This is the first sunburn I’ve had since at least eight years. I love it, and I can’t wait to turn toasted almond in a couple of days.

A lot of hot water, lemon and honey and my voice is starting to come back. Nat and Brian are at the beach, but I max out at two days usually. This time it was one day enough.

I’ve spent the last few hours walking around the non-touristy parts of Sayulita. Speaking with a Canadian transplant who made me my morning coffee at his bookstore/coffee shop/hotel, Ed (from Edmonton, visited here 20 years ago and moved 16 after he was done with 12-hour days on the oil rigs), told me that when he moved here they’d just begun putting cobblestones around the city’s core. No one came, until they wouldn’t stop coming.

The Northside of the City, where I’m presently sat, is quieter.

The non-locals are already drunk. Most of them walking barefoot. I couldn’t get away fast enough.

Where the locals are, everyone is playing local music and the tacos at the stands taste better than the restaurant tacos in the city’s center playing Bowie.

I know maybe a total of 15 Spanish words, none of which I know how to spell: linda, agua, azucar, revolucion, senor, séniorita, hermano, hermanos, pollo, calle, revolucion, libertados, cervesa, and taco. Also, Y tu mama tambien for obvious reasons.

Basically, I can get myself watered, fed, and maybe join a revolution.

Since high school, I was obsessed with Subcomandante Marcos. The PS to my PS writing technique I stole squarely from his letters and use it still.

In Uni, (Mexican) Pablo and I would spend hours negotiating Palestinian and Mexican anti-imperialist ideas. He was a Catholic Communist, I a Muslim Socialist. He taught me how to salsa, though it isn’t a Mexican dance. He invited me to Mexico City. I never went because I was too scared; his heat was too much for me then.

Thick black hair and eyelashes as lush as the flora in Sayulita. Everyone here is Pablo.

I’ve already had one brilliant political conversation with a local. Struggling to speak, he was generous with his time, very patient to let me make me point slowly. The issue of P@lestine is a non-negotiable here. You don’t need to ask or wonder on which side people stand. It’s clear, and it is unequivocal. Politically, I feel safer in Mexico than I do in Canada.

I’m surprised it’s taken me this long to finally visit this beautiful country. The colours are overwhelming, and though I can’t ever imagine myself living here long-term, unlike a place like Osa in Costa Rica, I do want to visit the quieter towns in Mexico now.

Earlier today, I went into a small church and made a little request. inshallah.

I’m sat on a shaded corner people-watching, eating an orange and hydrating. May your Tuesday be as kind x

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