and they were attacked by a crocodile. One of them died. Imagine that. Watching your twin being mauled to death by a crocodile. Crocodiles don’t have schedules, Hannah. They don’t know seasons. So don’t go trusting any tour guides and don’t go doing any swimming.”
As a solo female traveller, I had to be careful wherever I was on the planet, but based on my first week in one of “the most dangerous countries in the world,” it was the safest I had felt since entering the Eastern Time Zone. I had been travelling through Central America for several months, and when I landed in Mexico City, it was like I had been transported back to modern day. I brought my laptop to Western cafes and drank fancy iced lattes with caramel syrups. I sat in parks with large lakes and ice cream cafes and video-called my friends back home. I walked down clean streets with polished shop windows and men who didn’t catcall me. For a while, everything felt rather ordinary.
Then I went to Lucha Libre.
Lucha Libre is a professional wrestling show renowned throughout Mexico. A good guy fights a bad guy in an epic battle of jump kicks, body slams, and backflips. Male and female wrestlers wear balaclava-style masks with a twist: lime green, electric blue and hot pink lightning bolts, zigzags, and flames. Masks can be sparkly, mesh, leathery, and some even come with Mohawks, spikes, or frizzy tufts of hair spiralling from the sides. The more extravagant the better, and those who are really into the fashion show sport a matching cape.
For over an hour, I sat back in an arena full of uproar and watched fight after fight, transfixed on the performances, laughing until tears glossed my cheeks and the Dutch boy sat next to me said, “Jesus, you’re having a good time, aren’t you?” I didn’t understand what was happening, but I was glued to every second, rapidly coming to the conclusion that Lucha Libre could quite possibly be my new favourite sport.
The first match consisted of two grown men–topless and wearing knee-high boots, boxer shorts and balaclavas (one red, one blue)–who got the crowd excited by gnawing their teeth, throwing their arms into the air and roaring as they patrolled the perimeter of the ring like exhibitionist peacocks. While Blue was busy snarling the crowd, Red ran at him full force, throwing his iron body onto his unsuspecting opponent’s back and clinging to him like a crab caught on swimming trunks. Blue thrashed around trying to remove the human backpack, and when he was finally rid, he climbed the ropes of the ring–screaming in a ferocious fit of fury–and slam dunked on top of Red. Out of nowhere, two more wrestlers appeared, entering the ring and tag-teaming with either opponent. A four-way fight of pure skill, adrenaline, and expertise commenced. There were ninja-style swings, a four-man pile-on, and the referee had to intervene when Red became overexcited and lowered himself to choking.
It was hard to peel my eyes away, hence why I didn’t notice the furry-onesie-wearing dwarf who emerged from the shadows and slipped into the ring, causing the crowd’s cheers to amplify by ten decibels. Red and his teammate picked up the naive young dwarf while the other team cowered in mock terror. The dwarf was launched through the air and into the arms of Blue, who caught him and collapsed to the ground in an Oscar-winning performance of agonising pain.
When Red was crowned the winner and the audience began to vacate the arena, I was certain that whoever the revolutionary creative was behind the comedy show that is Lucha Libre deserved more recognition. Something like a knighthood.
The best thing about Mexico was the food, and in Mexico City, I demolished it like I wanted to roll to my next destination rather than catch the bus. In some countries – Thailand, India, Italy – it is perfectly acceptable to up the daily meal count from three to five on account of the food being too good not to.
Mexico is one of them.
I ate quesadilla after quesadilla, addicted to the stretchy cheese and freshly fried veg, crispy tortillas, and stomach-warming goodness. Even when I wasn’t hungry, if I came across a quesadilla combo I had yet to try, I forced it down until I looked as if I’d hit the nine-month mark. I ate tostadas and tamales and tacos, guacamole and corn chips and frijoles, green mole, red mole, yellow mole. I ate every hour of every day until my shorts rubbed and I needed to puff my cheeks and brace my knees in order to stand up. When there were only a precious few weeks in foodie paradise, every meal counted and each bite had to be savoured.
