Books’ row in Mexico City

In the south of Mexico City, where Miguel Angel de Quevedo avenue crosses Avenida Universidad —about five minutes from the Bohemian hangout of Coyoacán— is a mini paradise for bookworms.

Three major bookstores, Gandhi, El Sotano, and Fondo de Cultura Economica, and a dozen or so smaller ones, line both sides of the street. Outside are wooden trays with books at throw-away prices, and inside you’ll find special offers on those less likely to be thrown away.

Mexico City remains the place where the widest selection of books and bookshops can be found, and some well-known chains have most of their branches in the capital.

Bookshops are still popular in Mexico

But while in many developed countries bookshops have been closing, Mexican chains have been opening new stores. Like bookshops everywhere, they have also added small gifts, toys, games & puzzles, and other paraphernalia to their offerings to make the business work.  This may annoy some purists, but somehow it’s hard to get worked up about a model that means the book business can continue going.

• Cafebrería El Péndulo —coffee shop-bookstore— boasts several branches in Mexico City, including in trendy neighborhoods such as Polanco, Condesa, Roma, and San Ángel.
• Librerías Gandhi has expanded with new stores in Mexico City, and also has branches in 24 of Mexico’s 32 states.
• El Sótano and Casa del Libro have more than a dozen branches.
• Gonvill Librerías is the biggest chain in Guadalajara, Mexico’s third most populated city and which is also host to a major international book fair each year.

These chains tend to stock the best selection of books, often beyond the capacity of the shelves so that many are neatly piled up.  You can find most books in Spanish at these stores.

And while many, especially Gandhi and El Péndulo, have one or two shelves of books in English and French, here it tends to be hit and miss.  You might find occasional books of interest, but you are less likely to find a specific title. (For some you can check availability online.)

Buying eBooks in Mexico

Since eBooks are virtually borderless, there are as many options in Mexico as anywhere else.

Amazon’s Mexico shop sells Kindles, and you can usually find almost any book published in English or Spanish in the local Kindle store.  Apple Books are an option for those who use Apple devices —iPhone or iPad— although they don’t have a dedicated eReader like the Kindle.

There’s no accounting for taste, and online reviews show some people are impressed with the Apple Books app, others not so much. For those using Android, Google Books is an option, and again, it has the disadvantage of not having a dedicated eReader.

In Mexico, the Gandhi and Porrúa book chains have an agreement with Kobo Books and sell Kobo eReaders, which are popular in Canada and parts of Europe like France and Italy. (The Canadian digital bookseller Kobo was acquired by Japan’s Rakuten Group in 2012, so the app says Rakuten Kobo, although people still widely refer to Kobo books).

Both Gandhi and Porrúa sell eBooks on their own websites, which can be downloaded onto the Kobo reader or using the Kobo app installed on devices, and you can also download eBooks directly from the Kobo website.

Depending on how budget conscious the reader is, it can be advantageous to keep open several options, as sometimes a title will be available on one platform and not another, or cheaper on one than another.

The Kindle, Kobo, and Google Books apps are available on Apple and Android, but the Apple Books app isn’t available on Android.

Finding books not published in Spanish

When you are looking for a particular physical copy of a book not published in Spanish —such as a new release— the options are to stock-up on a trip abroad, or order it from a book seller online—most of which will ship books to Mexico with no problems, but not necessarily that quickly. If you want a particular book right now, eBooks are the way to go.

Mexico’s department stores and big box stores have book sections, but these vary widely in selection and quality. There are about 150 Sanborns stores with magazine sections offering international titles published in English, but not much in the way of books published in English beyond current best-sellers.

Fancy browsing

Even the most bourgeois of us like to dig around for books in a bohemian atmosphere, and for that there are plenty of elegant bookshops—although that isn’t where most Mexicans go to buy reading material.  This collection of independent bookshops lists a selection of niche bookstores in the capital, curated by a local expat blogger.

“Rush hour” is actually a bit of an understatement. It starts at about six in the morning and runs through to 10, then it resumes from one to three in the afternoon during school terms, and closes out the day from six to 10 at night.

A cursory glance at a long stream of cars advancing slowly but inexorably into town each weekday morning, and out of town again in the evening, suggests that the average number of travelers per car is one point something.

People who are otherwise quite passive can become very annoyed when the prospects of reaching their destination on time are threatened by the refusal of others to let them through. Everybody knows that some days it can be impossible, but many places — schools, for example — no longer accept it as an excuse for arriving late.

