I think it's fair to say that Mexico City is not the world's most pedestrian-friendly place. Walking from A to B is rarely the done thing here, particularly if A and B happen to be separated by more than about 3 blocks. I've been met with gasps of disbelief when I've told people that I walked to a park or a shopping centre half an hour from home. I had more than one person assert that it simply wasn't possible to walk from our apartment to the centre of Coyoacán, something I now do almost every day. Those who like to move about on foot are treated like second-class citizens on the roads here, and oddly they seem willing to accept the role. I see motorists honk and scream at each other on a daily basis, but most pedestrians stare passively into the distance as yet another car goes charging through a red light and over a zebra crossing. Perhaps they're simply resigned to their fate.
Getting about on two feet is one thing, getting about on two feet and four wheels supporting a 10-kilo monster baby plus paraphernalia is another. This is largely due to the fact that pavements in Mexico City are bad. Ridiculously bad. How can they possibly be this bad, bad. The following is a guide to the different types of sidewalk-related problems one can expect to encounter wandering around Mexico with a pram.
1. The absurdly high pavement
For some reason they love really fucking high pavements here. I'm not sure if the photos do justice, but examples like these 30 cm beasts on my daily route abound. It wouldn't be so bad if you could mount the things once and walk a decent chunk at a time, but given all the obstacles (see points 2-4), you're up and down these bastards every 15 seconds. Guaranteed to wake up even the most deeply sleeping baby. On the plus side, a free fun roller coaster ride for the happy rested little one.
2. The random obstacle
Being able to move in a straight line is a privilege here, and one that apparently people with prams or wheelchairs don't deserve. In case getting up onto the pavement in the first place was too easy, the authorities have helpfully gone around the whole city and placed massive hurdles everywhere. No worries lads, I'll just step out into the oncoming traffic. It'll probably be ok.
There's also a weird fetish for tiny tiny pavements here, barely wide enough for an average-sized human being, let alone a pram, but even these can be subject to a good old random obstacle (left). And then there's the simply bizarre (right). That's a walkway crossed at knee height by several thick permanent metal wires, making it literally impossible for even the world limbo champion to get by.3. The parking fail
Of course people parking like complete twats happens everywhere, but it has been turned into a real art form here in Mexico. I'm pretty convinced that people do it on purpose just to piss each other off. If it looks like the guy on the right is on his way in or out, or has just stopped temporarily, he hasn't. He was parked there for a good hour while I pondered what was possibly going through his head from the café across the road.
Tiny pavements can also be blocked by a simple sideways variation on the above, as demonstrated to the left. If the width of your car is not enough to block the whole pavement and also cause sufficient disruption in the road, you can always resort to adding some random bags of rubbish between your car and the nearest building, an innovation pioneered by the moron to the right.4. Nature gets in the way
The sheer power of nature is often impressive to behold, even in a simple example like the trees uprooting the pavement on the left. Of course, beholding it from the middle of the road with a mental taxi driver approaching at 80 km/h only adds to the dramatic nature of the scene. If it weren't enough that nature impulsively causes disruption to the pavements, there are numerous examples of people placing huge plant pots on the pavements outside their houses, as seen on the right. I suppose a little bit of greenery here and there brightens the street up a bit.
5. The road to nowhere
Disclaimer: this one's actually from Mazatlan, but I couldn't resist including it here too. On our first full day there I took Noam out for a stroll, and followed the pavement outside our hotel literally all the way to the end, which was in fact only about a 10 minute walk away. It's not often one comes to a stone-cold dead end with nothing interesting to see. Probably a good thing, because by the time I got there and back in the blistering 9am heat with Noam strapped to my chest I was in desperate need of a plunge into the pool followed rapidly by a lie down in the shade with a Cuba Libre.
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