Dust! That was my first impression of a city whose disastrous birth rate has made it the largest in the world, a vast expanse of concentrated housing broken only by open spaces of baked earth where the wind-blown dust swirled, and far away to port the snow-capped volcanic hulks of Popocatépetl and Iztaccihuatl towering huge through the burnt brown atmosphere. ‘We’ll dump our things at the hotel,’ Ward said, ‘and if there’s time we’ll have a look round.’ The landing was a smooth one, but once we were inside the terminal building everything moved at a snail’s pace, the queue at immigration long and slow moving. When it was our turn I found he had been right about the word antiquarian giving the immigration officers something to think about. They were a good ten minutes arguing over what it meant, even calling in the senior officer on duty, who spoke a little English. ‘Old books? Why you want old books? You are tourist, no? In transit.’ ‘Aye, Ah’m booked out on the flight to Lima in the mornin’.’ Ward was smiling a bright, happy, almost drunken smile, playing the innocent Scot and putting on his broadest accent.
