The most exciting thing on my routine commuter trip to Texcoco / CIMMYT - apart from being able to see Popo, the volcano, fuming - is the railroad crossing near the airport. Once in a while, a very, very long cargo train moves slowly across the completely unprotected crossing, whilst the cars left, right, and center get ready to storm across first once the last cargo wagon has passed.
As I write, a thunderstorm leaves its mark on Mexico City. T'is the rainy saison in Mexico, so a trip to Guarnevaca, the city of eternal spring, was a wet one. A friend of mine and I dropped into the local hacienda restaurant, enjoyed a Sunday pre-lunch drink whilst sitting under an awning, watching the rain wet the garden (and the peacocks). After a good half hour, we were taken to our table across the garden (under those parasols over there) and digested a very good lunch. Guernavaca is nothing to write home about, it's a pretty ugly city, nonetheless surrounded by beautiful hilly countryside, lying in an expansive valley, which you drive down from in serpentine fashion, coming from Mexico City. The pass between the two cities lies 3100 meters high.
Traffic, traffic, traffic, that's Mexico City, if you want to get around. If you stay in Condesa (where I live), no traffic to speak of (but the Thu-Fri-Sat bridge and tunnel crowd driving in to have some fun, blocking the avenues, as they have their cars valet-parked; I've yet to understand where all those cars are placed; somehow, the valets manage. Virtually every bar (!) has valet-parking). But if you want to go some other part of the city - generally there's a bit or a lot of traffic any day of the week. If 500,000 of the 25 million inhabitants want to move, I suppose that's enough to jam the roads a little.
There you have it, endless clouds hovering over the endless city. Life goes on. The street sellers sell, the commuters hop into small buses at every corner, the metro runs (I've never yet hopped onto it) and the cars jamboree.
The most exciting thing on my routine commuter trip to Texcoco / CIMMYT - apart from being able to see Popo, the volcano, fuming - is the railroad crossing near the airport. Once in a while, a very, very long cargo train moves slowly across the completely unprotected crossing, whilst the cars left, right, and center get ready to storm across first once the last cargo wagon has passed. 
As I write, a thunderstorm leaves its mark on Mexico City. T'is the rainy saison in Mexico, so a trip to Guarnevaca, the city of eternal spring, was a wet one. A friend of mine and I dropped into the local hacienda restaurant, enjoyed a Sunday pre-lunch drink whilst sitting under an awning, watching the rain wet the garden (and the peacocks). After a good half hour, we were taken to our table across the garden (under those parasols over there) and digested a very good lunch. Guernavaca is nothing to write home about, it's a pretty ugly city, nonetheless surrounded by beautiful hilly countryside, lying in an expansive valley, which you drive down from in serpentine fashion, coming from Mexico City. The pass between the two cities lies 3100 meters high.
Traffic, traffic, traffic, that's Mexico City, if you want to get around. If you stay in Condesa (where I live), no traffic to speak of (but the Thu-Fri-Sat bridge and tunnel crowd driving in to have some fun, blocking the avenues, as they have their cars valet-parked; I've yet to understand where all those cars are placed; somehow, the valets manage. Virtually every bar (!) has valet-parking). But if you want to go some other part of the city - generally there's a bit or a lot of traffic any day of the week. If 500,000 of the 25 million inhabitants want to move, I suppose that's enough to jam the roads a little. 