The best culinary surprise was when a random pang of hunger stabbed (I had almost forgotten the feeling), so I dipped into a dingy-looking restaurant, it being the first food source nearby. Ants trailed the floor and I touched something underneath the table that was thick and sticky. My expectations were low, but when I was presented with a plate of crunchy tostadas blanketed in red sauce and refried beans, onions, mushrooms, and avocado, cheese meticulously placed on top with five sweet plantains on the side, I nearly proposed to the hairy waiter. After that, I decided it was impossible to be served a bad meal in Mexico, and of course, I planned to test that theory until I exploded.
Even before going to Mexico, the country’s cuisine was my favourite, and I was struck by the amount of food that wasn’t actually Mexican. For example, a burrito. I did not come across a single burrito in the country where I expected them to grow like fungus. Turns out they are a Tex-Mex item and only popular in one small town near the American border. Burritos weren’t the only Mexican myth I had been missold. Where were all the hard shell tacos? Loaded fries and nachos? Sizzling fajitas? JALAPEÑO POPPERS?
But one thing that was (thankfully) truly Mexican: the churro. I ate the nicest–THE nicest–churro of my life from a street vendor in Mexico City. There was a man who owned a glass box filled with churros and on the box were three taps containing filling like an ice cream machine, the flavours being caramel, chocolate, and dulce de leche, which is the caramelised milk ubiquitous throughout Latin America. As I bit into my sugary churro–milky caramel splattering the walls of my cheeks and leaking from my lips–I gasped a gooey gasp. After I swallowed the first bite, I whipped out my phone and took a photo, knowing this churro would be one to show the grandkids. It was warm, melty, crispy. A delicate crunch sounded as the cinnamon batter fell in on itself and the hot sauce oozed out. Beneath the batter, the churro was fluffy, airy, weightless, and as the combination of textures, temperatures, and tastes ran down my throat for ten whole minutes while I savoured the masterpiece, all I was thinking about was that churro. I was present, awake, enlightened… but when I returned the next day to try a new flavour, Churro Man was gone. All that remained was the lamppost and convenience shop that had neighboured the stall, and a sad little churro-less patch.
“Dónde está Churro Hombre?” (“Where is Churro Man?”). I tried to ask the convenience shop guy, my voice high and eyes frantic like I had lost a child, but he didn’t seem to know what I was talking about.
I three-sixty-ed eight times, with each spin a new lease of hope rising that Churro Man had simply re-housed a few metres down the road, teasing me with his sugary confections in a torturous game of delicacy hide-and-seek, but he was nowhere to be seen. Perhaps I had imagined it; perhaps Churro Man was a product of my flawlessly crafted imagination, a bite so pure it could never have been real. I returned again the day after to see if Churro Man had just taken a random Wednesday off, but he was not there. It was the kind of churro that only happens once in a lifetime.
But I soon found a new lover to distract my churro-mourning mind: Oaxaca City.
Oh, Oaxaca.
If I could eat a memela every day for the rest of my life, I would be a fat little thing, but I would be the happiest, fattest little thing. I did not realise until after I had left Oaxaca (until my friend from Mexico City brushed over my well-rehearsed re-enactment of the first memela I ever ate with, “What’s a memela?”), but memelas are a dish exclusive to the states of Oaxaca and Puebla. I would have been sad to realise their exclusivity, but I could not have taken advantage of the food item anymore unless I wanted to eat one every day for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks, so I had no regrets.
A memela is a corn tortilla toasted on a large hot pan, spread with spicy sauce or refried beans, and topped with meat, vegetables, and crumbly cheese (don’t get me started on the exquisiteness of Oaxacan cheese for God’s sake, we’ll be here all day).
Oh my, I remember my first memela like it was yesterday. Down a side road I had no intention of passing down, there were a dozen people huddled around a steaming food truck. I noted this as an unusually large number of people queuing for a stall down an empty side alley, so I went to inspect.
