This book recounts Hernandez's electrifying journey through the far-off slums, glittering fashion parties and rapturous religious rituals of one of the world's most exciting megacities - the seething urban valley known as 'D.F.' to the locals. In vivid, intimate storytelling, Hernandez shows readers the youth subcultures - or 'urban tribes' - that define social life for young people in the megalopolis. Surrounded by volcanoes, earthquake-prone and caked in smog, the city is a place of astounding manifestations of danger, desire, humour, and beauty, a surreal landscape of 'elemental violence'. In the 'lake of fire' that is Mexico City, youth tribes brawl in public plazas and kidnapping gangs terrorise the wealthy.

As the year 2012 approaches, the so-called end of the Mayan calendar, Hernandez contemplates a vision of a future where Mexico City could locate a 'cosmic equilibrium' that has eluded it for five centuries.