San Luis Potosí is a substantial industrial city that interrupts Mike Milo and Rafo’s journey with an unexpected practical detour: Mike’s dizziness prompts a medical visit, and the stop stretches into an evening of eating, walking, and provisioning their truck. The city’s importance lies less in any single landmark than in the sequence of bodily vulnerability and roadside necessities it brings into view.

Arrival and the reason for the stop

Late one afternoon, Mike and Rafo arrive in San Luis Potosí. The city is larger than Mike expected, and they get lost trying to find a doctor. Rafo has insisted on the consultation—not, he says, because he cares about Mike’s health, but because a dizzy spell at the wheel could send the truck over a precipice with Rafo inside it. He presents Mike with a blunt choice: let him drive, or see a doctor who, Rafo expects, will provide an immediate cure.

By the time they locate the physician, night is falling. The doctor is portly and pompous, already on his way out and unwilling to stay for another patient. Rafo’s extravagant display of tears changes the situation: the doctor relents and examines Mike. The delay and the city’s unfamiliar scale turn what might have been a quick stop into a substantial episode in their travel.

The medical visit

The examination is long and thorough. The doctor shines a light into Mike’s eyes, ears, and throat, taps and probes him, and asks questions in both English and Spanish; Rafo translates when needed. One question about Mike’s work pushing barrels leaves both men puzzled until the doctor’s gestures make clear that he is asking about Mike’s bowel regularity. Rafo supplies the translation, and Mike answers matter-of-factly.

The consultation becomes more intrusive when the doctor checks for hernias and other problems and prepares to examine Mike’s prostate. Rafo recognizes what is coming, but Mike has had enough. He pays the requested fifty pesos and leaves, giving little weight to the doctor’s assurance that he is in excellent health. In San Luis Potosí, the medical stop offers neither a satisfying explanation for the dizziness nor the miraculous fix Rafo anticipated.

Food, supplies, and the road ahead

Once outside in the dark, Rafo says he is hungry. Mike takes him to a restaurant and urges him to eat, while the boy chooses beans in many forms, accompanied by one enchilada. Mike eats sparingly: a cheese enchilada and two cups of very black coffee. Afterward, Mike feels full and speculates that his dizziness may come from a sluggish liver or being out of shape; for months, he has not had a hard, sweating workout in a stadium.

They walk through the town’s neighborhoods for hours and eventually find a general store still open. Its awning identifies it as an abacería, but it also sells clothes, huaraches, blankets, and patent medicines. They stock the truck with food: Rafo is delighted by packages of frozen tortillas, while Mike picks out canned herring in tomato sauce. Each grimaces at the other’s choice, a small comic contrast within an otherwise practical stop.

Mike also wants another sleeping bag because the next stretch will involve a long drive over bad roads, and sleeping in the truck cab has been uncomfortable. With no sleeping bag available, he settles on an Indian blanket from Michoacán. San Luis Potosí thus serves as a place to tend, imperfectly, to the needs of the journey: Mike seeks help for his dizziness, Rafo gets food, and both men leave better supplied for the difficult road ahead.