It’s been said that if you can drive in Mexico City, you can drive anywhere in the world. The newcomer to driving in the capital will discover that the horn can be a more useful accessory than indicators to turn or change lanes. A signal to change lanes can actually cause someone coming up behind to speed up and keep you from doing so.

According to the Mexico City government, over 21 million trips a day are made in the capital and the adjacent parts of the Estado de Mexico.  In Mexico City alone, there are over 3 million vehicles registered, of which more than ninety percent are private cars. Numbers vary from year to year, but the city government once cited a study showing private cars accounted for 16% of trips, slightly more than the Metro but much less than micros.

Not surprisingly, since it takes up so much of people’s time, traffic congestion is a frequent topic of fill-in conversation, beating even the weather or sports. It’s not unusual to hear people wonder why we can’t be like other major cities around the world, where commuters leave their cars at home and take public transport. For some the question is mostly rhetorical, since they already have the answer. They wouldn’t be seen dead on the Metro. The question should be rephrased as why can’t other people leave their cars at home so I can drive more comfortably to work?

A bygone era of old-world coffee shops

In years past, the coffee shop/restaurants run by Chinese immigrants —of which there were several in and around the Chinese quarter of downtown Mexico City and more beyond that— were nearly always full.

The “café chino,” as these were only ever referred to, was typically a long thin hall moving back from the street front. Half of the façade would be taken up by a glass window filled with different kinds of sweet bread to eat in or take away (and the odd bluebottle).

Down one side of the entrance would be the coffee bar and the cash register, and the other side would be taken up by a row of tables or booths.  The specialty of the house would be café con leche: a small amount of concentrate would be poured from a metal coffee pot into the bottom of a glass mug, and hot milk from another poured on top, with the server lifting the spout farther and farther from the mug as it filled, creating, if done precisely, a frothy top.

Black coffee —café americano— was steam-pressed from the machine behind the bar, and each cup was charged at the same rate.  Hygiene was hardly of first importance to the café chino, and patrons did well not to be over-zealous inspecting the specks on the table or trying to steal a glance at the kitchen.

Perhaps the king of coffee shops was Café La Habana, on the corner of Bucareli and Morelos, a stone’s throw from the historical Chinese clock.  La Habana brewed the strongest coffee, served in thick white cups that were slightly wider at the base than at the brim (awkward for stirring).  It was popular among intellectuals and, being about a block from such erstwhile giants of the Mexican press as Excelsior and El Universal, a frequent meeting place for journalists of the old school: threadbare suits, beaten-up leather briefcases stuffed full with dog-eared press releases, political “tips” several times removed from reality.

The emergence of contemporary coffee houses

Against this, the chain restaurant/coffee shops such as VIPS, TOKS, and Sanborns provided free refills on drip-brewed coffee, competing in quality with “Golden Cup” plaques awarded by the Mexican Coffee Council, and in convenience with quick-service bars where the temporarily idle could while away several hours loading up on caffeine without having to keep paying.  This is still true today, although people are generally much more rushed.

In addition to these places, with the advent of the mall culture there sprung up a number of smart coffee shops —Coffee House, Coffee Station, and so on— which added snacks, coffee paraphernalia, and an assortment of home-grown and imported coffees, ground or whole, to the standard offerings while also increasing the number of derivative beverages to their range of refreshments on offer.

And then Starbucks came.  Agreeable to the modern business class, the tourist looking for something familiar, and the lover of things American, this comfortable hybrid of convenience and recreation proliferated and also became a favorite daytime hangout of the country’s middle-class youth.

Straddling this period from local shop to chain to franchise is Bisquets Obregon, which developed from La Perla de Oriente on Alvaro Obregón Avenue in the historical Colonia Roma.  Like the café chino, Los Bisquets is also a place to get café con leche, and the house specialty, scones.  Brighter and cleaner, with its characteristic green and yellow décor, the restaurant also sports a selection of freshly-baked sweet bread at the front counter.

Small independent coffee shops continue to thrive

Perhaps the most famous of the traditional Mexican cafés is El Jorocho, that serves quality coffee principally sourced from Veracruz; customers can also buy the beans and ground coffee in bags for home brew.  This family-run shop was set up in Mexico City during the early 1950s in the heart of the bohemian district of Coyoacán—a neighborhood that remains one of the capital’s most popular quarters for friends and families to meet and spend an afternoon or evening out together.

