traveler's tip #1

Traveler's Tip #1

Make it a rule to memorize every new address where you're staying. Sometimes you might need a taxi, and your phone battery dies, for example. It happens — what will you do in that case? It could be something more serious than a dead battery. In short, you always need to know by heart where you live — the street and building number — so you can tell the driver where to take you if anything comes up. One time on the road was enough for me to learn this lesson. I ended up walking home purely on intuition. This was back in Cancún — at the very start of my trip. Since then, I try to memorize addresses.

In the photo — a spot near where I'm currently staying. Juarez 807 — easy to remember. I step out of the house and end up here. Downtown, very convenient location, a store nearby (like a local Pyaterochka), and a market ten minutes away where I go to buy fruit. Also close is my future training spot, which I'll start going to on Monday. Can't wait.

As I was taking this shot, a thought came to me. I've already been to many places in Mexico, I know several cities on the level of understanding their layout — meaning I roughly know how the streets run, the main landmarks, how the city is structured, and so on — I remember all that roughly. And yet many locals have barely ever left their hometowns. I know plenty of Russians, for example, who've never been anywhere beyond Krasnoyarsk. Probably the same here.

An interesting feeling. Like some special layer is filling up inside you, a certain depth, if you can put it that way, and you start seeing everything with slightly different eyes.

And I've only just begun. So many countries still ahead that I plan to visit before I head back home.

Greetings from Coatzacoalcos,
Arthur O'Harra.