The bus left Puerto Escondido at seven-thirty. OCC, seat 22B, four hundred ninety pesos. The terminal was quiet. A man was selling coffee from a thermos by the door but I didn't buy any. The bus was on time.
A woman sat next to me with a bag of pan dulce. She looked at her phone the entire ride. We didn't speak. The town thinned into palms and then the road started to climb.
The first hour was hot even with the air on. I closed my eyes and when I opened them the green was thicker and the air had cooled. Somewhere past the second hour the driver put on a film. I didn't watch it. The land kept changing — pine now, the road still climbing.
We stopped once at a roadside station. I got off and bought a torta from a woman at a cart. Pollo, beans, jalapeños. I ate it standing in the shade. The driver smoked and checked his phone. The woman next to me bought a Coke and got back on.
The afternoon was switchbacks. The bus leaned into the curves and I watched the valley open below. I drank water. That is what eight hours on a bus is — time that does not ask for anything.
We reached Oaxaca near four. I took a taxi to the center, forty pesos, and he dropped me on Alcalá. I walked two blocks and found a guesthouse on a side street. Two hundred fifty pesos a night. Room 7, third floor. A bed, a chair, a window that opened onto the neighbor's roof. I paid for two nights.
The room was smaller than Héctor's but it had a door that closed. I dropped my pack and sat on the bed. The city outside was doing its Saturday work — voices, a moto, the bells from Santo Domingo. I had been here before.
I walked out and stopped at a taco stand near Trujano. Carnitas, two tortillas, onion, cilantro, salsa roja. Thirty pesos. I ate standing next to a man in a delivery uniform who finished in three bites and left.
The zócalo was full — balloon sellers, families, a man with a cart of elotes. I walked through without stopping and kept going north. The galleries were still open. I didn't go in.
Still looking for the café. The coast had not offered one and I had not pushed. Tomorrow I will try again or I will not.
Walked back as the light started to go. Bought a bottle of water from a corner shop and came back to the guesthouse. The man at the desk nodded.
The room is cooler now. The window is open and the neighbor's radio is playing something I do not recognize. I thought about the book for a minute. Looked at it. VTI down a quarter percent, VXUS flat, nothing that required a decision. I closed it. The heat made thinking feel like work.
— Finn