Down and Delirious in Mexico City: The Aztec Metropolis in the Twenty-First Century

6 The Lake of Fire

(Illustration by Rodrigo Betancourt.)

You can’t really appreciate the enormity of Mexico City until you leave it on the ground. Merely landing at or departing from Benito JuÁrez International Airport belies the city’s physical contours, the ranges of mountains that ring its basin. Flying in or out conceals what you’re really dealing with. You must experience Mexico City’s hugeness as a journey of distance, inch by inch, mile by mile, traffic allowing. On a late afternoon, n...