It is quite a sensory experience to get back in the groove of traveling, experiencing the new sights, sounds, and smells all around. It’s like using a muscle that you haven’t worked out in a while. Landing in a new place immediately overwhelms your senses, but as you take it all in, that travel muscle starts to stretch and work and then comes the comparison and admiration of a different world. 

It’s the little aspects about a different place that really send the senses into alert. It can be easy to take for granted the normalities of our own home and region. The feel of the street under your feet as you walk around; the sounds of the traffic or local fauna; the smells carried on the breeze or wafting from down the street. The background environment all around that you hardly notice, until there is something out of the ordinary. Or until you transport yourself to an environment that has a whole new set of characteristics. 

Landing in Mexico City last January, the start of my first major trip abroad in 3 years, kick started those travel muscles for me, and sent my senses into a spin. Mexico City is in the top 10 largest cities in the world and its many neighborhoods and large population are vibrant and diverse. It also rests at over 7,000 feet in elevation(which I was promptly introduced to by the four floor climb to our hotel room)! To say my senses were smacked back into the travel groove would be an understatement. 

I was reminded a bit of how I felt when I first landed in Bangkok on my move to Thailand. My face was glued to the window of the taxi leaving the airport, trying to get a look at the city as the cab zoomed along the streets. There are views of the city from the elevated highways and then glimpses into some neighborhood streets as we near the hotel, sometimes places that I would not normally explore outside of the safety of a taxi. In fact, our taxi driver in Mexico City advised us that a couple neighborhoods we drove through, adjacent to the area our hotel was in, were not safe at night. It’s always nice to get some helpful information from the local taxi drivers. It is also clear that safety can be a concern when there’s barbed wire along the top of almost every building wall. That said, there is a drastic difference from day to night and among neighborhoods. I felt very safe walking around in Mexico City during daytime and in certain neighborhoods in the evening. 

One of the first things I do when I arrive in a new place is take a walk around, get my bearings for the area I’m staying, and just take in all the new sensations. All the sights and feels of the city are unique. Instead of flat concrete sidewalks there are wide cobblestones, occasionally jutting upwards from a tree root, which means you must pay attention to where you step or risk a twisted ankle. As I walked around in Mexico City, the sidewalks were extra narrow in some places, occasionally becoming barely a curb next to the side of a building. Then on the next block there were pistons at the entrance to the road so all of a sudden the street is a pedestrian walkway (except for motorbikes, the motorbikes will go anywhere). This was the case in the historic zone on our walk from our hotel to the Zocalo(the city center plaza), which is a really crowded and busy place, so some pedestrian walking streets helped the crowd flow. The area also had a steady police presence monitoring the crowds and traffic. Many of the buildings around the Zocalo are the government offices and there is a ceremonial lowering of the flag by military personnel every evening, which is quite the sight.  

It was on some of those pedestrian streets that my sense of smell was really hit with a few jabs in a row. Every other shop was a bustling nook of food being grilled and chopped and fried, and with Mexican spices in the mix the aromas were intense. There are also street carts and walking vendors selling food and snacks, which is typical for a busy city. I smelled the lady with the cart full of churros before I spotted her. However, while walking around in a city the smells aren’t always so tantalizing. There were also the smells of the street, droppings of stray dogs, trash blowing or collecting in corners, exhaust from vehicles passing along each straightaway between the buildings. As I got more familiar walking around, there were certain sections of streets that I knew were especially smelly and I would take a nice deep breath just before and attempt to hold my breath as I passed through, which was not always successful. The fluctuation from delicious, spiced aromas to the wretched stink of city life reminded me of the similar sensation in India to a degree, but India does not lose its rank as the most invigorating place for the senses.

Mexico City also overwhelmed my sense of hearing, in fact, this was true for many parts of Mexico where I traveled. On the streets there would regularly be music playing loudly from a shop or restaurant, plus the voices of people walking around were quite loud. There were also cars that drove around with speakers, blasting promotional bits on repeat, and they were so loud the words were practically unintelligible(confirmed by fluent Spanish speakers). Another sound that you might hear is one of the water trucks that comes to refill the water tanks of buildings. They hook up huge pipes and then the pump fires up and it can be heard from a few blocks away. It would certainly quiet down a bit at night, as most of the street life would die down(in the historic zone where we stayed this time), but it was not completely quiet. The dogs do their part to disrupt the calm, in chaotic spurts whenever their senses get stimulated. There are also the celebratory firecrackers that go off all the time, and it took me a while to figure out what the loud pop that I kept hearing was. I heard them in a few different cities and looked for lights in the sky but never saw any fireworks, so I got a little concerned they were gunshots. I did a little bit of research and learned that very popular in Mexico are these firecrackers that fly into the sky but don’t have sparks like fireworks, just an enormous cracking sound and a bit of smoke. They were a little less unnerving once I knew what the sounds were, but still quite alarming. Sounds are often more of a signature for a place, the way that police sirens have their own variations in different countries; and Mexico City certainly had a lot of signature sounds.

For me, I love the sensory overwhelm. The intake of all the sights, smells, and sounds ignites my curiosity and sense of adventure. It’s like jumping into cold water; I’d rather get the shock over with than slowly wade in. Of course, it’s not that way for everyone, we all experience the senses differently. Though that shock was just what I needed to kick start my travel muscles last January as I worked on moving through my grief. Stimulating our senses can help us feel grounded in our body and then allow our minds to expand and experience the vibrancy of life. For me, traveling to a new place does that like nothing else.