In towns and cities across Mexico, small independently-run coffee shops continue to trade, and thrive.  Like the local neighborhood tienditas, they have prevailed even in the presence and growth of franchise coffee shops.

The owners of these independent establishments often create comfortable nooks where patrons can meet, socialize, and take light refreshment amidst informal and often homely surroundings that are usually more intimate and feel less rushed than the cookie-cutter franchises.

Serendipitous discovery of independent coffee houses can happen by taking an exploratory walk down side streets of any towns you visit or asking locally.  Digital generations are likely to consult their map-app, or search on Instagram.

Chilango is the name given to inhabitants of Mexico City, who are notorious in the provinces for being obnoxious when they venture out of town. The expression chilango initially referred to people from the provinces who migrated to Mexico City, although it later came to be applied to those born and bred in the capital, and that is now the commonly and universally accepted usage. The opposite of chilango could be provinciano.

The chilangos’ disdain for the provincianos’ lack of sophistication has earned them a reputation for being both pedantic and manipulating. It’s not only their sacred CDMX (Mexico City) license plates that supposedly exempt them from red lights and no-parking signs in one-horse towns, they’re also the ones who talk about nothing but money and Instagram, and between sips of piña colada loudly and condescendingly proclaim that they could stay here forever—knowing full well that they couldn’t.

The charm of the colonial towns, the relaxing atmosphere of the holiday resorts, are only good for the chilangos when they need to rest from the daily rush of the capital, the pushing and the shoving, the traffic snarls, horn-blowing and general stress that ultimately make them important.

They’ll pay outrageous sums of money for specific brands of clothes, shoes, and electronic goods at their local mall, but will haggle down the most reasonable price asked by the local artisan at a handicrafts market.

There’s a saying in certain parts of Mexico, particularly the north and the west, that goes: haz patria, mata un Chilango — “do something for your country, kill a Chilango.” This is a bit misleading. Despite their negative idiosyncrasies, particularly seen from the provinces, the chilangos make up a great deal of the domestic tourism in Mexico—and some tourist towns and villages situated within a short drive of the capital absolutely depend on chilangos taking weekend sojourns. (The capital accounts for a fifth of gross domestic product, and Mexico City, which engulfs parts of the adjacent Mexico State, is home to one sixth of the country’s population.)

The chilangos’ bad name is a generalization which often turns out not to be the case. In that sense, people from Monterrey are said to be stingy; people from Puebla not very bright; people from Jalisco and its capital Guadalajara are said to be  particularly priggish. The chilangos just happen to have more negative traits than anyone else.

Strays in Mexico

Stray dogs in Mexico are generally not treated very well, and the most common reaction of street dogs is to dodge when humans come close, probably a conditioned response to having been frequently kicked or stoned or hissed at to scat.

One overblown fear is that you could catch rabies. Years of government vaccination campaigns —since 1990— has reduced this probability to practically zero. In 2005, officials noted 125 cases of rabies among dogs and cats in nine states, compared with more than 3,000 cases in 1990 in 29 states. The latest data from Mexico’s health ministry demonstrate that in 2017 there were just three cases in three states—and not every case affected humans.

According to estimates from health officials, there are around 100,000 reported cases a year of dogs attacking humans, of which nearly half were vaccinated dogs, suggesting that dogs with owners are just as likely (or unlikely) to bite you as strays. This is in a population of 130 million people, and an estimated 18 million to 20 million dogs.

Concerns about stray dogs that have been mentioned by different local governments carrying out round-up campaigns include health problems caused by feces, and in one case in northern Durango state, dogs were said to be a threat to drivers as they crossed the highway.

Precise data are hard to come by

While there appear to be fewer street dogs every time you look, the number of dogs with owners seems to be increasing, along with other security measures in residential areas. (Keeping a dog is a deterrent to burglars.) Statistics in this case don’t go very far—the maze of data on the country’s National Statistics Institute web site turns-up little meaningful data about man’s best friend.

They don’t say, for example, how many dogs get taken for walks every day and how many are left to rot on rooftops, barking in desperation at anyone who walks below, and raising their level of excitement if the pedestrian is accompanied by a dog.

