About 5 hours ago, I left my apartment in Pedregal de Santo Domingo of Mexico City to get a hamburger.
There’s this one street food place nearby that offers a double meat, double bacon hamburger with large fries and a hotdog for 55 pesos or just under 3 bucks.
Crazy fucking deal even for Mexico City.
Is the food good?
It’s decent.
Not an amazing hamburger but it’s tasty enough and, for the price with all you get, you can’t complain really.
Once I got there, I found that I was early as they were just opening at around 7 PM.
While waiting for the food anyhow, a funny little incident occurred.
As the chick took my order and told me to wait roughly 20 minutes, I noticed a car parking right behind me.
Now, keep in mind, the road I was on isn’t very big and you got more people walking on the street instead of the sidewalk in this neighborhood than elsewhere in Mexico City.
It can be a little bit more tight with cars going both directions, the road not being very wide and so many pedestrians not being aware that a sidewalk exists.
Though, to be fair, as I wrote in this article here, sidewalks in this part of Mexico City and other parts of Latin America can sometimes be so fucked up in design that it sometimes does make more sense to walk onto the street.
In this area, I do that all the time also.
Anyway, this dude parks behind me on a very crowded street and walks away to greet some friends that were standing outside some corner shop.
The friends were drinking beer and the dude joined them after quickly grabbing some bag from the backseat.
The hamburger dude just shows up now and gets around to cooking my food.
Some young looking white Mexican chick in a winter coat (despite it not being cold outside) shows up and asks for a hamburger for her and her boyfriend also.
The dude is cooking more food now.
A few motorcycles pass the parked car.
They can get around easier.
And my food is getting closer to being done!
But then a bus is coming down the road headed towards me.
While other smaller cars and especially motorcycles had no issue getting around the dude’s parked car, the bus had issues.
The driver didn’t feel confident that he could get around without causing damage to the parked car.
Which, to my surprise, the bus driver even gave a shit about causing damage or not.
I would’ve expected him to just have a “fuck it, not my car” attitude and scrape a little bit of paint off.
Maybe knock his mirror off.
Unfortunately for the thoughtful bus driver, the original driver of the car was nowhere to be seen.
I wasn’t keeping track of his movements.
Initially, I looked over at the group of people that he walked over towards with his bag but didn’t see him over there.
In the meantime, the bus driver isn’t moving forward any and some cars behind him begin stopping and honking their horns.
The fortunate motorcyclists are able to speed around them all.
The original driver who doesn’t know how to park his vehicle is still not to be seen!
Well, he is seen soon enough.
Eventually, the dude walks out of a bathroom of the building behind his friends with a beer in hand.
Originally oblivious to the frustrations of the bus driver.
For a few seconds anyhow.
Until, with all of the honking behind his parked vehicle, he becomes aware of the issue.
And the issue is resolved without incident soon after.
His friends are laughing.
The original driver, looking a tiny bit embarrassed, does a half assed jog to his vehicle, exchanges some words with the bus driver and gets inside his own vehicle to find a better spot to park it.
And life moved on.
Where Does One Park in Mexico?
Almost a year ago, I was living in another apartment in Mexico City in a nicer part of the area called Roma Norte.
According to my phone, I took this photo here around on February 28, 2021.
I do remember the moment anyhow.
A bit similar to the incident just described in Pedregal de Santo Domingo.
I was in the kitchen of this building and there were some other neighbors in the kitchen also.
If I remember right, I think I was waiting for my tea to be made or something.
Anyhow, I saw this similar incident unfold below me in the streets of Roma Norte also as you can see in the photo above.
Where this random dude decided to park his vehicle literally in the middle of the street.
Now, to be fair, I did think the guy had some weird issues with the car but he decided to just park it there anyhow and fuck around with it.
Instead of, you know, a few feet to the left perhaps away so all the traffic can more easily get around him.
As I saw the incident today in Pedregal de Santo Domingo, I wish I had my phone on me to take photos of the incident because I thought it was funny and also representative of another small detail to life in Latin America
That small detail being how, from time to time, you might notice how folks down here are relatively “informal” regarding where they park down here.
Not everyone of course.
And, to be fair, both incidents involve something that happened in Mexico City.
I do remember these things happening though in other countries like Colombia or Guatemala though.
But, to be fair again, I obviously haven’t documented just how common this issue is in every single Latin country.
Maybe a country like Bolivia is well-known for their proper parking behaviors!
I could see it.
The Bolivians are the best of people.
If only they had an ocean.
Regardless, as I said, it’s a small detail to life down here in which you’ll notice how some folks are seemingly liberal in where they park.
Seemingly with no shits given for anyone else on the road.
Acting like they are the only ones driving it seems!
There’s some funny videos showing the similar behavior like this one here where people more "informally" park in spots that are not thoughtful of anyone else driving or walking.
Just another reason, in my opinion only, for why driving in various parts of Latin America would be very annoying to me if I did have a car down here.
Thankfully, as a positive note to end on, Latin America is also generally much more accommodating to folks without their own vehicles than how it is back home.
Anyway, if you have anything to add, drop a comment below in the comment section.
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Thanks for reading.
Best regards,
Matt