I spent all of February 2023 living alone in Guadalajara, Mexico. For the entire month, I abstained from speaking to anybody, as though I were at a silent meditation retreat.
My silence was at first unintentional - a side effect of being in an introverted and less-touristed city. After witnessing its benefits to my body and mind, however, I made silence a deliberate regimen. That month provided me the space and time to properly reflect on my profound healing journey over the past several months.
Essays:
60 meals, alone - becoming aware of food
Community and coffee - exploring the depths of my local neighborhood
B’s story - the story of a 38-year-old white man from Jacksonville
Beautiful Guadalajara - a photoessay
60 meals, alone
I ate 60 meals alone, all in public restaurants. Not once did I cook or get food delivery, or even distract myself with my phone. Twice a day for 30 days, it was just me, my food, and Guadalajarense society.
There’s nothing quite like facing reality head-on, alone, and stone cold sober to make one more consciously aware of the environment and current experience.
In 2020, Covid-Alpha wiped my sense of taste completely. Over time, I only recovered to ~75% of my pre-Covid taste levels, and this new, dulled reality had become my only reality. I truly believed I had no choice but to acquiesce to long Covid.
But now in Guadalajara, in my state of self-disciplined hyper-awareness, I became more acutely aware of the flavors and textures of the foods I was eating. For one of the first times since 2020, I felt like I could taste things at 100% again, although it required deep, meditation-like focus on this awareness.
Fresh vegetables and fruits have never tasted so damn good - or maybe produce in Mexico just tastes better. Each component of an açaí bowl, from its strawberries to sliced almonds to cocoa nibs to açaí, has its own unique flavor and texture.
I realized that for most of my life, I’ve been shoveling down meals, spoonfuls of food mixed together, my mind and mouth distracted by staring at my phone, talking to a friend, or thinking about my next appointment. I rarely bothered to distinguish each ingredient from its neighbor. As soon as I had swallowed one mouthful, the next spoonful would come in. My tongue and teeth barely had a moment to rest or savor the lingering aftertastes. Sometimes the next spoonful would come in before I had finished chewing my previous one. Mix all the foods together, all the textures, all the flavors. Make it as confusing as possible for my poor tastebuds. Make it as efficient as possible, so I can finish my food and move onto more important life things like scrolling social media.
Now, I’m starting to catch myself in these unconscious behavior patterns. I’m reminding myself to wait until I finish chewing and savoring my current mouthful before starting on the next. Put down my spoon or chopsticks if needed. “Remember to chew your food!” our memetic mantra from our ayahuasca retreat repeated in my mind.
It’s more respectful, anyways, to the plants and animals who gave their lives for our nutrition if we start appreciating each bite of food for the gift that it is.
The chorizo at one taco stand tastes and feels different from the chorizo at another taco stand. The adobada at one is hardly recognizable with the adobada at another. Even within the same taco stand, the same meats and salsas vary subtly in flavor and texture from day to day.
Guadalajara’s street taco scene is the most interesting I’ve seen across Mexico so far. Most regions top their meat tacos with classic, simple toppings of raw chopped onion and cilantro. In Mexico City, one occasionally finds experimental toppings like grilled onions or mashed potatoes. Baja puts slaw on their fish tacos.
But Guadalajara is obsessed on another level with toppings. Raw cabbage slaw, pickled radish chips, crunchy tostada chips. Chunky salsa rojas, smooth avocado purées, pickled onion and habanero salsas. Classic onion and cilantro, stringy Oaxacan cheese, soft grilled onions. The different mouthfeel of corn tortillas versus wheat ones (I’ve never seen wheat in another Mexican city!) and how that interacts with the taco fillings. Textural and non-meat flavor elements add an entire dimension to tacos that I hadn’t previously considered. I savor the lingering herby aftertaste of habanero in my mouth for hours; there’s nothing like fruity spice to cleanse my nasal channels in the morning.
"If you want endless repetition, see a lot of different people. If you want infinite variety, stay with one." -Joni Mitchell, on relationships
An innocuous taco stand contains nothing less than a veritable universe of infinite variety. Take my daily breakfast stand for instance. It offers:
8 protein options: chorizo, bisteck, adobada, suadero, frijol, chicharrón seca (fried pork rinds), chicharrón guisado (hydrated pork rinds), higado (beef liver), each of which can be campechano-style with another protein, or with beans.
7 topping options: onion and cilantro, pickled onion and habanero salsa, chunky tomato and jalapeño salsa, raw cabbage slaw, spicy red salsa, avocado wet salsa, and lime.
2 carb vehicles: corn tortillas, lonches (a crusty baguette reminiscent of a Vietnamese bánh mì - Jalisco state’s version of the Mexican torta).
