Things we do

 

We stroll through the empty streets before 8 am, headed to the only cafe we know of that opens early.  Many of the shops around us will not open until 11.  Shaded on both sides by the high walls of the buildings, the streets are cool and inviting.  Few people are about beyond the city cleaners in orange jumpsuits and the transito workers in blue uniforms with their officially squawking walkie-talkies at their shoulders.  Colorful satin ribbons flutter from the iron grates of balconies and second story windows.  Water drips from pipes that protrude from third and fourth floor balconies, stretching out over the narrow sidewalks to deposit the water from rooftop gardens onto the street below.  Some areas of sidewalk glisten with sudsy water as mop buckets are emptied outside doorways where the stones have been swept.

 

At the cafe we sit at an outdoor table beside a circular stone fountain.  Fresh roses have been placed in an alternating color pattern around the rims of each level of the fountain until a small bouquet graces the very top.  The waitress brings me cafe con leche in a tall glass mug, the layers of light and dark visible until I stir in the foam that is on top.  I order Huevos Rancheros that come in a deep dish swimming in sauce and Dave gets his favorite chicken enchiladas in black mole sauce.  It’s a delicious and comforting ritual.

 

We want to find a shoe repair shop so we can have the strap of a leather backpack resewn.  The phone map is too vague to pinpoint it, so we step into a shop selling shoes and boots to get some advice.  We get lots of advice, repeated several times because they’re not sure we get it, many hand movements included.  As we leave, they ask if we have understood where to go.  My answer of “Creo que si” gets indulgent laughter, and we move on.  We don’t find the place they have directed us to, but blocks away, we find the red dot on our phone map.  It is indeed a shoe repair shop, but it’s actual address on Calle Blanco is nowhere near the map’s address of Calle Benefenciencia.

 

Later, we sit on a long iron bench in the Jardin.  The sculpted laurel trees are dense and produce deep shade.  A cool breeze wafts past us and dries the sweat we have gained from all our walking around.  A young woman sells ice cream from a cart on the street before us.  At the end of the day, the cart will be hitched to a pickup and pulled away until it returns tomorrow.  I wonder how she keeps the ice cream cold.  Maybe with dry ice?  An older man walks by with his cup of ice cream, nodding at the empty portion of our bench, then sits when we agree that it is available.  What ensues is at least a 20 minute conversation with him on wide ranging topics.  He is very patient with our Spanish and finds more basic ways to express his thoughts in moments when we are stumped.  A very pleasant exchange.

 

We head to a coffee shop a few blocks away, and stand there reading the menu board.  A very nice young waiter explains that we can go upstairs to sit and he will bring “my menus” or we can order at the counter if we wish.  We climb to the rooftop, he follows us with menus, then later brings the best cortado and chai latte we have had in a long time, beautifully served on a round wooden platter.  They even had “avena”—oat milk.  This young man was so incredibly pleasant.  When he walked away, the back of his t-shirt said “Be a good person”.  It was perfect.