Photos

This is a follow-up to Feliz Navidad with Light Bulb (my most unpopular image to date!).

That image showed us a Mexican Christmas shrine that combined the traditional (an image of the virgin, wooden dowels, real leaves) with the modern (artificial flowers, coloured lights, and one glorious, brilliant white light bulb).

This image, by contrast, is pure tradition. The crosses on the door are made of some kind of twigs or straw, and are put up on many residences to mark the Christmas season, commonly being threaded through the protective gates that cover the front doors of the houses. The decorative "bell" was painted wood.

The first thing that caught my eye about this scene, though, wasn't the festive props, but the texture of that wall!

The architecture in Merida is quite something, as I've commented in some of my previous posts, ranging from Mayan to Iberian to vaguely Moorish to Norte Americano ranch style, but sometimes it slips into a whole other dimension entirely, as it does with the finish on this wall.

It resembles stucco, but also tree bark, or perhaps a million caterpillars. It reminds me of the pattern in a dog's fur, of bacteria seen under a microscope, and of currents in water.

Whatever it is, I'm down with this. Someone please get me a house with this stuff all over it immediately.