In total, that means there are
= 16,384 different ways to eat a taco at this stand.
A taco purist like myself would argue that the topping combinatoric should be a permutation, as it subtly matters whether the avocado salsa goes last on top of the loose vegetables or first on top of the meat. Like the role of ketchup and lettuce in securing slippery sliced tomato in a hamburger, I believe a wet salsa should go last on top of a taco, as it helps bind together the ingredients underneath.
There’s something poetic about the Japanese restaurant experience when done authentically, as Mononoke Ramen has. Eating alone in public no longer induces anxiety. The simple wooden design calms guests of any culture into a hushed, disciplined focus on the primal reason for gathering: the food.
Mononoke was superb; one of my top restaurant recommendations here in Guadalajara.
Community and coffee
Despite being the capital of Jalisco, the state which spawns classic Mexican cultural artifacts like tequila, mariachi, and sombrero, Guadalajara is not a particularly touristy city. Most of the attractions, like Lake Chapala, are located an hour or three’s drive away, and ethnic Jalisciense culture is celebrated in sister city Zapopan. Guadalajara feels like a place where locals live and work. The streets are orderly and laid out in a grid. It’s well-planned and clean. It feels stable and safe.
It also felt bland and boring. There are few, if any, street vendors selling non-food items, and those who do sell food are relatively few and far between. This wasn’t Mexico I knew; this was generic urban gentrification!
But over the course of my month, I would come to deeply appreciate the paucity of distractions. It allowed me to settle more deeply into my local neighborhood and explore what it means to commit to living in one place, something I’ve struggled with over the years.
The above screenshot is of Col. Americana, the neighborhood where I stayed. Yellow stars indicate restaurants where I ate during my month (excluding street carts, many of which are not on Google Maps). Pink hearts indicate places I particularly enjoyed. Green flags are places I eyed but didn’t get a chance to try. I found restaurants via Google Maps and friends’ recommendations, and from passing by them during my evening jogs.
Despite eating 60 meals out, I barely scratched the surface of Americana. My flagged restaurants probably represent less than 10% of the total number of restaurants in this area, and I only ate at half of them. Which means that in one month, I had tried ~5% of restaurants in my neighborhood. At this rate, it would take 20 months to try every single one. If I were to stay 20 months in Guadalajara, I would surely find a more permanent place and start cooking, which would conservatively represent 50% of my meals. In which case it would now take 40 months to try every restaurant, and then only if I make a concerted effort to continuously try new spots every week.
The depth of restaurants to explore in just one neighborhood is mind-boggling. Throw in museums and other cultural sites, and one realizes how vast the world can be in one tiny area.
Infinite variety, indeed.
One café, KŌNĀ, showed me just how deep the infinite variety goes. I visited three times, initially attracted by its minimalist design. All three times, I sat in the same seat, reading on my Kindle as I sipped my matcha latte and took baby bites of a pastel de nata.
Every customer who came to KŌNĀ seemed to know the baristas. They would say hello with a familiar warmth and embrace or give cheek kisses. Friends would drop by to say hi without buying anything. Every dog and cat at the cafe would get pet and cooed, and sometimes the baristas would take the leashes and walk the animals on the patio. KŌNĀ felt like one large family, with blurred lines between barista and guest. Indeed, during downtimes the baristas would often sit at the counter bar, entirely disguised as guests to unknowing newcomers like myself.
One man was there all three times I visited. All three times, he was wearing ski goggles. He knew literally everybody at KŌNĀ. It was crazy.
Or was it? It occurred to me that I had never fully appreciated a coffee shop as a community gathering point before. Instead, I saw them as places to have a coffee chat at best, and co-working spots at worst. Baristas were anonymous workers, existing simply to facilitate operations.
On my last Friday in Guadalajara, I walked into KŌNĀ. It was quite empty. The barista stood up from the bar (disguised as a guest) as I entered. She looked at me and asked me if I wanted a cold matcha latte, si quieres un matcha latte? Wait, what? That was exactly what I had ordered last week. This lady remembered who I was and what I ordered, even though I hadn’t talked to her previously.
Maybe I was a part of the community, too.
As afternoon turned into evening, KŌNĀ began filling up. At first it was a trickle of close friends, and then it became hordes of people. Every person was there to meet a friend, barista or guest. Conversations spilled out of the coffee area into the extended seating area in the back and the patio in front. There were groups of trendy young men, decked out in vintage thrifts from Sunday markets. There were families, pushing strollers with babies that friends and strangers alike cooed over. A man in a smart jacket who could only be KŌNĀ’s owner appeared, and he started making pourovers for his guests while chatting nonstop to everyone.
