My daily habit here in Oaxaca has been to wander and explore from morning until night, then come back to the Casa Colonial at 10 p.m. to edit my photos and write the latest blog entry.

When I got home last night, there it was at last: An email from the person whose daughter, Luisa, I have been searching for since my arrival.

It was brief, a bit scattered, but cordial and hopeful. There was some good news … and some bad news.

The good news is that Fernando Limon (whose last name is no longer Limon, go figure) is, as his sister Rosita had insisted, indeed in Oaxaca.

The best elote (grilled corn) vendor in Oaxaca

The bad news is that he is in Oaxaca state, on business, in the seaside resort town of Puerto Escondido. The coastal village is a seven hour drive from here, and I don’t have the time to arrange a flight – but even if I did, well, Fernando is on business and only staying a few days himself.

More good news is that he, his wife Charleen, and their daughter Luisa—Ay, Luisa!—are alive and well.

The bad news (if you can call it bad news, compared to the false intelligence I’d received my second day here) is that they no longer live in the city of Oaxaca.

They live in the city of Denver, Colorado.

The view from St. Augustine in Etla

I’ll be making my arrangements to visit sometime after my return from Nepal in early Spring – if they’ll have me. And the good and bad news there is that Fernando has not yet responded to my request. There may be any number of reasons for this… Someone even suggested that, if Luisa moved to the U.S. as a child (read between the lines here), the story may be more complicated than I had imagined, and Fernando’s reticence to contact me may be understandable.

So I depart Oaxaca tomorrow on the scent of a fresh trail, with some very encouraging news. Not as wonderful and ending, perhaps, as meeting Luisa for a long-overdue ice cream at La Niagara—but much better than anything I’d hoped for during the long silence a few days ago.

All in all, on many levels, I count my journey a complete success. And there will be more to come—stay tuned.

There are two very similar words in Spanish, Sarai told me this morning. We had just met near the flagpole at La Catedral, the central landmark in Oaxaca. The city’s religious monument is abutted by the town’s zocalo, a pulsing public square that, like a human heart, nourishes every Mexican city; every day, nearly everyone in Oaxaca’s Centro passes through its tree-lined ventricles.

     “The first word is casualidad. It means something that happens by chance, by coincidence. The second is causalidad – and that is a series of events caused by fate.”

Sarai was making a point. Even though it was my penultimate day in Oaxaca, and I still had not heard a word back from Fernando Limon, my visit to this magical city had not been fruitless. The quest to find this local family, which I had met so briefly 24 years ago, was the spark that returned me to Oaxaca—and rekindled, in a big way, my love for the place. Last night I resolved to spend at least a week or two here every year – I want to be connected to the vibrancy, art, light, music, and mezcal of what must be, next to Mexico City itself, the country’s cultural capital.

So even though I’ve failed to find the people, or person, I was looking for, I did rediscover why I felt such a powerful draw to this place a quarter century ago.

And today was another day of wonderful urban discoveries. A visit this morning to the San Pablo Cultural Center, where the exquisite collection of painted figures includes a psychedelic Volkswagen bus; hot chocolate with ginger (and Sarai) on the pedestrian lane beside the Church of Santo Domingo; and a second visit to the Oaxaca Contemporary Art Museum, where the haunting 25-year retrospective of kinetic sculptures by the profound Fernando Palma purr and writhe and rattle—a dance of moving gourds, corn husks, wrestling masks, and cardboard coyote heads.

     “Has Fernando Palma ever visit from Mexico City?” I asked the bag check women.

     “The maestro is here today. Would you like to met him?”

And so we toured the exhibition again—this time with Palma himself as our personal guide …

After all this richness, it is easy to feel completely satisfied with my experience here, and suffused with a true sense of causalidad — especially after a few (or more than a few) artisanal mezcals.

*  *  *

So honestly: The last thing I expected was to wander back into my room at 10 p.m., and find an email from Fernando Limon.

The wonderful Coca Zarate, at home behind her bar at Mezcalerita.

My life is a Beckett play.

