MERIDA HOMES, PARKS AND STREETS

Merida, like most areas of Mexico we have visited, has many street vendors.
Including many small taco and carnitas stands such as these. This one was on a converted truck, and it was parked on a busy corner of a beautiful park in the central city.
Merida was made wealthy a century ago by the sisal fiber trade, popular in rope making. There are many beautiful old mansions that are still in good state of preservation.
This one is in the moorish style.

And this is an attractive Spanish style villa.

This is a more contemporary home with a gated yard.

The old colonial streets of Merida are busy with traffic and comerce.

Across the park where the taco stand was doing good business I found a bust to Jose Marti - a Cuban poet I learned to recite by memory in school when I was a child. Marti is the father of the Cuban war of independencee from Spain at the end of the 19th century.

This little poem I could recite in Spanish from memory:

I Cultivate a White Rose

I cultivate a white rose

In July as in January

For the sincere friend

Who gives me his hand frankly.

And for the cruel person who tears out

the heart with which I live,

I cultivate neither nettles nor thorns:

I cultivate a white rose.

Here is a link to another great poem (in Spanish): http://www.exilio.com/Marti/Marti.htmlThese verses have been adapted to the song "Guantanamera"

What a face!

An old colonial church in Merida.