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.