Calle Vaguada

The name describes the terrain. A vaguada is the line that runs along the bottom of a valley, the lowest level where water seeks its path when it rains and flows down the slope. The word comes from a learned form, vacuada, related to the Latin vacuus, “empty” or “hollow”: the deepened ground that water carves out over time. Cuatro Caminos grew on sloping ground, in the north of the city. The neighborhood formed from the mid-nineteenth century around a crossroads, and its web of short streets was filled with names drawn from trade, landscape and topography. Vaguada belongs to that last family: a short street named for the shape of the ground it treads. No record survives of which particular hollow prompted the name. The term stands on its own, with no tribute or anniversary behind it.