El callejón del aguacate y su tenebrosa historia

A four-metre-wide street with a reputation. The Callejón del Aguacate runs through the Barrio de Santa Catarina, in the heart of Coyoacán: cobbled, barely four metres across, lined with old colonial houses. It is beautiful and slightly sinister at the same time, which is why it has collected a century of stories.

The legend. In the 1930s a soldier damaged by his war came to live here, and walked the neighbourhood each day in uniform to calm himself. A small boy, fascinated by the medals on his shirt, would approach and ask him to play. The request enraged him, and one day he killed the child — witnessed, the story says, only by the avocado tree that still stands in the middle of the alley and by a monk watching from the window of his cloister. Afterwards, in remorse, he had a shrine to the Virgin placed at the corner so that everyone passing would say an Our Father.

What people report. That standing by the old avocado tree you can hear the boy; that some have felt his presence; and that his face can be made out in the bark.

Whether or not you believe any of it. The alley is worth walking for what it is: a street where time has visibly stopped, two minutes from the Jardín Centenario and the busiest part of Coyoacán.

Practical notes. Calle Aguacate, Barrio de Santa Catarina, Coyoacán. No Metro: Viveros-Derechos Humanos and Coyoacán, line 3, are about twenty minutes on foot. Go in daylight — the alley is narrow, unlit and residential.