These days in Oaxaca have been filled with wonder. The storefronts are pastel mosaics, every shop a magnet of art and color. The wild mezcal brews, Lumbra and Tobala and Coyote, burn in the belly like a campfire in a mountain cave. Today I visited a petrified waterfall, saw white cactus seeds ground into brilliant vermilion dye, and watched a beautiful woman tenderly knead corn masa as if she was massaging an infant, before putting the batter in a press and serving it to me filled with pumpkin flowers, fresh queso, and red mole. The hot chocolate is to die for, and even the sidewalk mariachi bands are world-class.

Carina Santiago, head chef at Tierra Antigue, Teotitlan.

I’ve never seen people more proud of what they do, or who do what they do with more love. And the pride goes beyond the material world, and embraces the most basic values of independence. The locals tore out the parking meters, and every village charges its own toll on the funky road to Hierva el Agua – Oaxaca state’s most famous natural attraction, never to be coopted by corrupt authorities. Oaxaca is another of Mexico’s fiercely political states, almost like California might be if and when it works up the courage to tell the DMV, developers, and federal government to go fuck themselves.

Twenty four years since I last visited. How did that happen?

So yes, it’s been a whirlwind, and an inspiration. I’ve done everything I hoped to do here, and seen everything I’ve dreamed of seeing. … Except a single one of the Limons.

Hirve el Ague

It should have been so easy. Two days ago we got in touch with Fernando Limon’s sister, who allegedly contacted her brother on my behalf. He was supposed to be in Oaxaca Monday and Tuesday. She promised he would call me, and I was over the moon. I found a wonderful restaurant, Mezquite, where I planned to take him, and a fantastic bar – the Mezcalerita – where I might ply him with questions about the life and fate of Luisa.

He was going to call me Monday, she said. Then Tuesday afternoon. Then tonight. But the hours have ticked past, and the days have gone by, with no contact. Sarai has called his sister at least half a dozen times. Someone with a U.S. area code, maybe even Fernando himself, texted me with what is theoretically his email address. I wrote to it. No reply.

Tapestry by Diego Montaño at Tierra Antigua, Teotitlan

There’s something almost spooky about the whole thing. Sometimes I feel I’m being deliberately misled. But why? To what end? I’ve left the sweetest messages. I’d met his now-deceased mother. I wrote a book with a chapter about his family, and brought him a hardcover copy as a gift. Something’s not right here.

I have two more full days in Oaxaca and, I’ve as said, anything can happen. As the expression goes: No pierdas la esperanza. I’m trying not to, but it’s getting more difficult by the hour. And it’s odd, how the Spanish word for wait and hope is the same.

Oaxaca, January 22, 2018 –

Hi Jeff. I tried to reach you over the phone but it did not work. 

   [Note: Except for the first image, none of these pictures have anything to do with this story. But I like them anyway—and every blog needs visuals.]

Inside the Brujula Café

   Oaxaca, 1/21/2018 – Brújula is a cute corner café about as close to the Church of Santo Domingo as a café can be. Sarai was waiting for me when I arrived, along with her colleague Jorge. We ordered drinks—a double cappuccino for me—and sat on stools along a high wooden table. It was a nice spot; the black-and-white floor tiles were decorated with cartoonish skulls, and sculpted paper lanterns hung from the ceiling.

   There was some business to attend to first, regarding my itinerary in Oaxaca – I’ll be visiting some mezcal producers, of course, and the town where they make all those painted wooden animals. My magazine story has to include some local color, no? But this trip has a specific purpose, a quest, and all of the other good stuff – Zapotec ruins, mole, mezcal, chocolate, and painted animals – must take a back seat to my search.

   So as soon as we were finished with all that other planning, Sarai asked me if I was ready. I was. She picked up her smart phone, and called the number she had been given yesterday for the sister of Fernando Limon: the woman who would of course be Luisa (or Rosita’s) aunt.

   I sat quietly, hopefully, and very nervously next to Sarai for the next 15 minutes, while she chatted in increasingly animated fashion with whomever had picked up at the other end. Halfway through the call, though, her eyes widened. She glanced at me, and began speaking rapidly into the phone, her voice a register higher. I looked at Sarai pleadingly. She put her hand over the receiver, barely able to contain herself.

