Home with a bump

When you first arrive in a new city, or walk into a building for the first time, your senses pick up on so much that is later lost in familiarity. You note the smell, how the space between the walls make you feel, the light and overall patterns. Once it becomes part of your unnoticed backdrop it has changed into another place altogether. Instead you start to zone in on the chips and layers of dust, you only seem to process what is at eye level.

Arriving home I first notice the smell seems different (we had been letting out our flat). Or perhaps that's how it has always smelt but I no longer noticed. The space seemed smaller than my imagination had allowed. But after a few days of unpacking, putting on music and opening the windows, it now feels like home. The walls are starting to feel less like an empty box and more like comfy old shoes.

Maya keeps asking where the light has gone (la luz mama?) when the dark clouds suddenly scurry over the sun. I love how the light is constantly changing, not the perpetual blue sky of Mexico. And I keep telling myself that it is a lot easier to work when the sun isn't shining, calling you outside.

We will always have Tlaxco

We pull up to the square and stretch our legs. 'Is this really it? Are you sure?' One of Mexico's prettiest squares according to National Geographic. We sit down at a very empty average cafe on the side of a square with modest palm trees and a defunct fountain. It is only when over a cup of coffee I look at the map that I realise we are in Tlaxco not Tlaxcala. Our lunch stop over is shortened and we head back. On the way we pass half built houses in dry fields with lonely cactus, an enormous 'factory' with cows squished together in pens waiting to meet their fate. The smell is overwhelming and puts me off meat. It turns out that going down the wrong road is like stepping away from the viewfinder to see the mess and beauty of the bussling workings behind the scenes.






















Our last weekend we spend visiting a friend in the obscenely beautiful San Miguelle de Allende. Its like a rich persons dream shopping centre - cobbled streets lines with sun peeled red and ochre walls, stone statues, rooftop bars, art galleries tripping over each other, elegant dress shops and tempting bakeries.

 Our road trip has come to an end and we are ready for the excitement of coming home. My own bed, swapping tales with much missed friends, seeing how the trees and plants have grown in the garden. Coming home is a whole adventure in itself.