Oh yeah, there was this one time I missed my bus in the middle of a rain‑soaked market in Oaxaca, and the driver just kept honking like he’d lost his voice. I ducked into a vendor’s stall because my backpack was dripping, and this old woman offered me a hand‑woven scarf in exchange for a story about her first love. I left with the scarf, a half‑eaten tamale, and a new friend who told me that pigeons in Oaxaca are secretly poetry students. One pigeon swooped in, started “saying” the lyrics to an old mariachi tune, and that’s when I realized I’d actually found the city’s hidden soundtrack. The bus later turned out to be stuck in a traffic jam of trucks with a horn section, and by the time I got back I had a new treasure, a full belly, and a story about a singing pigeon that will never go on my map.