Intense...

...does not begin to express it.
Merida is a crally creative and vital city, with lots of creativity. Last night in the main plaza we ran into: really excellent drummers, jugglers, an Andean group (playing an Andean veriion of Sounds of Silence on pan pipes, an astronomer with a telescope trained on Jupiter, many, many crafts folk. People were everywhere enjoying the scene. One of the great things about Mexico is that there are gatherings like this on town and city plazas at night, and many of the performances are spontaneous.

It is really hot today. We went to an anthroplolgy museum where we learned more in depth about Mayan culture. There was also an exhibit of the Mexican Revolution early in the 20th century. Little of this text was in English, but the photos were very dramatic.

We also went to the Merida City Museum. This was a Mayan settlement. After the Spanish took over they built a cathedral on the main temple and set up very segregated neighborhoods. This area developed as an agricultural area, specializing in crops that were used for garments. There was incredible stratification, and constant fear of an uprising by the farmers. Very progressive politicians wound up in charge of the city early in the 20th century, and they promoted many reforms, but they were deposed and executed. After that, the rich tried to think of this area as a cultural center, patterned after Paris. Since then, many writers, artists and musicians have come from here.

The creativity remains. This place is also crowded plus. Sidewalks are thin, crowds are huge, traffic is massive,and again, IT IS HOT! Music blares at you from every store, accompanied by car horns and alarms. Shopkeepers try to get us to come into their shop for a panama hat; we also find people shoving things like fruit roll-ups in our faces. Shops include such specialties as a combination shoe and gun shop. There are more beggars than we have seen in other cities in the Yucatan - not as many as in Mexico City, but plenty. The think I keep in mind is that this is a city in the developing world, and this is how most of humanity lives. More often than not it is far more congested than this, minus the music and culture in many cases.

We really like our apartment, and will head back there soon to relax and cook. We will probably come out for music on the main plaza after a rest.

Again, we will post when we can find open internet places.
¡Prospero año nuevo!