Trends observed by watching dog walkers

A walk in the park —or in one of Mexico City’s trendy neighborhoods where younger generations can be seen walking their dogs instead of pushing baby buggies— of a morning or an evening turns up a fair amount of anecdotal evidence about the habits of people and their dogs. The ‘poop scoop,’ for example, is becoming increasingly common, although it’s still sensible to keep an eye on the ground before you.

In middle-class suburbia, there is a good deal of oneupmanship when it comes to owning a dog. It’s not very practical to staple a pedigree certificate to the animal, and so the more obvious implicit superlatives are biggest, rarest, most expensive—things that people just know and dogs just don’t care about.

With many city dwellers living in apartments, sub-compact dogs appear to be more plentiful than the larger breeds. Schnauzers and Pugs enjoyed a period of popularity in recent years, although their fame has become overshadowed by the Bulldog. But most likely, as more and more people get Bulldogs, and their novelty wears-off, a need will arise for a new “in” dog.

Learn more about caring for pets in Mexico

Mexperience publishes guides and articles about bringing pets to Mexico and caring for them here:

• Latest articles about pets in Mexico
• Dog walkers in Mexico
• Bringing your pets to Mexico

Fans of Charles Dickens are likely to enjoy Payno’s novels. The flagship Los Bandidos de Rio Frio (The Bandits of Rio Frio), and the earlier El Fistol del Diablo (The Devil’s Brooch) are works much in the style of his English contemporary. Through many varied and colorful characters, Payno paints a complex picture of 19th Century Mexican society, combining irony and pathos as he takes his readers on tours of plush palaces where the opulence rivals anything in Europe, then drags them out through the large doors and into the grimy streets where misery reigns. Like Dickens, Payno finds both virtue and vice at the two extremes of the social scale.

These two novels of Payno’s also run long, the author having been in the habit of delivering his works for publication in installments. The shorter, El Hombre de la Situacion, (The Man for the Situation) is a satirical story of an immigrant family in Mexico at the end of the Colonial period.

The complete works of Manuel Payno have been published by the National Council for Culture and the Arts, Conaculta.  His novels can be found at most bookshops in Mexico.

The British set a lot of store by the quality of their tea, hence George Orwell’s eleven golden rules for ensuring a nice cup of tea, or Monty Python’s “oh they don’t make it properly here, do they?”

The British are best known in Mexico for the Beatles, and after that for “la hora del té.” But being renowned for this four o’clock refreshment isn’t enough to fill local stores with PG Tips.

Mexican tea culture is known for its traditional herbal teas —some of which are reputed to carry medicinal properties— and so the tea shelves at even the best-stocked Mexican supermarkets tend to be loaded with herbal and fruit infusions that reflect this culture:

• manzanilla (chamomile);
• tila (linden flowers);
• azahar (orange blossom);
• yerbabuena (spearmint); and
• limón (lime, or lemongrass)…

…are just a few you’ll find in a colorful array of choices, but there will be only a limited supply of black tea—and that often at a higher price than you are used to paying.

The most common locally-packaged brand of black tea is Lagg’s. Imported Lipton tea is available at some places at times, and several supermarkets sell imported Twining’s English breakfast and Earl Grey teabags.  But none of these come close to delivering the experience that can be enjoyed from a freshly brewed pot of tea made using high quality whole-leaf loose tea.

Occasionally the section of fancy goods at your local supermarket will have one-off deliveries of quality whole-leaf teas, —Darjeeling or Assam, for example— which if you want you should snap up quickly as there are no guarantees of restocking. Stumbling upon surprises like that can make the enjoyment even greater, as things are very easily taken for granted.

Devotees who attempt to seek a regular supply of whole-leaf tea for their brewing pleasure in Mexico should repair to specialist food markets that tend to offer a selection of imported gourmet brands, although there’s nothing to be gained caviling about the price as these teas trade at a generous premium in Mexico.

Traditional wisdom says that a proper cup of tea needs to be prepared with water boiling at around 100 degrees centigrade which would pose a problem for those visiting, or living in, Mexico’s highlands, where water naturally boils at lower temperatures.

However, tea expert and founder of the Rare Tea Company in London, Henrietta Lovell, says that the 100-degree rule is a myth, and that only mass-produced tea bags require this treatment, whereas better quality whole-leaf teas benefit from being brewed in water at lower temperatures: white teas 70-degrees, and black teas 85-degrees centigrade.

