At the peak of it, there were at least 50 people slipping & sliding among the capsized produce crates. He said “he’s fine, get in there joven, you’re wasting time!” With excited eye-contact, Nadiné and I laid out a rough plan that involved not being greedy, but still getting all the ingredients we might ever need, and I dove in. Pulling onto the shoulder, I asked an older gentleman about the condition of the driver, and the morality of going shopping in the exploded produce department below. On the road the next day we encountered a flipped semi, spilling a million vegetables across the embankment. We stayed up long after the family had packed their car & gone home, drinking under a glowy night sky. With salt and lime juice, it was crazy delicious. In short, I said to myself “don’t get in the way of this excellent moment you fool, eat that fish”.

They gave me a weird look, the same surprised/concerned look I still get in Mexico when I tell people I’m vegetarian. Initially, I declined the beautiful fried fish on a blue plastic plate. I swam out to the middle of the lake and floated on my back for several days, I believe, watching birds swim across the sky. They offered us beers and the friendship was sealed. That first day traveling together, we ended up at Lago Colina, where we made friends with a family that was fishing along the lake. She asked if she could come with me, and I said, “yeah, sure”, super smooth, just like that. We stood there awkwardly for a few moments, now both smiling really big. It showed la Zona de Silencio, her sought-after desert, and inside it was Napimi desert biosphere. She handed me her phone open to a map of northern Durango. When I came out of the bathroom, she was standing there smiling big. I went to use the bathroom, feeling high from the interaction, but a little bummed that it had passed. I wished her luck in finding her desert, and she mine, we hugged, and parted ways. She told me about a desert she’d heard of, la Zona del Silencio, somewhere in Chihuahua or Durango, a healing place, where cell signals died, and silence reigned.

She was heading north-west to Baja California in a friend’s truck, I was heading south to Napimi desert biosphere reserve. We had a sweet exchange, and connected on being solo-travelers in Mexico. From Argentina, very pretty, she’d been traveling around Mexico for over a year. I met Nadiné at a rest-stop, on my way to Durango.

Zona del silencio