Simon Gandolfi - Old Man on a Bike

I discover a small square around the corner from the hotel, where the middle-aged and elderly play chess at a pavement café. I sip a beer and watch the games and am drawn slowly into conversation.

Veracruz, Friday 12 May

Just before seven I am the first to queue outside the vehicle registration office – a privilege I relinquish to a woman who arrives a minute later, thus I have someone to follow. Doors open at eight. First disaster: all vehicles must be registered at a domicile. A hotel is not a domicile. Although motherly, the counter assistant is insistent. I am instructed to consult the department’s director. The director is both patient and sympathetic. He will accept an electricity bill as proof of domicile. He instructs me to find an address, any address. Surely I have a friend in Veracruz? In Veracruz everyone has a friend.

He produces his own electricity bill as an example of the proof he requires, lays the bill on his desk and transfers his attention to an assistant. An hour later the bike is registered and the plates are on the Honda. Mechanics and sales assistants watch as I mount and wobble tentatively round the parking lot. I will take the bike out properly tomorrow, Saturday, when (I hope) there will be less traffic.

Veracruz is tidy for a Mexican city. Trees shade street after street of small shops (how do the proprietors earn a living?). Small restaurants are common, as are ice-cream parlours and mini-cafés that serve a table or two on the pavement. Street vendors don’t nag, are happy to give directions and welcome conversation.

In search of riding goggles, I navigate, on foot, the narrow lanes of the market district. Dallas was foreign territory. Here I feel at home. The pace is Mediterranean. So are the chatter and leisurely human interplay. I ask directions and walk pavements striped with sun and shade. My goal is a row of kiosks where bike tyres and inner tubes hang on wooden shutters. I peer into gloom at shelves packed with spares. Most storekeepers are women – or instinct steers me to stores run by women. One advises me that goggles with glass lenses are too expensive – more sensible to buy plastic safety glasses at a hardware store.

I read in a guidebook that Veracruz has a strong black influence. I haven’t seen a single black person. The standard skin colour is a rich pale golden mocha – imagine a good sun tan without the red. People are good-looking, particularly the younger generation. For men, long trousers are obligatory. Young women show their tummies. Given the heat, this seems an unfair advantage (not that I wish to display my own gross wobble).

I have taken three cabs. The first driver opined that Veracruz is a disaster. Politicians have stolen everything. Working people can’t afford to eat.

The second driver was a sybarite. He boasted of Veracruz cuisine and instructed me to eat at any one of the small restaurants upstairs in the fish market.

The third was elderly and teaches English to his granddaughters. His own English is pedantic and he is contemptuous of North American English. He said that in Veracruz I can walk at night in safety, but in Mexico City I would be murdered.

I am less panicked now that the bike is registered. A cool evening breeze blows inshore. I stroll the streets and actually see the city for the first time (you can walk for miles without actually seeing anything).

So what have I seen now that my eyes are open? A castle built in 1660 and so small it could be a giant’s toy – every boy’s desire. A ramp leads to a drawbridge and a gate in fierce walls mellowed by age; a lookout post that resembles a pepper pot surmounts a square keep, and a further pepper pot crowns the far corner; cannon defend the battlements. The whole is the perfect size for a TV makeover programme. Imagine the dialogue between the two presenter-designers.

The central square, Plaza de Armas, is pleasant rather than great. The cathedral occupies one side. It has a simple interior lit by chandeliers and is small enough to feel intimate rather than overbearing. The cloister of the city hall runs at right angles to the cathedral; there is a plush hotel opposite. Palm trees shade pavement cafés. Almond trees surround a central stage and bandstand.

I sit in the Plaza de Armas and order a cold beer. Up on the stage, folk dancers stamp their heels. The women wear full floor-length dresses of white cotton gauze; the men white shirts, white cotton pants, high-heeled boots and those hats worn by scouts and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. The dance is a Mexican version of flamenco, equally haughty and yet less fierce than the gypsy original. (I recall Cuban flamenco dancers being too soft and pliable.)

In the final dance the women carry trays of lit oil lamps on their heads. They glide and spin across the small stage with the charm and grace of women from a bygone era. A near-full moon, its light softened by humidity, floats above a palm tree at the corner of the city hall. Lamps on tall, elegant lamp posts illuminate the cathedral’s facade. The temperature is perfect. The beer is cold. This is bliss.

The folk dancing ends and I stroll to the small square by the hotel for a final coffee – prices are lower here than in the Plaza de Armas. A chess player beckons me to a vacant seat.

Veracruz, Saturday 13 May

I wake in the night and lie in bed unable to sleep. I must ride the bike today. My fears surface. I am crazy to attempt this journey. I should be safe at home weeding a flowerbed and preparing for the hereafter. Or cooking a lasagne for my wife Bernadette and our two sons Josh and Jed. I miss them. I miss my one-month-old grandchild, the divine Boo.

I am not superstitious.

That today is the thirteenth seems unfair.

Unable to sleep, I sort my possessions. How much space do I have in the bike box? Barely enough for my laptop and reference books. I can buy clothes. Books are irreplaceable.

Moto Diez is five kilometres from the city centre on a six-lane highway. I am nervous. I mount the Honda and practise turns in the car park. Mechanics watch. They wonder why I don’t ride out onto the road. Fear stops me from riding out onto the road: fear of falling off, fear of panic, fear of being hit by a truck. And there is a further and greater and growing fear: the fear that the mechanics will suspect me of cowardice.

This is the fear that forces me to the car park slipway. Trucks and buses thunder through a fog of blue exhaust fumes. I edge out gingerly onto the highway and stall the motor. I remain astride the bike, kick the starter and almost overbalance. The mechanics have come out of the yard to watch. My palms are slippery and sweat stings my eyes. I dismount at the curb, find neutral and kick the starter again. The engine fires. I mount, open the throttle and engage bottom gear. The bike bucks. I close the throttle. The engine stalls. I long to hide my face in my arms and weep. A small crowd has collected. My ears burn with shame. I dismount again, kick the starter and ease forward along the curb. I keep in bottom gear for the first hundred metres and then move into second. I am still in second when the bike stops. I have ridden 300 metres.

The temperature is in the mid-thirties Celsius. Pushing the bike back to Moto Diez would kill me. I park the bike outside a store that sells plastic pipe. My reappearance at Moto Diez is met with consternation. Have I crashed?

No. I’ve run out of gas.

The mechanic apologises and rides me back on a scooter with a gas can. He tips the gas into the tank and we repeat our goodbyes. Off he goes. I kick the starter. The engine won’t fire. Kick, kick, kick …

This entire project is insane. I can’t cope. I contemplate suicide. The storekeeper (a woman, naturally) suggests I try turning the ignition key. Dumb, dumb, dumb …