The Murals Are Amazing…Just Don’t Look Up!

One of the things I have come to appreciate are all the colorful murals that you can find along the streets of Mexico no matter what city you are in. They serve to brighten up a spot as well as act as advertising billboards. The colors that are used are vibrant enough to catch the eye and burn into your brain to the point you can always find the mural again. What’s cool is that the subject matter can be just about anything and what’s more is the murals can be small as an orange crate or as large as a city block. Here are a few examples of the artwork that I have seen during my two months here.

Yet, as beautiful as they are there is one problem with murals which is tied into a significant defect in city planning and a lack of consistent building codes. I will gladly admit this is one of the few things I abhor about Mexico and if I can give you one piece of advice about this country it would be this… never look up …. always keep your eyes on the ground…and stand still if you are gazing at anything higher than your head. Then, hopefully, you should be safe and survive your journey intact.

So here it is the thing I abhor: you have no idea how many times I have been walking along looking up at the steeples and the murals and anything else that has caught my when…WHAMMMM…the side walk ends or the road height changes significantly and down I go! I am surprised I have not ended up in the hospital with a broken ankle. To give you an idea how significant the problem is here are just a few examples of this high/low problem as found on my street alone. And mind you, the driveways leading out of each house, is a different height than that their neighbors. Nothing is uniform… but it should be.

And look at this hole in the sidewalk on my way to the supermercado. It looks exactly like a replica of a category five hurricane that we are shown on the television that comes complete with warnings of imminent death should you not move to higher ground.

So while we in the USA bitch and moan about all the rules and just want government off our backs; I can tell you from experience that there is a good reason for some of regulations. And if, in the future, I don’t blog, I would fancy to say that I was one of those virgin maidens that fell into one of the gigantic holes… never to be heard from again…at least that is how the story goes in my scariest of nightmares.