Merida People

I'm shy about taking pictures of people, but on my walk today I decided to ask permission of those people employed at their businesses. Everyone grinned, struck a pose, and agreed to be photographed by the gringa. Except for the lady below, who was shy.

The ladies were making tortillas. The dough is put in the hopper and by the time the tortillas come out to be stacked they are cooked and ready to sell. These look good and Kent and I will have to patronize this shop.

Many of the shops remind me of how things were done in China. It doesn't take much to run a business, maybe 12 X 12 feet and a door that you can close at night. Or just a place on the street.

Students here are almost invariably cheerful and agreeable. I don't think I've run across a sullen teenager yet.

We must go and eat at this cocina economica. Mostly these are run by housewives and patronized by workers and residents who are nearby. The food is often good and reasonably priced. Sometimes they simply open the front of their homes and their living room is the place for the diners.

When I took this picture, I thought I'd been given permission. I think I had but the gentleman coming toward me wanted to know how I'd use it. I told him we'd been living in Merida and would soon be leaving and I wanted a remembrance of places in the city. Then he told the fellow in the back to sweep up and make it pretty for my pictures. They were sympathetic that I would have to return to snow and cold. Actually, this garage is quite tidy and clean compared to many. I'd be happy to have these men work on our car.

They didn't have lime paletas last night and Kent was forced to take a strawberry one. It is difficult to recommend these enough. They are delicious.

Kent was doing his favorite thing and I'm doing mine. The tape on windows is left over from a hurricane that hit a couple of years ago. There was almost no damage done, except for the leftover ugliness of the tape.

Merida Scenes--1-30-2008

Below is our street. We will miss coming back to this street a great deal when we leave.

Sunday Walk in Merida 1-27-2008

This morning Kent washed the car and I took a walk on Paseo Montejo. The city closes off half of this major street on Sundays so that people can walk and bike without worrying about traffic.

Some of the finest mansions in town are on this street and some need a bit of work. Below is an hotel. I hope no one is staying in it or at least using the balconies.




Gargoyles and roses are an odd combination.

They organize tables of chess on Sunday as well. There are lots of people in costumes for the kids.

Most of the following pictures are not on the Paseo Montejo, but on my way home via the side streets.

I like this picture just as a picture, but I always get a kick out of seeing florescent lights on the outside of buildings. The horizontal white object in the photo below is one. The photo makes it look as though it is forward by a good deal from the windows, but it's as close to the building as it can be, even though the grates on the windows keep it out from the wall a bit.

And more wall fragments.

The Merida Zoo and the Cemetery Again

At first we weren't going to go to the zoo as we'd been told that it's not a particularly good one and the animals are sad. In the end we did go and it wasn't as bad as the one in Kunming, China, and parts were even fairly nice. What I didn't know and do now is the length of a giraffe's tongue. That tongue goes out one side of his mouth and loops under his chin and up the other side. I'm not sure why this should be useful, but the fellow seemed to have gotten something in his mouth or on his tongue that he was trying to remove. In any case, he could wash his whole lower muzzle with ease.

We revisited the cemetery. It wasn't as spooky as I thought it might be without the noonday sun.

Merida Scenes--end of January

We've been much quieter since the end of festival, so unengaged that we've had time to clean the apartment and cut hair. Andy, our Minneapolis son, ought to arrive in about a week and we'll tour some of the ruins that we've saved for his visit. After he goes back to Minneapolis, we'll move to Oaxaca for a month. Actually a little more than a month. Being in Oaxaca gets us on the road toward home and we've always enjoyed the city. We find we are getting itchy feet here and have done most of the things that we'd wanted to do while in Merida. I found what we hope will be a suitable room in Oaxaca on the internet. New sights and Semana Santa ought to enliven us and we'll get a bit of relief from the heat as we'll be out of the jungle and into the mountains.

Now that we'll be leaving Merida, I begin to see all the things that I'd put off photographing.

The wires overhead are ubiquitous in the city. The newer suburbs actually have all the electrical, cable, phone, and internet stuff underground and it confuses me, making me think I might not be in Mexico. However, old Centro will probably have the spaghetti of wires for quite a few years to come.

A kitchenware store. Mexicans are not afraid of color.

A couple snaps of my favorite subject--doors.

This mosaic wall is on our way out to the grocery stores. I can only photograph it from the side window of the speeding car--it's too far to walk to this spot and it's too busy to park or even slow down. Thus, I send a blurry photo, but it's such a wonderful wall that I hope you won't care. I felt lucky not to have it obscurred by another speeding auto when I got this snap.

At the big, posh mall. Shoe stores in Mexico are often laid out this way--a series, actually a maze, of glass boxes with the shoes inside. When you find the pair you like you point it out to a clerk and she or he gets your size to try on.

I don't know whether I like this rehab or not. We pass this building everyday. Inside is luxurious, with gardens and patios and collonaded verandas. We've liked that it looked so scabby on the outside. And, it gave me nice wall fragment pictures. They are now redoing it and taking off all the old plaster, which was laid over the rubble construction, and will replace it. I think they probably have to do this or have the cornices decay so much that they could fall and damage a passer-by.

Another building that we pass almost everyday--the Institute of Beauty. I think it's abandoned, but the buildings that house beauty shops and beauty schools are often old and ugly.

A wall fragment.

Opera, Doors, and Pink Water

It wasn't the opera that we attended, but a ballet in the opera house built in 1910. It's what an opera house ought to be.

I seem to be hung up on doors.

We have a new neighbor downstairs who was interested in seeing a factory famous for its anise and honey liqueur. We like any kind of new trip and so we got out the car and headed to the town, about 20 kilometers from Merida, where we thought we'd find the factory. We didn't find it and showed Lyle the pink water instead. We did eventually find the anise and honey liqueur and it was right in Merida. When we found the factory, we also found the person responsible for selling the booze wholesale. She could see that we were still lost and directed us to a retail outlet where we didn't have to buy a truckload. Maybe I'll get a picture of the liqueur, but in the meantime, the pink water will have to suffice.

Merida Walk (1-18-2008)

Pasta tiles are what cover most of the floors in the older part of Merida. This is at the entrance to the little hole in the wall shop where we get our big bottle of water each week. The repairs in chipped or broken tiles are made with anything at hand, odd tiles or even polished concrete.




Below is what Kent saw looking through the grated window.