If you can’t source the better quality teas locally and can’t get used to the taste of tea from teabags here, then it’s a good idea to stock-up on your next shopping trip overseas, or ask friends and family to pack some on their next visit. Otherwise, there is nothing to be done but switch to coffee, which Mexico has plenty of, and great variety.

At one time, the stadium was home to four Mexico City first division teams, although Necaxa moved years ago to Aguascalientes where the team has a strong local following and high attendance at its games. Now the stadium houses Cruz Azul, the current champions, and América, nicknamed las Águilas or the Eagles. Atlante, which for years has been based in Cancún, is returning to the first division next season and will also play there.

There are two kinds of soccer fans in Mexico: those who support América and those who cheer on whoever is playing against América, regardless of who their favorite team is.

Among reasons given for hating the América team (apart from the head-scratching, “because it’s owned by Televisa,” the TV company), are that referees favor América in their decisions on the field. In years past, it was also claimed that other teams owned by Televisa let América win their games. This was frequently shown on the field to be nonsense, and now the point is moot, anyway, as Televisa no longer owns other first-division teams. In fact, Televisa doesn’t directly own América any more, either. The soccer club, along with the stadium and some gambling halls, was spun off in 2024.

The second most popular team in Mexico is Guadalajara. Among the liberal classes, the team of choice is often Pumas of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). Admitting to one of these that you support América can be met with eyebrows raised in a look of incredulity, as much as if to say, “really, you ought to know better.” They suppose you must also watch soap operas.

Anyway, going to the Aztec Stadium is an exhilarating experience, particularly for a big match when there are likely to be anything from 60,000 to 80,000 spectators.

Some words of practical advice.

Get tickets before you go to the stadium, unless you plan to be there with plenty of time in hand. If you just show up an hour or so before a game, you will only be able to get tickets from touts for at least 50% more than the list price for regular matches, and double or more if it’s a “clásico,” such as América–Guadalajara or América–Pumas.

Buying from touts also risks being sold fake tickets which are checked and refused at the entry gate. Lines at the stadium’s box office —la taquilla— are long, ticket availability limited, and service painfully slow, even for games with relatively few spectators, so you are quite likely to miss the first part of the match. Tickets for events at the stadium can be purchased ahead of time from Fanki.

Learn more about sports and leisure in Mexico

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Now that many old films are available in a number of digital formats, it’s relatively easy to get hold of them to watch on DVD or, far more commonly now, via online streaming.

Films you remember having thoroughly enjoyed “back in the 70s” or whenever, turn out to be quite dull, or even ridiculous. Few films actually stand the test of time.

Mexicans love going to the movies

Movie-going in Mexico, along with live events, is as popular as ever, despite the country being among those where there is the most video piracy. Big box-office movies bring hoards to the theaters, and decent seats at the most convenient times are hard to come by for the first week or so after their release.

Like most of the films, most of the popular cinemas built in the middle of the 20th century have also been unable to stand the test of time. The multiplex cinema —with six or a dozen halls seating several hundred spectators— has replaced the grand theaters built to host several thousand people.

There are a handful of cinema brands in Mexico, although Cinemex and Cinepolis dominate the market with their extensive network of theater chains situated across the country.

Movie theaters present and past

Choosing where to go to see a film is now a combination of brand plus location. Many of the modern-day movie theaters are also located inside modern shopping malls, which emulates the popular and successful US model.

It wasn’t always so.

In decades past, Mexico City’s movie theaters were known by their name, and several were veritable landmarks—Cine Pedro Armendariz at Churubusco, Cine Manacar on Insurgentes, Cine Latino, Cine Diana, and El Roble on Reforma.

Moviegoers could choose a film and find out where it was playing, or choose a cinema they liked and find out what was on there. Quality and comfort varied considerably from one movie theater to another.

Films were often double-features, alternating so that you could watch first whichever one suited your timetable. These functions would include the concept of “permanencia voluntaria” where moviegoers could sit twice through the same film if they wished.  When a film was in particular demand, the ticket and advertisements would have to specify “no hay permanencia voluntaria” to let people know they would clear the theater when the credits went up.

Frequently, particularly popular films would be oversold and the last few stragglers could end up perched in the aisles, without anybody really minding or complaining. (Mexico still has a lot of people who aren’t particularly bothered about missing the start of a film.)

