Who Needs an Itinerary?

It was 6 am and I could see the Zócalo from my window. I couldn't take my eyes off it.

The sacred ceremonial centre of Tenochtitlan. The beating heart of Mexico City. The red pavement reflected in the morning light like rich Oaxacan embroidery stretched below me.

Even that early, it was already loud — traffic, heat, cathedral bells.

She was parked in a no-parking zone right across from the Gran Hotel de la Ciudad, where I was staying. 

"Impossible to park near the Zócalo," she said, stretching out her hand. "Micaela."

Short dark hair, large expressive eyes fixed on me, a cigarette balanced in the corner of her mouth.

We were probably the same age, I thought.

"Nothing good or easy ever comes out of the Gran Ciudad," she told me later.

Micaela was my guide. I had booked a day trip around Mexico City months earlier for Veronica and me. That morning, Veronica woke up sick, and I had a guide waiting outside.

Her car blocked the alleyway near the hotel entrance. A young porter tried to wave her away, but she fired something back in Spanish, entirely unfazed.

"Let's go," she said. "I'll explain our day later."

I jumped inside.

The stained-glass ceiling, chandeliers, vintage cage elevators — all the opulence of the Gran Ciudad disappeared behind us. From my hotel room I could see every layer of this city. 

Now I was inside it.

The car was hot, and I didn't even ask for air conditioning. Not this type of vehicle. Not this type of person.

"You." Micaela gestured toward me with the cigarette, one hand on the wheel, shouting at bikers drifting too close to the car. "Where you from? You have a funny accent."

Her directness didn’t surprise me. I knew women like this. Fast. Alert. Asking exactly what they wanted to know. Holding life firmly in their small hands because they had to.

"I live in Australia," I explained. "Melbourne. My daughter is here too, actually. We were supposed to do this trip together, but she ate fruit at the market yesterday. Gastro."

Australia was easier to explain than everything that came before it.

"Is it true that in Australia people drink water straight from the tap?" she asked. "A guide I know visited Sydney last year. He told me this story."

She stared at me for a moment when I said yes, as if I had described something impossible.

Micaela had never travelled anywhere herself. The person showing me her world had never stepped outside it.

She drove aggressively, ignoring rules, cutting through the chaos with fury.

"Let's get some coffee," she said, swinging into a side street.

A stray cat sat dead centre on the hot asphalt. She slammed on the brakes and waited, her gaze softening briefly before the animal disappeared into the shadows.

The engine hummed in the narrow alleyway.

We stepped out and walked toward a low café on the corner. The itinerary remained on the dashboard.

Mexican coffee steamed on our table like small volcanoes. Too sweet for me, but I was here for it anyway.

Micaela told me about our day. Her younger brother worked the boats on Lake Xochimilco, and it was carnival time.

"You will like it," she said. “We can have lunch there.”

"Can we see Frida's house after that?" I asked.

I had always wanted to see the Blue House. I knew it was in Coyoacán, but it wasn’t part of the itinerary. Something about Frida had followed me for years.

Micaela tapped her cigarette against the edge of the plastic table, her eyes locking onto mine.

She told me about her three boys, her hands moving as quickly as her words. She mentioned her husband had died during Covid — adding, with a sharp laugh completely free of self-pity, that he had been pretty useless anyway.

I didn't offer hollow sympathy. I let her glimpse the world I came from — a place where life also had to be held together with a tight grip.

"Forget the itinerary," she said suddenly, grinning as she stubbed out her cigarette. "You want Frida, let's go to Frida."

By lunch, we were eating cactus tacos together.

Music drifted over the water from another boat. Her younger brother shouted something toward us, laughing as he carried over a bowl of fruit.

"You can only see how perfect something is when you notice imperfections."

Micaela leaned forward and dropped a peach onto my lap.

The fruit was perfectly ripe. I couldn’t see a single flaw on it, though maybe I had misunderstood her.

I ate the peach whole. Juice ran down my hands and onto my dress, sticky in the afternoon heat.

Micaela smoked slowly now, no longer in a hurry. The carnival drifted around us — painted boats, flowers, beer, children selling food from passing trajineras.

Later, we docked back at the lake. 

"The Blue House?" she asked.

We walked beneath thick canopy trees. She stopped suddenly to show me a tiny theatre where young actors practised, a gallery on the corner, hot plates crowded with grilled meat and fresh tacos.

The streets around the Blue House felt quieter, older, hidden beneath jacaranda trees. 

Through the canopy ahead, the cobalt blue of the house finally cut through the green. It was vibrant, almost alive.

Micaela didn't go in. "I've seen it before," she told me. Tickets were expensive. Every peso mattered.

“The dresses,” she said, lighting another cigarette. “Best part.”

Inside, Frida’s world pressed in on me from every direction — mirrors, medicine bottles, pottery, revolution, Diego, Trotsky, colour, pain. 

"The Two Fridas" side-by-side, clasping hands tightly. 

Upstairs, in the bedroom, Frida’s painted corset lay flat against the delicate lace of the bedspread. A painted devil. A hammer and sickle. Two superbly ripe peaches.

I wanted to tell Micaela about the peaches, but she was outside somewhere, under the jacaranda trees, probably smoking another cigarette.

Before we left, I bought twenty Blue House tickets for her to use with future guests, knowing she would never accept any extra money from me.

She handed me her card. A small piece of paper with a few handwritten lines.

“Ningún mar en calma hizo experto a un marinero.”

Micaela ♡

My clothes smelled like Micaela’s cigarettes for weeks after we left Mexico.

The card is still in my wallet.