29th June 2008

I am listening to Kumbia Kings in the kitchen of a hostel in Zihuantenejo. I have a feeling that my enthusiasm for Mexican pop will not be shared once I hit London; the idea of Estos Celos blasting out of speakers in my beloved grey city seems on the verge of absurd. It fits here. It fits life here, and it is truly something I will miss. I spent an hour or two in a hostel in Mexico City where they were playing music made by boys with guitars and sepia videos, droning on about some emotional fuckwittery or other; just, in fact the type of music that I used to like very much. It just made me crave some unashamedly cheery sounding Mexican music; despite the fact that half the time they are singing about their depth of love and the other half is about how they’ve been cheated on, they are not afraid to use a few trumpets or cumbia rhythms to bring their point home. Britain will seem truly grey and quiet without this music blasting from every conceivable corner; shops, cars, taxis, buses, people. A bus that does not judder dangerously each time it breaks, a bus without mirrors, dedications to Christ and the Virgin de Guadalupe and rosary beads, without Te Quiero on the radio, people attempting to convert you or sell you something, is a boring bus indeed. Even better were the onboard buskers; Julia and I used to catch the bus together, attempting to sit as the bus lurched, without spilling our precious Oxxo coffee, and every now and again we were joined by a group of busking Mariachi, which cheered up the morning no end. It was sensible on their part too; the air-conditioned buses were a blessed relief in the Monterrey heat. Less enjoyable was sitting on a bus in Saltillo once and having a musically challenged young busker sing a group of love songs into my face, inches away. Minutes felt like hours.

It is strange to contemplate how it will be to be in London again; the difference in air and climate, attitudes and people, manners and tips, values and way of going about things, the size of the city, and how everyone and everything is packed in together; none of the room to sprawl luxuriously, lazily and unattractively, like the cities here. I imagine the strangest feeling will be the immediate familiarity of all of the above; all of that which seems far away and foreign now.