“Her brother – Fernando – is alive!” Sarai said.

“Alive?”

I was flabbergasted. How was this possible? There had clearly been some kind of misunderstanding, Sarai explained, by the neighbors at 604 Santos Degollado. Javier and Luis had been misinformed. For me, this was almost like having someone come back from the dead. Although I have not seen and be in touch with Fernando for 24 years, I found myself in tears.

  And it didn’t stop there: Rosita, it turned out, was in fact the name of Fernando’s sister, on the other end of the line. As for Luisa: She was back to being Luisa.

I was nearly jumping out of my seat with joy, unable to believe this wonderful turn of events. But there was some unfortunate news, as well. None of the Limons, except for Rosita, still lived in Oaxaca. Furthermore, Rosita was not willing to give Sarai Fernando’s phone number or email. I asked why this was so.

“I think, because, these days there are many … abductions in Mexico” she said. “Maybe Rosita is a bit worried.”

This gave me pause. “Then is it possible,” I theorized, “that Luisa really does still live in Oaxaca?”

Sarai shrugged noncommittally. I knew it wasn’t likely. But it was a hope. “Okay,” I said. “So what happens now?”

“Rosita told me she will pass your phone number to Fernando,” Sari told me. “If he wishes to, he will call you.”

My heart sank at this news – not only because it makes me reliant on a person who may be suspicious of my motives, but because my dirt-cheap burner cell phone, bought here at a corner store, rarely deigns to receive phone calls or messages, even from someone standing next to me.

“If you don’t hear from Rosita by tomorrow,” promised Sarai, “I will call her again to remind her.”

“Okay,” I said, because there was nothing else I could say.

   As of this afternoon, Sunday, I have not heard from Fernando—or Sarai. But as the saying goes: Anything can happen, at any time.

  Oaxaca, 1/20/2018 – The business card that Fernando Limon had handed me in 1994 had an address: Santos Degollado #606.

  The street was well away from the Centro, a sun-drenched avenue of breached and pastel houses. There were no cute cafés, no artisan mescal shops, no souvenir vendors. My taxi pulled up by the curb, in front of #602. I stepped out and walked down the street.

  Number 606 seemed shuttered, but a loose blue curtain was blowing through the open, iron-gated doorway of #604. Two men and an elderly woman were inside, talking quietly in the cool darkness that defines local living rooms. I got their attention, and asked them: Does Fernando Limon live next door?

View of the ruins at Monte Alban, Oaxaca

  Their eyes went wide with surprise, and they began talking quickly. Two of them, brothers – Javier and Luis Dominguez – stepped out onto the hot sidewalk. They had a great deal to say, and I understood only snippets: The home no longer belonged to the Limon family. Fernando and his wife Charlene were no more — whatever that meant. Their daughter Luisa? They believed she might still live in Oaxaca, but …

  Having reached the limit of my primitive Spanish, I called Sarai: my sharp liaison with the Oaxaca Tourism Board. She’d know what to do. Once I’d explained the situation, I handed the telephone over to Javier. They spoke for a very long time before he handed it back to me.

“Jeff? It’s true,” Sarai said sadly. “What he told you. Fernando and Charlene both have died. But they believe Rosita is alive.”

“Rosita?”

“Yes, that’s their daughter. She was named after the grandmother, Rosa.”

“But I knew her as Luisa.”

“They say her name is Rosita.”

  Had I had it so wrong all these years? It didn’t seem possible. But before I could question Sarai further, Luis Dominguez motioned for the phone. The younger brother had been doing some sleuthing while we spoke, and he had some news: He had located the telephone number of Fernando’s sister. 

  Sarai recited the number back to me, making sure I wrote it down correctly. She asked if I wanted her to call, and explain who I was in Spanish. For some reason, it didn’t seem like the right moment. I wanted to be with Sarai when she phoned Fernando’s sister; if she spoke English, I could speak with her directly.

“Can you meet me this evening?” I asked Sarai. She replied that she could. We’d rendezvous at 5 p.m., at a popular coffee shop near the Church of Santo Domingo, Café Brujula, and make the call together.

