Well, it may not have charm and livability but Mexico City sounds like a
pretty exciting place and I want to go and see what it's like! The
impression I get of Mexico is of slight craziness and unpredictability,
and that makes it sound interesting. 'Amores Perros' and 'Y Tu Mama
Tambien' are two films which have added to that impression, and I
imagine it's not too different to the Central American nations where I
have travelled, which certainly were unpredictable and exciting.
As far as driving abroad goes, I've only done it once, on an extremely
quiet road at 2400m above sea level in the Canary Islands. No suicidal
drivers there, just peace, tranquility and great views. Shame I
couldn't quite handle the contrast of Velvia in this photo of the
mountain and the road:
http://www.worldtraveller.f9.co.uk/travel/lapalma/photos/lp03-s03-28.jpg
Roger
Moose wrote:
At least some of those beautiful glorietas are gone. In order to keep
the city from coming to a complete halt, they took a number of wide
streets both East-West and North-South and made a grid of one-way
throughfares called 'Ejes' where vast hordes of cars 5-6 lanes wide
thunder forward. When I first stayed there, Av. Coyoacan was a peaceful
street with a center divide planted with palms, trolly tracks on each
side and then 2 lanes a side for cars on the outside. A number of years
ago, I drove down the little street where we stayed and started to turn
left onto Coyoacan, only to see 6 lnes or so of vehicles thundering
toward me. With a shriek, I converted to a fast right turn and fled down
the next side street. Quite unnerving. Later I found that the lovely big
glorieta with the tall column with a gold statue on top on Coyoacan
nearer downtown was simply gone without a trace. I used to really like
Mexico City, but it lost its charm and livability and I haven't been in
years.
Moose
Mike wrote:
Moose wrote:
..Mexico City 25+ years ago was the most exciting city I've driven in...
I went to Mexico for the first time at about that same time frame. (
by my reckoning this would be about the year 5 b.OM. :>) for me anyway so
no OM content) We took my friend Greg's Ford Pinto which is a story in
itself. Anyway as some of you probably know Mexico City has these
suicidal traffic features called glorietas. They consist of a small
park with a statue in the center surrounded by concentric rings of
traffic
lanes. 4 major avenidas plus a few calles all dump into this ring
round which the cars go at breakneck speed and then go shooting off in
different directions. Doesn't take but a couple of circuits for the
gringo tourists to become totally disoriented. Took us a while to get up
the courage to just get out of the damn thing. We parked the car and
took public transit for most of our stay. The park at the center of the
glorieta is a great place to pass the time and enjoy the crashes if
you can get out there.
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