Category: Mexico

Postcard from Queretaro, Mexico: Bouquet from a patio of Eden

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Above, orchids blooming in a patio of La Casa de los Ladrillos in Santiago de Queretaro

The Secret Garden was what Mary called it when she was thinking of it. She liked the name, and she liked still more the feeling that when its beautiful old walls shut her in no one knew where she was. It seemed almost like being shut out of the world in some fairy place.”

Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden, 1911*

Offering a colorful bouquet in gratitude for the hospitality extended by our host last week in the historic center of Queretaro. Of course, we plucked these flowers virtually from his own garden filling all his patio space with plants that would rival those of any nursery. He has succeeded in creating a magical, soothing respite in the heart of city.

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Postcard from Oaxaca, Mexico: ‘Nobodies’ and enslaved awaken walls

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Above: A haunting image of a tightly bound slave on his side at the bottom of a wall is one of many works emerging from the Colectivo Subterraneos.

A prior post introduced Oaxaca’s Colectivo Subterraneos along with its series of “Los Nadies” on a pink-walled house in Barrio de Xochimilco, but these figures have popped up throughout the historic center of the city.

Unlike the scrambled mix-and-match style of the figures on the pink structure, most of these “Nobodies” are privileged enough to have retained their own original bodies. Prints of slaves also plaster buildings, images so powerful that Gord Goble described them in Penticon Now as both beautiful and terrifying portrayals of “man’s inhumanity to man.”

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Postcard from San Martin Tilcajete, Mexico: Chaotic Carnaval ushers in Lent

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Not sure how the Oaxacan town of San Martin Tilcajete, known for its colorful and imaginative alebrije creatures, ended up with such an unusual wild and wacky celebration of Fat Tuesday, but it definitely is fun.

Instead of traditional Mardi Gras royalty, a bride and groom united in a mock ceremony reign over the festival. The bride is always a man dressed in drag and fittingly attired in an elegant white gown.

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