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 Travel & Outdoors | April 2007 
Capital Empties Out as Exodus Hits Top Volume
 The Herald Mexico
| | The State of Mexico is expecting an influx of 3 million out-of-state vehicles over the next week. |
The annual exodus of Easter Week vacationers from Mexico City, under way since last weekend, hit maximum volume Wednesday, with cars leaving the city outnumbering those entering even in the morning work-commute hours normally dominated by incoming traffic.
Exits outnumbered entrances at the Mexico-Cuernavaca highway gate in late afternoon by 38 to 14. Life in the capital will not return to normal until April 9.
Financial markets and banks will not operate on Thursday and Friday.
Most smaller stores and restaurants - including cantinas - customarily close for the last four days of Holy Week. Larger chains, such as Sanborns and supermarkets, generally stay open for business. The U.S. Embassy will not open on Thursday and Friday, nor will the Benjamin Franklin Library.
Even the president is taking a four-day weekend, scheduling no public business until Monday.
The State of Mexico, which is expecting an influx of 3 million out-of-state vehicles over the next week, has stepped up highway safety operations, as have other states.
But slick highway conditions brought on by early-season rainfall Wednesday already claimed two lives just outside the capital.
On the Mexico-Cuernavaca highway, a 16-car pile-up near San Miguel Topilejo at the 29-kilometer marker Wednesday afternoon caused one death.
On the Xochimilco-Oaxtepec road, a two-car collision resulted in another fatality.
Another Easter Week tradition is the temporary return from the United States of thousands of migrants. The Interior Secretariat has set up a program to protect returning migrants from abuse and corruption on their trip. Observers are stationed in 114 locations, including vehicle inspection points, bus terminals, toll booths and municipal buildings. |
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