Into the Barrio

Out of concealment
Blank and stark eyed
Why so uncertain
This culture deceives

I walk downtown. The Barrio isn’t a slum, but it’s not salubrious either. The route takes me across the tram tracks to North Harbour Drive. The port is full of artics and the noises of machinery.

I check my route to discover that today’s ‘coach camp’ is not at the Marriott as I expected, but at the Marina Conference Centre, back out near the airport. I hurriedly grab a taxi.

It’s an amazing day. So many familiar faces, and some really interesting conversations that I manage to make it through intact.

Jutta and I both decide that a group dinner is not what we need, so we go back downtown. In some chain Italian we share an overpriced pizza and salad. The food is good and, as always, there’s too much of it.

I’m flagging. I think I keep up my side of the conversation, but I really don’t remember. Jutta heads for the bustle of the Ramada, while I walk through thinning streets, past homeless people setting up camp on the sidewalks, to the cocooned quiet of Barrio Logan.