Tuesday, November 10, 2015

Funny Thing Happended on the Way to the Parque




The population of Mérida is about 970,000 which isn't small fry. Quite a change from El Campo. But to explain, El Campo is where we live when we aren't here. No, it isn't in Mexico. Yes, it is in the Estados Unidos. Confusing, huh? Anyway, in a city the size of Mérida one may think you could easily blend into the hustle and bustle of a large city and essentially get lost among the people. It isn't so. As with any big city, you have your quadrant of tierra that makes up your stomping grounds. Not having an automobile makes this even more so. Each smaller quadrant is marked by a park and a church. We are about nine blocks from the Gran Plaza and we walk by two parks and two churches along the shortest distance to get there. If we make a few turns along the way we will walk by three more churches and an additional church. 
We headed out taking the shortest route in search of the art store. We had been told it was moving and we were given the new location where it was to be relocated on our last trip. It was to be on the next block over. Shouldn't be hard to find at all. On our first attempt to find it we had failed. Somehow we had counted two blocks instead of one. I don't know why that was so hard for us to count. But, the good part was that we ran into Ernesto and had a nice chat right in front of the TEATRO ARMANDO MANZANERO. He was hanging out on the front steps as if he was waiting for the next performance. But, quite sure that wasn't the case. He asked about family and was excited to learn of his new sobrina, a reference to Baby Isla. He is now divorced but stays in frequent contact with his 16 year-old son and 10 year-old daughter that live about an hour out of the city. 
On Saturday, we hiked out again to find the art store. It was late in the day so we should have known better. But we were walking down our street just in front of the arches when we heard a familiar voice holler out: "Terry!...Terry!" We turned to look and there was Ernesto looking all kicked back, with his world traveler sprawl going on, as he sat in a horse-drawn buggy headed to Centro. He motioned for us to join him in the buggy. He was going to the theater in style, I presume. Of course, we see the buggies frequently and knew they came down our street on a regular basis. It's easy to hear them on the worn, brick street.  But we weren't expecting to see Ernesto riding in one and we didn't expect anybody to call us by name. We hopped aboard and enjoyed the ride to downtown. Of course, we paid for the ride. It was our first time to ride in a horse drawn buggy down here. 

As far as finding the art store, we did find it one block over from its original location. It was closed for the afternoon.

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