Asking Directions in Mexico!

I know it is not intentional as there is not a mean bone in the body of any Mexican we have met so far but when it comes to giving directions....

In Leon, we were parked in a Soriana Grocery store parking lot and wanted to take a cab downtown. I wanted to have our location marked on the city map before we abandoned the motorhome (so we could direct the cab back) so I walked over to a cop who was parked near us. He understood what I wanted and when I handed him the map, he confidently pointed to an intersection. I marked the map with a large "X" and asked him if that is where we were. He nodded, said "Si", pointed at the ground and again at the "X". After thanking him I walked back to the motorhome and started to have some doubts when I noticed a dead end street beside us did not match up to the "X" on the map. Some street corners in Mexico do not have signs for some reason so I walked a couple of blocks in both directions checking side streets and discovered we were actually about ten blocks from where the Policeman had told me we were. It was a good thing we discovered this because we still might still be looking for the motorhome!

Another time, near Mexico City, we were on a bypass road and got confused by an unmarked "Y" in the road we were on. Again, I stopped a cop and asked the way to San Miguel de Allende. He pointed confidently to the fork to the right. After a mile or two we passed a sign pointing to San Miguel that took us right back to the road that went to the left!

Here in Zacatecas I wanted to drive the car across town to the big grocery stores but I could not find our location on the city map to know where we had to come back to. Norma went over to the office of the hotel that owns and is attached to our RV Park and asked the English speaking receptionist to mark the location of the hotel on the map and to point out the direction we should take to the Soriana. When she came back and showed me it simply did not make sense. It did not go along with my usually dependable sense of direction. I took the marked map over to some neighbors who had been here a few days and showed it to them. They confirmed that we were in a totally different part of town than what was marked on the map and the Soriana was in a totally different direction. If we had followed the directions of the desk clerk we would have become hopelessly lost!

As I say, I do not believe it is intentional. Maybe Mexicans simply do not use maps and become confused when shown one but a good thing to remember is to always double check any directions you get and give them the "common sense test". Other than that, in Zacatecas, Mexico, Life Is Good!