en bici
Cycling through the city is a different experience. Everything that would be surpassed via metro comes to life in a a full-frontal and sometimes treacherous journey. I weave through taxis which stop and pull out without warning, make-shift buses which also do the same, I join the likes of street vendors and motorcyclists in the few and far between bike lanes.
I no longer cycle to uni as my first and only attempt resulted in an hour and a half journey through two of CDMX's busiest carriageways at 7am. I was half an hour late for my class and drained of any mental or physical capacity for the rest of the day. Safe to say I did not make that journey again.
I do cycle to nearer neighbourhoods though, or my local market, or even the centre which is only 30 minutes en bici. And everytime I opt to go by bike I am always pleasantly surprised. As I often say there are constantly things to be stumbled across in CDMX and travelling by wheel is the best way to (not literally) stumble across these things.
My journey back from the centre today took me back through the lanterns of the Barrio Chino (CDMX's answer to Chinatown), then an entire street selling only lamps, before I discovered two murals and a turreted building sandwiched inbetween a block of flats, merely streets away from my house.
Whilst travelling en bici can also be rife with nasty surprises and unwanted altercations, it has allowed me to see yet another side to the city. Travelling in a car is one thing, but being outside, in the thick of it, in control of a vehicle - with just your two feet to drive you - is something entirely different.
I no longer cycle to uni as my first and only attempt resulted in an hour and a half journey through two of CDMX's busiest carriageways at 7am. I was half an hour late for my class and drained of any mental or physical capacity for the rest of the day. Safe to say I did not make that journey again.
I do cycle to nearer neighbourhoods though, or my local market, or even the centre which is only 30 minutes en bici. And everytime I opt to go by bike I am always pleasantly surprised. As I often say there are constantly things to be stumbled across in CDMX and travelling by wheel is the best way to (not literally) stumble across these things.
My journey back from the centre today took me back through the lanterns of the Barrio Chino (CDMX's answer to Chinatown), then an entire street selling only lamps, before I discovered two murals and a turreted building sandwiched inbetween a block of flats, merely streets away from my house.
Whilst travelling en bici can also be rife with nasty surprises and unwanted altercations, it has allowed me to see yet another side to the city. Travelling in a car is one thing, but being outside, in the thick of it, in control of a vehicle - with just your two feet to drive you - is something entirely different.
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