The stall was occupied by four women–a sure sign of its popularity–and I watched as they toasted, then spread, then topped what looked like mini pizzas, their line chefing skills of the highest proficiency.
“Quieras?” (“You want?“) one of the women asked.
“Si,” I replied, and the woman picked up a toasted tortilla and moved along to the next station.
“Rojo o verde?”
“Verde?” I said, unsure what the difference was.
She spread green sauce on the tortilla and topped it with peppers, onions, mushrooms, and a generous heap of pebbly cheese. I looked around for somewhere to sit, but seeing there were no seats left at the most popular food truck in town, a kind customer ran to fetch a chair from his truck.
My teeth sank into the tortilla and the warm corn base stretched as I pulled. The sauce was mildly spicy, vegetables caramelised, cheese powdery, and let me tell you, if heaven has Uber Eats, then this is what they deliver. When my memela was devoured, I felt its loss of presence like a vital organ had been blackmarketed, so I hurried back over to the ever-growing line. For my second helping, I tried the red sauce topped with mini crispy potatoes, butternut squash leaves, and rich white cheese, then I returned for another double serving at dinnertime. By the time I went to bed, I was one mouthful away from my belly button becoming an outie. My seams were stuffed with Mexican memelas and they warmed me from the inside out.
It was in Oaxaca City where I also discovered the best snack in the world. There was a yellow food truck with a gathering twice the size of any other, and I stood on tiptoes to peek over the heads, but all I could see were a few sauce bottles and a big silver pot. I waited in the mystery line, unsure what I was queuing for but knowing I wanted in. When I got to the front, I held up a finger to signal I wanted one of whatever unknown divinity the lady was serving. Into a polystyrene cup, she scooped a ladle of contents from the big silver pot. I was surprised to see it was sweetcorn.
“Picante?” she asked, holding up the spice shaker.
“Um, si?” I replied. Did I want spicy sweetcorn or was that a trick question?
I held out a hand for my cup, but she wasn’t done yet. The lady walloped a handful of grated cheese on top, a slather of mayonnaise, then cut a lime in half and squeezed out the juice as the final garnish. By the time she handed it over, I was unsure if I was still hungry, but she spiked a plastic fork into the cup, hugged a napkin around it, and I received it with hesitance.
I peered into my watery, spicy, cheesy cup with uncertainty, but after placing a forkful in my gob and mushing the flavours over my taste buds, I concluded that it was not the work of a madwoman, but the work of an innovator. It was a combination I knew should be despicable, but the more I munched, the more inviting it became, and I began questioning life as I knew it. If lime juice and mayonnaise tasted this good, then what about fish-flavoured ice cream? Banana tikka masala? Mashed potato on toast? I could not believe this mixture had not caught up to the rest of the world, could not believe I had accidentally discovered Mexico’s best-kept secret! I classed the cup as one of my five-a-day and I did, indeed, eat it five times a day.
I planned to stay in Oaxaca City for four nights but ended up staying for seven on account of all the food I had yet to try. I felt like the greatest food explorer in the world: the Christopher Columbus of worldly cuisines, the Gordon Ramsey of the backpackers, an unpaid food critic who critiqued to absolutely no one except the twelve friends on private Instagram story, snapping a half-eaten pic and captioning it ‘sexy AF’ with a drooling emoji. Food comas became part of my daily routine and each morning I was waking up still full from the night before, but the food was there to be eaten and if this was what a pleasure stupor felt like, then I did not want to be without it.
When I left Mexico after six weeks of good food and reassuring myself that calories are folklore, I sent a text to my dad to let him know I was okay. It was a simple message consisting of one word, ‘Survived x,’ but more accurate would have been ‘Thrived x,’ or ‘I feel revived x,’ or perhaps, ‘Mexico blew my mind x,’ because I had had a true love story with the country, its crazy culture and creative cuisine. Despite not having any issues whilst travelling through “one of the most dangerous countries in the world,” I was well aware that the potential for things to change was always present, but hey ho. Some things are worth risking your life for, and that churro will forever be one of them.
