Observations (cont'd)

A cultural phenomenon of no little prevalence in Mexico is the love affair with levels. While walking in a plaza, on the street, or even inside a store, one often comes across seemingly arbitrary steps up or down. These can range in height from a trifling 2 inches to a nearly lethal 8 inches or more.

A sidewalk may abruptly split in the middle with half of its width sloping up and the other half down. The element of surprise is occasionally enhanced by an unannounced sink hole or other break-a-leg rupture in the walking surface but I won't get into that.

Now, personally, I've always viewed the chief virtue of a floor, or other walking surface, to be its flatness. It enables one to amble from point 'A' to point 'B' without steady scrutiny of one's steps for fear of losing the perpendicular and possibly even losing one's ability to amble further.

However, things are different in Mexico. When walking, a variation of level every few seconds evidently provides a welcome change of pace here although it definitely diminishes the amount of time one is able to keep one's head up to drink in other details of the environment.

Speaking of levels:
On the flight back to Ixtapa on Monday we airplaned over much mountainous terrain. In the photo below I captured a tiny village isolated amidst this rumpled landscape. Can you spot it? I have no idea whether or not they are online.

In other news:
Below is a photo of a monument in San Luis Potosi commemorating the Revolution. As you can see this sculpture has clearly avoided the clichéd general-on-a-rearing-horse design. No, there is no monument on the other side of the street of those shooting back.

In other sculpture news, an enterprising fellow on the beach today contributed the two items below to the environmental esthetics. Yes, it was a sunny, hot day today, exactly the way a February day ought to be.

And that's it for now. Thank you for tuning in.