Finding your way

Finding your way is not always easy in Mexico. In most cases you have to ask someone. After some time I found out that it is better to ask several people because it increases the possibility that one person gives you the right answer. In most cases Mexicans don't tell you when they have no idea where the place is you are asking for. It is considered as inpolite to give a "negative" answer. Difficult to understand for Europeans, I agree. A very common answer if you ask for the way, is todo derecho which means something like "Just right this way." With what I wrote above you can imagine how often it is REALLY "Just right this way."















What helps a bit finding your way is that most Mexican cities are structured systematically: like a chessboard. Most cities have a central square called zócalo. The streets leading direcly to the zócalo have a real name like "5 de Mayo" or "Avenida Hidalgo". The streets which lead to one of those streets to the west are called ponientes, those to the east orientes, to the north nortes and to the south sures. So far, so good. You still understand the system;-)? Of course not all streets to the north can be called nortes etc. Therefore they also have numbers. The start with the small numbers from the zócalo but not like 1, 2, 3... In one direction are the even numbers and in the other the odd numbers. For example the nortes that are in the west of the city have the numbers 2, 4, 6... and those in the east 3, 5, 7... (the 1 never exists).