Ancient messages that may or may not be decipherable

    All of this was staggering news. Unsure what to do with myself, I hired a car and left Oaxaca city, climbing steeply to the site of the ancient Zapotec ruins of Monte Alban. I’d last visited the vast, majestic site in January of 1994, with Fernando, Charlene and Luisa. We had talked about impermanence; how even the greatest civilizations, let alone their members, vanish in time. Walking morosely through the enormous plazas, plinths, steles, and stairways, I wondered how my long lost friends had died. Both were year younger than I. Disease? An accident? But Fernando had apparently died first, and Charlene just a few years later. A terrible tragedy for Luisa, or Rosita, or whatever her actual name might be. And I felt stricken, too.

View above the Café Brujula

  But generations  continue, and I had learned one more thing from the Dominguez brothers: Rosita/Luisa had a son. His name was Freddy. And with any luck, I would l learn much more in the evening.

Church of Santo Domingo – with a very auspicious rainbow.

Oaxaca – January 19, 2018 –  During my career as a travel journalist, I’ve embarked on many quests: seeking out Paul Bowles in Tangiers; trying to circle Mt. Kailash in Tibet; looking for someone who could cure my “black tongue” syndrome in Senegal. I’ve searched for female lamas, left offerings of milk to attract sacred nagas, and attempted to circle the world without setting foot on an airplane.

The quest I’m on now is closely related to that last one. In 1993 and 1994, while writing The Size of the World, I managed to perform a kora – a devotional circumambulation—around the planet. The journey included 27 countries, and took nine months. It began with a BART ride from Oakland into San Francisco, and a drive all the way down through Mexico. One of the most wonderful places on the trip was the city of Oaxaca, which – next to Mexico City itself – is the cultural capital of this supremely artistic country.

    In January of 1994, I stayed in Oaxaca for about four days before continuing my travels toward Guatemala. Two momentous things (in my life, at least) happened during that time. First – after a maddening series of techno-trials – I wrote, uploaded and published (on the World Wide Web) what is now acknowledged as the world’s first travel blog.

    The other wonderful occurrence was exploring the city with a local family. During my visit I stayed at the modest casa of Rosa Limon, a lovely abuela who lived near an overgrow park and playground. Rosa introduced me to her son, Fernando – an architect only two years my junior – and his wife, Charlene, a therapist. Along with their daughter Luisa, who was eight, we toured the city for days – visiting Oaxaca’s famous Catedral and zocola, the vast, stunning ruins of Monte Alban, and innumerable ice cream parlors.

    Though I fell in love with Oaxaca, I was equally smitten with Charlene and Fernando’s daughter. Luisa was droll, ironic, and frighteningly precocious. Her observations on the city, and life in general, were so unexpected that I wanted to include a chapter about her in my book. She gave it a moment’s though, then shook her head. “No… I don’t want you to write about me,” Luisa said.

“Why not?” I asked, stunned. “I’ll make you a star!”

“That’s right,” Luisa replied quietly. “But stars have to live way up there.” She pointed her finger heavenward, then down to earth again. “And I’m perfectly happy right here.”

    I wrote about her anyway, of course. Or included her, at least, in my chapter about Oaxaca. The Size of the World was published 23 years ago, in 1995. It enjoyed one week as a bestseller, was released by Ballantine as a  paperback, then fell out of print. You can hardly find a copy anymore—except of course on Amazon, and in a few used bookstores.

    Nearly a quarter of century has passed since I visited Oaxaca and spent those unforgettable days with Fernando, Charlene, and Luisa. We did not stay in touch. I wonder if they ever saw the book, and what they thought. And I’ve often wondered about Luisa. She’d be 32 now. Where did she end up? How has her life unfolded? Has her wonderful wit and intelligence flowered, or been suppressed by the vagaries of adult life?

    I’m writing these words from a striped sofa, outside my room at the Parador San Roberto Lugar on calle Magnolia – in Oaxaca. Westways magazine has sent me here on assignment. I’ve been given free reign to write whatever I wish about this vibrant city—but my central quest is to find, if I can, Luisa Limon and her family.

And guess what I found? The dog-eared business card Fernando gave me when I left his city, 24 years ago. And so—as I begin my first full day here—the search is about to begin.