Mexico City: Sales & Marketing

After another overnight bus, early morning finds me back at the Terminal Norte in Mexico City. The long-distance buses, while not always being punctual, are generally comfortable and efficiently run. They are classified (this one is first class) and by checking in at the Manzanillo ticket office, I get notification of the vehicle number. Always useful to ensure one gets on the right one. They tend to take breaks only to swap drivers which leaves no time to get food en route but most services provide sandwiches and water as sustenance. At Terminal Norte I deliberately avoid the fast food chains and find a downmarket but perfectly adequate place for the morning fix of huevos rancheros. when they ask for my name to call out when they're ready, I say Alan---quite a common name in Mexico and easier to pronounce than James!

Back in Roma it's like coming home. Hard to believe I've been away less than a month. I get there via 2 changes of Metro, one of which involves a 5+ minute underground walk. But a bargain for 5 pesos (20p). The empty lot next door to Oaxaca 21 where there was such a commotion on my last stay has been tinned up. Otherwise no changes.

A siesta to recover from the journey charges me up for the markets. The nearest one is Mercado Medellin, where stalls specialise in products from around the continent. By a coincidence I find Chile and Cuba next to each other both here and on street names in the city centre. The biggest one in the centre is Mercado Merced, at least 10 times the size of a football pitch and every conceivable item is sold, all assembled with microscopic precision. But how will they---both stallholders and customers---manage when the virus strikes?Läs mer