Night Time above Ol`Mexico City

As the stewardess announces our descent into "Meheeco" I slide my window shutter up to see the sprawl of lights below, stretching far into the distance. As I watch, the neat, regimented blocks of streetlights lazily transform over the course of a couple of miles into a snaking chaos of roads that twist and wind in a way that reminds me of the more quirky elements of town planning in Bristol.

The plane banks left and drops steadily groundward as as it makes an approach, and an incredible vista suddenly unfolds; the land buckles, creases and undulates like the sheet of an unmade bed and everything, everything, is covered in lights, hundreds of thousands of lights packed densely together in a blinking, twinkling field of luminosity as each light fights for its own supply of electricity. My nose is glued to the window like a portly child outside a sweet shop as the plane drops lower, only a couple of hundred feet above the cityscape. I can pick out the gaps between the lights; it is only 5am in the morning but the traffic bustles along a silver lit motorway, groups of people are gathered at corners and crossroads and strung above the narrow streets between buildings I can see criss-crossed strings of colourful bulbs and flags. My self indulgent state of loneliness and nostalgia is swept aside as I contemplate this spectacle; truly a hotbed of possibility, change and excitement.

Mexico City Airport
3rd January 2009