The first thing I remember well is the Taxi ride from the airport to my hotel. I had picked the place from "Let´s Go Mexico", and we leave the story for a short message from our travel guide:

"Let´s Go is the choice! Go Let´s Go! Let´s go "let´s go-ing!"

What I remember about the Taxi ride was the rush of anticipation. I was sitting in the car wide-eyed, full of curiosity and anxiousness. Every hut, every street, every person. This moment of arriving, alienated, and at the same time the thrill of having the opportunity to lose that feeling of alienation. A thrill that quickly overcame my surliness at the fact that the "Lost Baggage" office had told me only minutes before that while at Houston airport, while I myself had taken the plane to Mexico City, my baggage had jumped aboard the plane to Chicago.

I had six weeks, I went to a couple of fantastic places Let´s Go took me to: Teotihuacán, Veracruz, Merida, Chichén Itzá, and five days before my flight back was due I returned to the capital that, as I now knew, the locals call "D.F." (for "Distrito Federal"). So I went to the station and took the train to Oaxaca, a city way, way south that everyone loved. The ride would take "between 13 and 16 hours", as the man behind the ticket counter had told me. For something like 800 kilometers? Yes, indeed.

After a few hours, the train was rolling through the most beautiful, picturesque countryside. At times, mountain sides rose up right from the edge of the tracks, while to the other side, a riverbed opened the view on endless wilderness. The train was going no more than 30 km/h, sometimes a lot less. So the passengers opened the doors of the car just for the fun of it. For an hour, I found myself sitting on the stairs that in a station would have led down to the platform. At 15 km/h, the air was warm, and the countryside smelled fresh - smelled of water rushing down the stony riverbed.

After a small village station, a narrow path began to run alongside the tracks. Every now and then, a local farmer trod along for a while, sometimes driving a mule, sometimes pushing a bike laden with all sorts of merchandise. At that speed, you could shake hands with any passerby, chat a few words at ease, then wave goodbye. While doing so, the train car´s concessionary would come by in the corridor behind, offering drinks and sandwiches. I wished the ride would never end.

It did, eventually, after 17 hours. And it ended for good sometime later - Mexico simply shut down its entire passenger train service in 1995. Oaxaca turned out to be a sweet place, it still is most certainly. But getting there on the Soothing Train, feet dangling out of the passenger door, is something that has passed away. Exists in my head though, dear to me.