Vernacular Design In Chetumal
Chetumal is all about poured concrete. Although I have no documentary proof, it must be because of the salt air. The paint on the concrete may fade or chip, but the structures retain their integrity.…
Tales Of The Quintana Roo
Our more worldly readers will know that our current location, Chetumal, is in the state of Quintana Roo, as is the rest of the Riviera Maya (Cancun, Cozumel, Tulum…). I love that the name sounds…
Sightseeing In La Habana
When I started this blog, I didn’t want it to be just a travelogue, a recitation of where we’ve been and what we’ve seen. That just didn’t seem interesting to me. If I was going…
Visiting Trinidad
We arrived in Habana, if just barely, on April 6th. Our local friend Jenn, halfway between fairy godmother and witch, had made arrangements for a group tour of one of Cuba’s oldest cities, Trinidad, on…
Landing In La Habana
As has been exhaustively documented, the actual Landing In Cuba was hellish, but it’s been pretty smooth sailing since then. Our local friend Jenn arranged a driver to pick us up at the airport, which…
Vast In Scale
Mexico City has a lot going on visually, but not necessarily in the same way as Oaxaca. Oaxaca’s culture fells like it’s happening on the street and you just get to walk through it. CDMX,…
Big Box, Small Box
I found the retail landscape in Oaxaca confounding. At its core, my confusion was about the apparent mismatch between supply and demand. There were so many shops and so much merchandise, and so much of…
Landing in Mexico City
Boy, is Mexico City (CDMX) not Oaxaca, in a whiplash-inducing sort of way. In fact, CDMX has more in common with New York City than it does with Oaxaca. It’s as if Jackson Heights was…
Parque Ciudad de las Canteras
The city parks in Oaxaca de Juarez look green on the map. And they have trees. They definitely have trees. But they’re more paving-and-planter-beds than the expanses of green we expect of an urban American…
El Mirador
The Guelaguetza Auditorio sits on a hill overlooking the city. Our apartment is at the foot of that hill, so a hike up is in scope, so long as we take it slowly. Our age…