And in those pre-internet days, the place you went to find out what was playing was the cartelera, a full-page newspaper advertisement, or several full-page ads, sorted by films that were showing and where. The starting times were in very small print at the bottom. The film was usually in its original language with subtitles, or dubbed into Spanish if a children’s film. But there was no choice.

Some of the old cinemas were damaged in earthquakes; the buildings condemned, and later pulled down. Cine Regis, a small hall under a hotel on Juarez Avenue, was destroyed in the 1985 earthquake. Others, such as the Palacio Chino and Cine Diana, were converted into modern movie-theater complexes, and yet others just went out of business, and are either sitting derelict or have been demolished to make way for other buildings.

Dubbing and sub-titles at the movies in Mexico

In today’s modern Mexican cinemas, there are versions in English with subtitles, versions dubbed into Spanish, and even 3D and 4D in some places.

Specific seats can be booked online ahead of time. There’s an online cartelera, but it’s just not the same thing clicking “here” for the trailer. You can just go along and see one of any number of films. Popular films or new releases will often be showing in multiple halls, with various staggered starting times and other options.

On a practical note: If you want to see a film in English with Spanish subtitles, rather than the dubbed version, be careful that the time and hall you choose reads “sub” next to the film title. Where it reads “dob” the film will be dubbed into Spanish.

For those who take pleasure in (mis)remembering, this page has pictures of a number of Mexico City’s old cinemas with a brief history of each in Spanish.

For every new bypass, overpass, or underpass, there appears to be a fleet of new cars ready to take up the additional space.  Unclog one main artery, and another one clogs up somewhere else. Surprisingly, the number of people using the capital’s Metro has fallen, perhaps as the proliferation over the last decade of attractive car loans which have made new cars more affordable.

Parking fees, on the other hand, have gone up substantially, and there’s nothing like driving to fully comprehend the reality behind the headline news that the government is rolling back the subsidies on gasoline. Local authorities have also been contracting firms to manage parking in districts and residential neighborhoods across the city: parking meters are appearing in ever-greater numbers, enforced by use of wheel clamps, or “candados” (padlocks) as they’re called in Mexico.

In more recent years, the hi-tech speed trap has complemented the wheel clamp as a way of punishing wayward motorists and filling the coffers of the city government. All across Mexico City, drivers are now presented with signs warning that traps are in operation—cameras that capture the license plates of passing cars and mail speeding and other fines to drivers’ homes. Where the speed limit is 80 kph (50 mph), this is reasonable, and may well reduce the number of accidents caused by speeding. But on stretches of major thoroughfares where the speed limit has been lowered to 50 kph (30 mph), it’s hard to persuade those being fined that the reason is any other than to collect money.

The calibration of the camera-operated traps is such that tolerance is low: a kilometer or two over the limit will trigger a fine.  Contesting the fines is a complicated and drawn out process, and most find it easier to just pay, especially as an 80% discount applies if payment is made within 10 days.  As letters sometimes get lost or delayed in the post, some drivers choose to download an App called “Auto Chilango” which alerts them if their license plate has been photographed so they can pay within the discount window.

Not only has traffic volume in the capital reached a critical point, so have people’s stress levels, it seems, with the resulting behavioral anomalies that will be obvious to visitor and veteran alike without any need to go into them here.

On the city’s cluttered roads, right of way appears proportionate to the monthly payments on the car. Exceptions to this rule are large trucks, interstate buses, and beaten up old cars and pick-ups on which the rust is proof of manufacture in the days when they still used metal. Your mostly plastic, fuel-efficient, zero emissions, lightweight “nave” will crumple to the tune of several years of deductibles and no-claims bonuses while the older vehicle in question will just need a dent hammered out for less than the cost of a tank of gas.

If, all this considered, you insist on sallying forth into the melee of capital city traffic, here are some simple rules for driving ‘the Mexico City way’:

• never let anyone pull out into your lane, unless you want to be late to your destination. If a bus or truck does pull out, yield and pepper the driver with abuse;
• if you reach the stop line in heavy traffic and the light’s green, enter the crossing even if you can’t exit. If you don’t, someone else will, snarling up the junction anyway;
• if you can advance three or four cars by slipping into the turning lane, do it, even if it means blocking the lane when the arrow goes green and getting the people behind you all worked up;
• if you think the car in the lane to your left plans to pull in front of you, or if it has indicated that it intends to do so, speed up;
• if someone is waiting for your parking space, take longer than usual to adjust your mirrors, fasten the seat belt, connect your phone to the in-car kit, etc.

