A very narrow street with a very bad reputation. The Callejón del Diablo — the Devil's Alley — runs through the heart of Mixcoac, one of the original villages the city swallowed. It is barely wide enough for two people, walled on both sides in tall orange plaster, and it looks exactly like what it is called.
Where the name comes from. Old chronicles attribute it to neighbourhood accounts of people who claimed to have seen the Devil himself in the alley. The best-known version involves a drunk who took the shortcut late one night and found a figure leaning against a fern; a sudden flash of light revealed its face, and when he tried to run his feet would not move until the apparition had gone.
The second story. A moneylender named Julio, who had spent his life chasing people for debts, was found dead in the alley. The rumour was that he had had an argument with the Devil, who was punishing him for how he had lived.
Why it is worth the detour. Mixcoac keeps one of the best-preserved village cores in the city: cobbles, a sixteenth-century parish, the old Colegio de San Pedro y San Pablo, and streets laid out long before the avenues that now box them in. The alley is a two-minute walk and the neighbourhood around it is half an hour well spent.
Practical notes. Metro Mixcoac, lines 7 and 12, and Barranca del Muerto, line 7, are both close. Go in daylight: the alley is narrow, unlit and enclosed, and the point of it is the architecture, not the dare.
All day
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