Here's a Color to Write Home About

I discovered this renovation while taking a peek at a friend's new home several weeks ago. I'm not sure if it's a home or a business, but it's huge and bright lavender. A really lovely facade.

Could this have been a place where horses were once kept?

The building stretches along a good length of the entire block

Not sure how to describe this pediment, but to me it appears to be neoclassical
with a touch of art deco

Mérida - One of the World's Most Underrated Cities...

 This is from a 2011 article in Travel & Leisure Magazine. One of 26 cities throughout the world T& L has named underrated, Mérida, Yucatán shares the honor with a few well known places, such as Philadelphia and Denver, Bordeaux, France and Valencia, Spain, as well as a number of less well known cities like Durban, South Africa and Nara, Japan.  Other cities in the southern hemisphere include Montevideo, Uruguay and Valparaíso, Chile.

It's not likely that we will ever make a trip to South Africa or Nara, Japan, but Uruguay and Chile are certainly in the realm of possibilities, when we soon make our permanent home in Mérida.

My Top Best Ways to Beat The Heat in Mérida

The heat and humidity can be challenging this time of year and it is important to know just how to beat it. This is especially true for those of us who are in town only sporadically and have not yet acclimated. With that thought in mind, I would like to share my favorite ways to cool down and remain at least relatively dry.


1. Sit all day at the computer with a floor fan no more than 3 feet away, pointed directly at you and turned to the high position.  It helps if there is also a ceiling fan directly overhead. If you have to have food, make sure it is cold -celery and carrot sticks with your favorite dip, a nice crisp salad with sliced cucumber. Hint: if you would like to rest your eyes for a few moments, move to the bedroom along with the floor fan, grab a couple of cool cucumber slices and place over your eyes. Relax and think of those cooler days.

    -this works equally well with reading, writing, or cross-stitching.

 Downside: you're stuck inside and not really enjoying the sights of this fabulous city.

2. Get in your car or call an air conditioned cab and head for the mall. Stay there for several hours, window shopping and sipping a cool drink. At least with this option you can kill two birds with one stone - staying cool and getting exercise by walking around the mall. Hint: Wear sensible shoes. When you return home, go back to number 1.

    -you could also try hopping from one air-conditioned restaurant or coffee shop to another, but be aware that staying too long in either of these establishments obligates you to spend money.

    Downside: see number 1.



3. Jump in the pool, if you are so fortunate as to have one, and stay there. Come out only for potty breaks (don't be tempted), grab a cool drink and slide back in. If your skin starts to look like a well-dried prune, recover only in a shady spot. If your space lacks a shady spot, sit on the edge of the pool with a cool drink in one hand and a large umbrella in the other.

    Downside: although more enjoyable than numbers 1 and 2, you're still not taking advantage of the sights (or sites).

4. This is the best and my favorite way to beat the heat. Get yourself down to La Michoacana on Calle 47 y 60, right next door to Comex and just across the street from Parque Santa Ana. It is a small, walk-in store selling cold drinks and frozen treats, but not just ho-hum treats. The frozen fruit bars are, in a word, divine. They come in a variety of tropical fruit flavors , my favorite being lime (I'm saying OMG here). Don't just buy one or two. Take a small, hand-held cooler and fill it up. Keep your freezer stocked with these frozen wonders and keep your cool.

   hint:  enjoy one on your walk back home or to your chosen destination.

Changing colors

bright verde

When we first laid eyes on the house we would end up purchasing, it had just been repainted by the previous owners. We thought the color unusual, though not unpleasant, for a home in the Centro. They said that the original color was not bright enough, thus the change. Our property manager, Ruben, now jokingly says that he puts on his sunglasses before coming over to our house. Honestly, it is a little too bright for our tastes as well. Once, in Los Camellos (our neighborhood tlapaleria), I was explaining to the owners that we were neighbors and when asked which house, I made a gesture trying to indicate "bright" as I said "verde." They shook their heads indicating that they knew which house we were describing. 

the new color & accents

We have been tossing around the idea of changing colors for a while, but on our last visit found a color we both liked very much. We spotted a house on calle 68, just around the corner from Parque Santiago, that was the perfect color. The only problem is that it is not easy to determine the brand of paint, much less the color. Ruben accompanied me to the Comex paint store around the corner, but there were no color chips to compare. The owner of the paint store grabbed his only binder of color chips and we scoured the binder searching for a similar color.  He then motioned to follow him and we walked over to the house to try to match the color. What we found was very close if not exact - softer, a little faded and more traditional. Kind of like us.

Now to find a good painter, as the one Ruben uses is evidently quite busy. He can't seem to get him to come over to give an estimate. If anyone out there has a recommendation, please let us know. We would like to have the painting done while still in the dry season.

Taking the bus in Mérida

Last week we joined a friend for lunch at a favorite local restaurant in Campestre, a Fraccionamiento on the north side of Mérida. We called Juan, our trusted taxi driver and Spanish teacher, to drive us to the restaurant. I say Spanish teacher because he will ask us a question in his fairly good English and when one of us answers, he repeats the answer in Spanish and then waits for us to speak. He'll be driving along and will read a sign out loud and then wait for an answer. I've teased him that we should come down for a month and pay him to drive us around all day teaching Spanish while he practices his English.

After lunch we decided to take a bus back home and asked our friend how to go about selecting the correct bus. Her response was that most of the buses heading south pass through the Centro. She then demonstrated  how to stand at the edge of the street, extend an arm outward as if hailing a taxi, and have an earnest look on your face in order to convey that you intend to get on that particular bus. Hey, it works. For six pesos ($0.45) the bus took us within about three blocks of our house. The cost is a small fraction of a taxi ride and because most locals take the bus, one is certain to pass by every few minutes.  In addition, the ride is more comfortable than sitting in the back seat of one of those mini-size  taxis.

Thursday, mid-afternoon, I remembered that I needed to get to a fabric store to get either pillow inserts or the Poly-Fil to "do-it-myself." I was told that there was a large fabric store just past the new underpass on Paseo de Montejo. I walked over to calle 60, extended my arm and with an earnest look on my face, hailed the next bus headed north. I took a seat and rode for a while when I suddenly realized that this bus was not going where I needed to go. As the bus approached a stop light, I saw a sign for Prolongación  Montejo to the right. I stepped off the bus, headed east and after about three blocks, as luck (or fate)  would have it, ended up on the north side of the underpass and just a few blocks more to the fabric store.

"Do-it-myself" Poly-Fil in hand, I saw a bus headed for the Centro and jumped on. This time it was standing room only and I was carrying three meters of Poly-Fil that I had stuffed into a rather small plastic bag. Holding on to that bag with the other arm extended overhead grasping the hand rail for support was a little tricky. When the bus finally stopped downtown, everyone got off but me. The driver looked back as if to ask why I was still waiting and simply said "Centro" which meant I should get off.  I had no idea where we were and did not recognize the street, but I got off and started walking - even numbers north and south, odd numbered streets east and west.

Several blocks later ( I lost count), walking in a very gusty late afternoon breeze, I made it home where I had a glass of tea and stuffed my pillows, knowing that I must  re-read Yucatan Living's article Taking the Bus in Merida -2.