The Worst Idea Ever

As you've heard me say before, driving in Mexico City is, um, an "experience". You often feel like you're taking your life into your own hands when you get behind the wheel- before you even leave your parking lot. It's not just the fact that there are millions of crazy drivers with no regard for others' property or human life. It's also the hostile terrain.

It's hard to pay attention to things like the cars trying to hit you, the pedestrians daring you to hit them as they jump in front of your moving car, or the mopeds and motorcycles weaving in and out of the tiniest gaps around you, because you have to STARE at the road in front of you. Constantly. Scanning for deadly obstacles. A Mexico City street is a non-stop barrage of speed bumps, killer potholes, and general debris lying in wait to destroy your car. I will never in my life complain about a Chicago pothole again after witnessing some of the craters that go unfixed on Mexico City streets. You're guaranteed to need a tow, if not a new car, if you ever hit one of these monstrosities.

It's not just the potholes though. They go out of their way to make impossible obstacles to navigate. One of our most-traveled roads, to get to Iti's parents' house, is a two lane road that they "expanded" by repainting the lane markers to three. How do you fit three cars abreast in a space only big enough for two? Child's play for a Mexico City driver! It happens ALL THE FREAKING TIME on these streets.

There's also the fine ideas of "roundabouts" in this great city. The rules are slightly different than in any other place on the planet. You go around the roundabout in any damn direction you want- right, left, over if you are driving a truck you don't own. They become not so much "roundabouts" as "roadblocks". My favorite intersection is three one way streets crossing with a huge roundabout in the middle. In rush hour it's a riot: cars from all streets are going both ways around the traffic circle, get stuck in the intersection (because they tried to run the red), and so you wind up with this impossible tangle of cars mashed bumper to bumper, door to door, door to bumper, everyone blocked by five vehicles all pointing different directions, and everyone honking at everybody else to get the hell out of YOUR way.

As bad as the city can be, it seemed tame and sane compared to our trip to Oaxaca, where we encountered the two worst ideas ever in road construction. The runner up was in Oaxaca itself; we're driving along the main road that goes outside the historic downtown district. Some genius decided "you know, this road is busy, and everyone wants to go downtown. Rather than having people make a left turn across traffic, why not move their lane to the leftmost?" Imagine the heart attacks I suffered when I'm driving along the avenue, three lanes in each direction, and all of a sudden you have to get over to the other side at the intersection. You cruise along with oncoming traffic on your right for awhile, and then suddenly you switch back to normal. It's like you're cruising along and all of a sudden BLIP You're in England! BLIP Back in Mexico again, get over right! BLIP Hey, we just crossed into India, everybody move over! in two blocks BAM Back in North America, back right! then suddenly HEY I think we're in Tazmania now!

Jeez.

That however was NOTHING compared to us stopping in this tiny town off the main toll highway in between Oaxaca and Mexico City. We're hungry and decide to stop for lunch. Iti asks me to take the next exit. I get off, and the town is on the other side of the highway, so there's an overpass. As I get off, I see another lane merging, but the arrows on the road are pointing the other direction (like I'm going the wrong way down a one way). I slow down and freak out a little bit, but it seems like I'm going the right way, so off we go. It gets to this NARROW skinny one lane overpass over the highway, then we're on the other side and cruise into town.

Of course we found no place that looked safe enough for lunch. We switched drivers and head back to the highway. To continue south to Oaxaca, we have to get back over the highway. We go down, and there's no overpass. Just the way we came...

Huh...

Wait a minute...

IS THAT A FREAKING TWO-WAY ROAD?!? YOU GOTTA BE FREAKIN' KIDDING ME!!!

Yep, that's right: a two way road, that is about 3 inches wider TOTAL than the wheel base of our tiny compact car. After sitting there stunned and trying to figure what to do (with all the traffic northbound honking at us because we're blocking the way), we decide to go for it. Iti starts up the ramp and CRAP! A fully loaded dump truck comes barreling over the top at about 45mph!!! He slams on the breaks, starts honking, we have to back up this tiny ramp so narrow that Iti has a hard time not going off-roading. The truck goes by after we get down, we take a breath, she starts up again, about a third of the way WHOA NELLIE!! A cement truck, followed by two cars, can be seen roaring over the top of the ramp. Again, the convoy of us backing up, while oncoming cars are flipping us off. A third time, and we can't make it to the half-way point before oncoming traffic forces us back.

Finally, we go up, and get over the half way point. There was a line of like three cars (and another dump truck) coming the other way, but we got over the half way point first, BECAUSE: a dude was walking his flock of goats over the ramp and blocked traffic for us.After the goats managed to somehow squeeze by us, we got to force the conga line backwards so we could go.

That ramp, as far as road work/city planning goes, is the Single Worst Idea Ever.

I'm sure glad Iti was driving...