By applying some or all of these rules, you can become a bona fide Mexico City driver, but if you wish to be an out-and-out five-star chilango behind the wheel, try the following: accelerate behind a car that is going at the indicated speed limit in the fast lane, up against the dividing wall. Brake within a few yards of it and turn on your left-indicator, showing the slowcoach that you intend to pass him on the left, without specifying whether you plan to go over or through the wall.

See also: Driving In Mexico and Living in Mexico Without a Car

Often when something happens that was or might have been predicted, a commentator, writer, or speaker somewhere will refer to their version of the event as “the chronicle of a ______ foretold.”  So we have had chronicles of soccer matches foretold, chronicles of election outcomes foretold, and if worse comes to worst, we may have chronicles of a credit ratings downgrade foretold.

This use of the “chronicle” puts the title up there with “to be, or not to be,” which people considering dilemmas far removed from outrageous fortune will yet utter as if that solved the problem, and A Tale of Two Cities, practically any dichotomy being prone to the epithet “A tale of two … ”

The late García Márquez, probably the best known contemporary Latin American author, lived in Mexico for many years before his death in Mexico City on April 17th, 2014.  Both he and his works are very popular here, and people could be forgiven for thinking him Mexican.

A traveler on the Mexico City Metro was once overheard explaining to a friend one of “Gabo’s” books.  Not only was that work brilliant, he said, but so were all the others.  The enthusiasm was so contagious that before the train reached the terminal, the friend had stated his intention to buy one at the next opportunity.

This was instructive for the eavesdropper who had become bored after only about 30 years of solitude and laid the book quietly aside, and whose subsequent reading of The Autumn of the Patriarch was abandoned in a second attempt because the author kept messing around with the clocks.

Mexicans don’t eat that much ice cream

The proliferation of fancy brands —Häagen-Dazs, Ben & Jerry’s, Santa Clara— might lead you to the wrong conclusion about just how much ice cream Mexicans consume.

According to some reports, Mexicans only eat on average 1.5 liters of ice cream a year, a small fraction of what Americans and New Zealanders —the world’s top consumers— guzzle down.

Also somewhat surprising, for a relatively low-wage country, is the amount of business done by ice cream brands of which a single serving cone or tub can cost around four or five US dollars.

Market studies here can be incomplete in a country where there is a large informal economy, and products such as ice cream and popsicles are often made by individuals whose sales are off the marketing-experts’ radar screens.  It’s ice-cream franchises, however, that are expected to generate the growth in product consumption in the country.

Buying ice-cream in Mexico

If you visit or live in a large city or tourist resort, the most likely place you’ll find ice cream is at one of these chains, many of which are located at malls.  Local grocery stores —las tienditas— convenience stores such as Oxxo and 7-Eleven, as well as a majority of pharmacies have fridges with prepackaged ice creams and popsicles, mostly in single servings.  Multi-packs and larger presentations are found in the freezers at supermarkets.

The best known brand of ice cream in Mexico, and apparently the one with the largest market share is Helados Holanda.  These tend to be cheaper than the boutique brands, whether bought in individual servings or in larger packages.  This makes a lot of sense when buying ice cream for a family, but for those particular about quality —all natural ingredients, for example— this apparently won’t do, and those who can afford it prefer to buy the expensive stuff.

Flavored popsicles are popular in Mexico

It’s almost impossible not to come across a popsicle shop —paleteria— called La Michoacana.  These shops sell a wide range of fruit-flavored paletas as well as cream ones, paletas de crema.  A word of advice, go for the water ones.  Although originally from the state of Michoacán, apparently just about anyone can call their paleteria La Michoacana, as this interesting report suggests.

In smaller towns, and still occasionally in large cities, you can find the traditional ambulant purveyors of helados, or nieves in the case of  lime sorbets, being served from a pushcart or from a container placed in ice on the front of an adapted bicycle.  These vendors are famous for crying out “de limón la nieveeeeee!!!”

Soft ice-cream for passing refreshment

Soft ice cream from a machine is also growing in popularity, not only because of the flavor but also because of the price. McDonald’s offers a range of these ice creams at its restaurants, but also has separate ice cream counters at many of its outlets (and kiosks at shopping centers) for those who just want to pick-up some passing refreshment.  If your budget is somewhat strained and it’s hot out, this can be quite a useful option.