noumena
An American Motorcyclist’s Guide to Mexico City
[Summer 2007]
The very first words of the section of my guidebook entitled “Driving in Mexico City” are: “You must love pain or be insane.”
It’s too bad my guidebook was written for pussies.
If they think navigating the world’s largest city (three times the size of New York, home to 25 million people, air so polluted it exceeds by 300% toxicity levels considered by the UN to be “unbreathable,” the highest kidnapping rates outside of Colombia, a constant low-intensity guerrilla war between narcotraffickers and the Federalis, a rampaging army of drug-huffing child criminals, endemic poverty, and an ever worsening shortage of water, not to mention the most chaotic and lethal megahive of vehicular anarchy on earth) is dangerous in a car, Lonely Planet should try it on a motorcycle.
That said, it’s not impossible. And if you follow this list of helpful guidelines, you too can make it out of el Distrito Federal on your motorcycle alive. Let’s get started.
1. Maintain forward momentum: Driving in Mexico City is a lot like driving in Baghdad. Stopping = Death. Just as small children in DF don’t realize the sky is actually blue (rather than gray) drivers there have ignored traffic lights for so long that they don’t even know to what the colors red, yellow and green correspond. If you hold up traffic by stopping at a red light, try to flatten yourself out against the gas tank. That way fewer bullets will strike your most vital organs.
2. Honking: You will know you are within 100 miles of DF not only because of your nervous system’s severe reactions to the carcinogens in the air, and the holes in your clothes burnt by super-acidic rain, but by the astonishing noise of a quadzillion* car horns blaring at once. Why is there so much honking? Unlike in the US, where a honk functions as an emergency warning, and sometimes an expression of anger, a honk in DF can communicate a much wider variety of meanings. Here are just a few examples:
• Look at me, I am in car!
• My scalp itches.
• The sky is a lovely shade of gray today.
• I’m hungry.
• Please pass the White-Out. I need a huff.
• I just killed five pedestrians! Admire my driving prowess!
• I feel that, though I am professionally successful, my life lacks meaning.
3. Pedestrians Are Your Enemy. Vast hordes of desperate people line the sidewalks like souls waiting to cross the River Styx. If they detect a whiff of hesitation or fear, they will pounce. By the time the stampede is over nothing will be left of you but a picked-clean skeleton clinging to the outline of a stripped motorcycle whose carburetor is already being resold at a second-hand bazaar in Nigeria. Never, ever stop for pedestrians. If you see two adorable little girls in pink bunny suits crossing the road holding hands, guess what? It’s time to play Red Rover.
4. Traffic Lanes: See those white stripes painted in the middle of the road? If you’re on a motorcycle, that is your lane. Stray from it and your spine will be wrapped around the axle of an 18-wheeler within ten seconds.
5. Communication: In DF, signal lights are not used. Rather, inter-vehicular communication is achieved through body language. As a motorcyclist, your body language, at all times, should communicate your willingness to slay another human being. If you have a firearm, brandish it freely. Personally, I like to drive with a huge machete clenched between my teeth. Your physical appearance is vital to your success as a motorist. Bare your teeth. Slobber. Try to look slaverous, wild, and crazed with ravening for human blood.
6. Cabbies: Your second-worst enemy. The most aggressive drivers on earth. If a NASA space shuttle re-entering the atmosphere had to make an emergency landing on Avenida Reforma going 900 mph a Mexico City cab driver would have no problem cutting the pilot off. If you think a Volkswagen Bug is not exactly intimidating, you’ve never been here. A Volkswagen Bug is the most terrifying silhouette in the Mexico City nightscape and no drivers are more lethal. If you need to get in front of a cab, your best bet is to wait until the driver is turned around to hold a gun/razor to his passenger’s head/gut. However, most cab drivers are multi-taskers, quite able to rob a passenger, stick up an ATM, and run you off the road into an open sewer at the same time.
7. Potholes: No, that’s not asteroid crater. Potholes in DF vary greatly in size, from “Olympic Swimming Pool,” to “Aegean Sea.” Try to avoid them, as a ten story-drop can be damaging to your motorcycle’s suspension. If unavoidable, pray that your fall is cushioned by the outdoor vegetable market/stickball game being held by the village of squatters at the bottom.
8. The War Cry: If you’ve ever been in the army, you know what a War Cry is. Basically, it is the loudest sound the human body can produce. It is a wild-eyed, lung-busting scream that seems to originate in the toes, travel up through the legs, and gather momentum in the gut before being expelled by the lungs and trachea at enormous velocities. A proper War Cry can rattle glass windowpanes and travel for literally miles. Of course, not everyone can make a War Cry. It takes intensive training. All throughout boot camp the atmosphere seems somewhat akin to a lunatic asylum on account of the near-continuous din of inhuman, blood-curdling screams of would-be War Criers and the drill sergeants exhorting them to scream ever louder. This is not an American phenomenon. The War Cry is as old as warfare and its purpose is simple: to scare the living shit out of the enemy. One hundred men simultaneously letting loose with ear-rending War Cries is often enough to cause a much larger force turn tail and run, all discipline and courage dissolved. It’s been used by armies as disparate as the ancient Israelites and the Comanche Indians, and it can also be quite useful when driving in Mexico City. Here’s how: When you would like to change lanes, chances are you will be blocked by an aggressive cab driver. Ride up as close as possible, matching the cabbie’s speed. Then, while still traveling 90 mph, insert your head into the Volkswagen’s window and unleash your most fearsome War Cry. If he’s not already deaf, the cabbie may pause long enough for you to wedge your front wheel in front of his bumper. You can further encourage him to drive friendly by slamming your boot repeatedly into his hood while screaming “BACK THE FUCK UP! BACK THE FUCK UP!” Make sure to spray saliva all over his windshield.
Review Question: You pull off of the 6-lane street Insurgentes Norte onto the 16-lane Chapultepec when a group of heavily armed narcotraffickers in a convoy of armored Suburbans fighting a running gun battle with a battalion of federal paratroopers comes bearing down on you. Which of the following should you do?
A) Take cover behind a mob of gasoline-huffing six-year olds
B) Pray to the Virgin Mary statue affixed to your handlebars
C) Lightly tap your horn to alert the gunmen of your presence
Answer: Answer? There is no fucking answer! Where do you think you are, Geneva? This is anarchy!
*Quadzillion (n): four zillions