It was as busy and boisterous as a corporate happy hour, only in community coffee shop form. Not a single person had brought a laptop to do work or was even looking at their phone. Everyone was engaged in conversation with the people around them, connecting with their community. The energy was infectious.
I got the distinct feeling that I had stumbled upon a community gem. Whether I was their newest member or just an outside observer, I wasn’t sure. What I did know was that I had found something special, and I wanted to find local homes like this for myself.
B’s story
I did have one extended, nonessential conversation during my month. It was with a man who visited the same co-working space I did. Let’s call him “B”.
I want to share the stories of interesting people and nomads I meet. Often, they come from worlds and perspectives very different from mine. I’ve shared “B’s story” here, as well as “The girl at the recepção” in my essay on Brazil.
B is a 38-year-old white man from Jacksonville, Florida. He’s divorced, and his two sons, aged 10 and 12, live with his ex-wife in Jacksonville.
B has spent the past year living a digital nomad lifestyle in Guadalajara, Puerto Vallarta, Medellín, Rio de Janeiro, Florianópolis, and somewhere in Thailand and the Philippines. He is tired of moving around every couple of months and is thinking of settling down longer-term in Medellín. B is 10% fluent in Spanish. He makes $180,000 annually at a real estate software company and wants to invest in real estate on the side.
B is very clear about his reasons for leaving the US. In his own words: his wife grew fat and lazy, and never cooks or cleans. B was slaving away at his job trying to provide for the family. After divorce, B dated around, but didn’t get many matches on apps. And any matches he did get were always the same story: a depressing set of circumstances where every woman was fat or fucked up in some way: A 27-year-old making $2,000 a month at some “shit job” and with two young kids that B would have to take care of. A 35-year-old with a full sleeve of tattoos and red hair. “She was probably gorgeous when she was younger, but now… she dyed her hair red. Like, what the fuck?”. B complained about his 43-year-old sister and how she was just like his ex-wife. Never cooks, never cleans, just growing fatter every day lazing around on the couch. Barely takes care of her kids, who are supposedly being homeschooled. Her husband works hard at his job every day to provide for the family, only to come home to an empty dinner table each night.
And there was nothing, absolutely nothing to do in Jacksonville. “What do you want to do today? Oh, let’s go to the farmer’s market!” B rolled his eyes and threw up his hands, an incredulous smile on his face. “The fuckin’ farmer’s market! I went there every other Saturday for three years in a row! Because there’s literally nothing else to do!”
$5,000 of his monthly paycheck went to taxes, $5,000 went to his ex-wife and kids, and $5,000 was for himself. B can’t retire on that money. He’s sick of the rat race. He’s passionate about real estate and wants more than one thousand dollars a month to put into it.
Medellín is his end goal. There’s endless activities to do there. It’s cheap. The dating scene is incredible for him. The women there work hard, unlike those in America, and even if they don’t, he has his pick. He could even get into local real estate.
And thus B had to get out of America.
I can empathize with B, but I can’t relate to him. I felt sorry for him. B seems like the downtrodden person in middle America who feels that the cards are stacked against him.
As I oft do with American nomads I encounter, I challenged him on what his long-term goals were. Did he really want to live in Medellín forever? Couldn’t many of his complaints be resolved by relocating from Jacksonville to an elite coastal U.S. city? In response, he spoke wistfully of living in a place like San Diego or Denver. I wasn’t surprised. Many American nomads I challenge in this way have the same answer: that they would absolutely live in the U.S. long term, if not for want of money which drives them to justify living outside the country. (I, too, have been struggling with this conundrum for my own life.)
In his discourse, B made several sweeping statements about women, black people, and gay people. He would consistently preface them with a disclaimer like “don’t get me wrong,” or “don’t take this the wrong way” - a byproduct of PC culture.
B had minimal exposure to non-white cultures. “Are you Chinese?” he asked me early on in our conversation. “Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean anything by it,” he immediately added, his PC training kicking in.
At the end of our conversation, he asked my name. “James,” I said. He was stunned and couldn’t speak for a moment. His facial expression oscillated between incredulity, confusion, and normalcy. I knew why he was surprised: my name should be ching chong.
“You look surprised.” I broke the silence, bemused.
He snapped out of his trance. “Oh… my dad’s name is James,” he replied slowly, although his still-incredulous face, eyes staring off into some distance, suggested this probably wasn’t true.
“Wow,” he exclaimed after another pause. “Is your name really James?”
Beautiful Guadalajara
Despite not being overtly touristy, Guadalajara has its beauty and secrets, and I enjoyed discovering them. Towards the end of my month, I savored each moment; I didn’t want to let my experience go.
Loved this James! As an avid coffee-shop-goer, the point about these spaces being a great community gathering place resonates.