In the 1960s my Dad drove the family truckster station wagon deep into Mexico filled with our tourist luggage.
Somehow he managed to get lost in some city deep in Mexico and we found ourselves in a poor section of town.
The streets were V shaped. They sloped toward a gutter/sewer in the center of the street instead of being crown shaped where the water shed off toward the edges.
That deep gutter in the center had once had steel grates covering it, most of which had now been stolen.
Somehow my Dad managed to get the station wagon straddling the gutter and could not deviate from straddling it without dropping a wheel into it. We had no choice to to follow the gutter.
At one point young boys the same age as my brother and I grew noticeably excited at the slow moving vehicle and swarmed down toward us from both sides of the street.
My mother shrieked "Roll up the windows, Lock the doors!"
The boys hung from the rooftop luggage rack on either side of the station wagon.
We proceeded as fast as my Dad dared drive, a dozen people aboard, the vehicle still straddling the sewer/gutter, with 3-5 boys hanging from each side rocking the wagon from side to side as violently as they could.
Eventually the boys began to drop off and return to the block they had come from.
We came to a section where the grates had not (yet) been stolen and were able to maneuver the vehicle off onto the right lane.
After a while we were able to find our way out of the Mexican ghetto.
Good times.
