Stannous Flouride's Book of Truthiness

All over the world people have used the structures of their ancients as quarries for their contemporary building materials. In Egypt, in Rome, in Greece, all along the Great Wall in China, in Zimbabwe, literally everywhere. And why not? Who has more claim to them than their descendants?
(tearing down other peoples’ monuments to build churches and houses for the conquerors is something else entirely)
Only recently have these creations been regarded as having their own intrinsic value as a connection to the past. Which brings me to these two stones in front of my hosts’ house.
One, a former grinding stone or mortar (pics from another site shown for comparison) has been used as a planter. And the other has been carved with the address of this house.
Today, Neyda & Enrique acknowledge, this would never happen. Nor would they want it to. But back in the 60s when this house was being built it was not uncommon.
Having seen many piles of rubble all over Merida, many of which contain stones with sharply squared corners, that are the detritus of old colonial buildings that are being replaced with modern ones of concrete blocks, I find this laudable.
They are used as a way that honors the ancestors of Neyda & Enrique, both of whose ancestors probably helped build a pyramid or two.

I suspect that they may have chosen this wonderful design so that tourists would take them home as souvenirs. I plan to.

Since Americans (*and Belizans) are the only ones who put the month before the day we are the only ones who see today as 3/14/15. This one is special because it goes to five places, something that only occurs once a century.

So Happy American Pi Day

Originally built as a hospital for injured railroad workers (now THAT’S a union!), today it serves as the library and publishing arm of UNAM, the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico.
I passed this often as I went from el Centro to the house where I have been staying but it was always closed.
The first thing that caught my eye was the corbelled arches of the windows. (I’m sure you all know the difference between corbelled and Roman arches but just in case – corbelled arches are created by stacking cantilevered stones over a space to make it narrower and then adding a capstone. They are found in Egyptian, Incan, Mayan, and Khmer buildings and many others.
Roman arches used shaped elements that support each other in a curved arc and are held by a keystone.)
The intentional use of them in modern Meso-American architecture when they serve no structural function is a distinct nod to the builder’s predecessors.
One of the pictures is of a pillar in the courtyard. It is a Mayan piece that was discovered on site during the modern renovation.

When I have been downtown the outside tables of this grand hotel have become my spot to stop off and quench my throat with a couple of Victorias before heading the 4 hot and smoggy kilometers home. I’ll miss it.

If I was rich enough I’d send every one of you something from here and NEVER let you know whether it was a joke or not.
I learned today that this is a CHAIN. There are more out there. Even bigger ones!!

In addition to its remarkable colonial architecture, Izamal is replete with climbable pyramids about its downtown area. I only scaled the two tallest, Kinich Kakmo & Izamatul but got some great shots, including panoramic ones.

For my final outing from Merida I went to the ancient city of Izamal, the oldest city in Yucatán. I’d seen it referred to as the yellow city but dismissed it as hyperbole, figuring they’d painted the city hall and a few buildings on the plaza yellow. Wrong! Almost the whole town is a nice yellow ochre as these images show:

A tiny but wonderful museum of local artisans in Izamal, the last place I get to visit before I leave the Yucatán. See pictures of this ochre outing in the post that follows above.

Doesn’t pay real well.