Do you want a clear or a cream soup, rice or salad, fish or meat, and fruit or custard? These are the really important questions in life, and they are aspects of the larger question, what shall we have for lunch today? In Mexico with lunch you get agua fresca, made of fresh fruit. Sometimes they try to give you these baguette-like rolls, but secretly they always have tortillas and they will give them to you if you ask.
I got lost again tonight and as a result of this, took an evening stroll in the Tacubaya neighborhood which is fascinating and could be a good place to live. Like San Rafael, where I found myself after getting lost last night, and like the Bywater in New Orleans, it has streets with names like “Arts,” “Sciences,” and “Progress.” I also walked home from there, which took almost two hours. I took a wrong turn at one point and had to backtrack a little, and I may not have taken the very best route, but the fact is that without having been that far out before, without looking at any map except the one on the wall in the Tacubaya metro station, and without asking directions, I went:
1/ from metro Tacubaya through some interesting streets in that neighborhood to the bookstore of the Fondo de Cultura Económica on Tamaulipas and Benjamin Hill in Condesa; then
2/ up Tamaulipas, comparing it to certain streets in the French Quarter and in North Beach; then
3/ up Montes de Oca so as to walk in less commercialized part of Condesa toward Parque Lira, getting lost again on Chapultepec somewhere near the Observatorio, I suspect; then
4/ finding myself at the metro station Chapultepec, realized there appeared to be no pedestrian route up to Reforma except through the park, which was closed, so
5/ took the metro one stop to Sevilla and then, back on foot, went
6/ up to Diana the Huntress and on home.
I saw many charming streets and houses, and a few too many teeming boulevards that are essentially freeways — the so-called “axes” and the circuito interior; forsooth, in some of these walks I may have seen parts of the “peripheral ring” and the viaduct Miguel Alemán and not recognized them for what they were. I did this walk from 8-10 PM, more or less. How far do you think it was? I think it was about four miles.
Step 1 was the most challenging since this is ground I had never covered before. I knew how to go because I could recognize the names of some major avenues to which cars were being pointed by large green signs. I think this means I am starting to know where I am. But only starting.
¿Consomé o crema?
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 
I can’t even imagine a city so immense and complex.
Well, I lived in S. Paulo, which is larger, for quite a while. But Mexico is complex, it is true, and that is its charm.
You are taking these lovely strolls by yourself in the nighttime? How marvelous. I cannot imagine such a thing in my neighborhood, although obviously there are many parts of DC where this would be fine…
I do not know DC well. I do walk around in New Orleans too, in areas that scare people who live in Chicago/DC/NY and it all has to do with having lived in Latin America and Oakland. So I may just be very sanguine. Black and working class neighborhoods do not make me nervous, if that is what you mean about DC. Rough neighborhoods do, depending on the atmosphere.
The walks of the last two evenings have not been lovely strolls but adventure hikes or tests of some sort. Both happened by mistake. I would not have planned them and I perhaps ought not to have taken them. I would not repeat them. They were not entirely safe although of course I do not go into neighborhoods likely to have crossfire and so on.
This walk went through several neighborhoods, not just one, and on streets of varying degrees of potential dangerousness. I am not a good mugging target since I just look like a woman on her way home, who is probably not carrying a great deal of cash, and probably not from a prominent enough family to be worth kidnapping.
I have spent enough time living in large Latin American cities that I’ve been lost lots of times before, looking for peoples’ houses in unfamiliar neighborhoods, and/or for other practical things. This is why I can be somewhat nonchalant. The nonchalantness also makes me less of a crime target.
Note too that I step surely and look straight ahead. Safety is also a reason I would, in some instances, rather take a slight wrong turn and have to double back than be seen looking at maps or be overheard asking directions.
PLUS there are all sorts of cabs driving around and I could always jump into one and be driven home. And it is unlikely that I would be assaulted by the cab, again because I am not a likely target (and also, I think it is an urban legend that Mexico City cab drivers are criminals).
I am just slightly more worried about an overnight bus trip I am taking soon. There is a slight possibility that the bus could be assaulted. They would block the road so we could not pass, board the bus, and do what they wanted. I seriously doubt this will happen, but it can.
I apologize for any severity in the tone of this response but the point of both posts was NOT “look what a lovely stroll I took,” but “look what I found, despite having had a harrowing voyage I ought not to have been on.” Perhaps the posts did not make this clear. To be fair, I guess the harrowingness was more about cars, roads, traffic and making sure I had at least a vague idea of where I was, than about fear of becoming a crime victim.
P.S. I think you missed my world’s most violent cities post: https://profacero.wordpress.com/2012/05/24/world%C2%B4s-50-most-dangerous-cities/
In US, 4 cities are on the list, but not Washington. In Mexico, many cities are on it, but not the DF. Still, I think the random crime rate may be higher in Washington, DC than anywhere the drug war is an issue.
And, finally, the other reason I am going on about this — I was really disappointed, both last night (due to rain and metro breakdown) and the night before (due to not looking correctly) to miss the events I missed due to getting lost. And it was a drag to be out like that, far away and lost, in the dark, the traffic, and the rain. So, I was redeeming this, saying I did well and found interesting things, because this is true, and after all, it was all good exercise … but still, the idea that these were lovely strolls one couldn’t dare take in dangerous Washington, D.C. did not sit well. I don’t mean to snap your head off … I just found these adventures exhausting and draining, and would have liked to make the same discoveries in better circumstances.
And yes I am cranky from the cold, the traffic, the rain, and certain practical difficulties, so I am reacting.
But the simple answer to the original question was, yes, I was by myself, and no, that was not the best idea or the most fun although it would have been hard to find someone else who could do these walks calmly and with a spirit of adventure, and well, I know what I am doing, and also, I think Washington DC might be more dangerous for the average person, and no, I am not a very likely crime target in DF, and yes, I understand that anyone can be a crime victim, but hey, I did what I did and took the risks I took and found what I found and wish I hadn’t been lost in the first place and had gotten to go to the events I wanted to go to, and yes I was worried during parts of these walks and relieved to get home or to more familiar territory, and no, they were certainly not lovely strolls even though yes, I chose to take them when I could have just high-tailed it in another way.
(I guess you can tell I’ve gotten a certain line of comments and questions before and am sort of tired of them.)