I may meander south, light on a memory, & I may look for some photos of that trip. But I wanted to jump ahead to a half-awake dream I had the other day. We were somewhere pretty far south, maybe Honduras or Nicaragua, or maybe it was very southern Mexico, & the only hotels we could afford had no hot water. I was reluctant but too sweltering not to take a shower. What a surprise — & pleasure — the tepid water was. One of those moments when I knew my assumptions to be unnecessarily constricted.
An unrelated memory: I had brought a bottle of citronella oil from New York & left it open every night to keep away mosquitos. I didn't get malaria so i guess it worked. My magic for staying healthy was refusing lettuce ("sin lechuga!") & swallowing a clover of raw garlic every day.