Our neighborhood in the exurbs of Mexico City

The air is thin where we live. We notice it most when we hike uphill two-thirds of a mile to the campus.

According to Google Earth, our apartment is 7,600 feet above sea level, and the track where we run is almost 7,700 feet above sea level. We are not high enough to feel altitude sickness, but we definitely feel the stress of breathing thin air.

Technically we are in the Colonia (neighborhood) of Villas de la Hacienda, in the city of Lopez Mateos in the Municipio of Atizapan de Zaragoza in the State of Mexico. 

We are the yellow B pinpoint on the map. The red A behind it is the university. The green C is the Zocalo, the center of Mexico City and the D is the basilica of the Virgin of Guadalupe. The interactive version of the map is here (the marker for our house is hiding behind the map key; just move the map a little to the right.)

We like to take walks through the neighborhood.

The houses are very colorful. Residents sculpt the trees and bushes into interesting shapes.

Everyone has a dog trained to bark at passersby, and their cars are locked up at night behind metal gates.  Fear of burglaries.

Many streets have guardhouses with gates. some of them are locked at night.

When we were in college, we painted our attic apartment in Wooster with colors like these: bright green, orange, blue and yellow.

Related:

Monarch butterfly reserve in Michoacán
Getting acclimated to Mexico City
Balloon launch over the ancient pyramids of Teotihuacán
Guanajuato: another magical place in Mexico
Coaxtla and Xochitécatl: stunning murals and pyramids
Zacatecas: Silver mines and the mystery of the Quemada
Tenochtitlán and Xochimilco: Mexico City before the Conquest