Cementerio General

OK, so I keep saying I'm going to start walking in the morning; sometimes I do take a short walk around the hood, but it's typically only 20-30 minutes. My plan has been for a while to walk down to the Cementerio General on Calle 81, do a turn around the cemetery and return. Well today was the day; I awoke about 5:30 and tossed a bit trying to get back to sleep but just couldn't, so seemed like the perfect day to start. I grabbed the pile of dirty clothes that were in a pile on the floor and dressed in the living room; Tom likes to sleep in.

So off I went - the bike is the paper delivery guy, he was also having a bit of a visit.

This second picture is the entrance to the cemetery on calle 81.

The central north/south street in the cemetery is an actual numbered city street and is really quite busy.

The cemetery is immense, I took only a few generic shots..

Tom and I were talking the other day as we were passing through a village whose

cemetery we had visited a while back at which we were both quite shocked to see

bones and skulls. You would never experience that type of thing in the US and we were initially

quite shocked by it, but I'm not really sure why. After all they are just bones; anyway what is quite typical here is they inter the body of the newly dead within 24 hours of death. There is no embalming here. Then after a time; enough for the goopy parts to decompose the bones areretreived and set into a small cement box and set with the family crypt or mausoleum. If no mausoleum or crypt, the the box is set in a cubbyhole type structure along with other family members.

I did come

across the

grave of

Felippe

Carillo

Puerto,

And across the street was a marker for Alma Reed.

If you'd like to know more about either of these people then do an internet search, their stories and activities/ties to the Yucatan are quite fascinating. Or click here

I kept thinking this could become a regular walk for me but after doing it this one time I don't think so - the exhaust was debilitating. Unfortunately most of the route is along a busy bus route and it seems the buses in this area are in horrible repair and spew such incredibly toxic filth into the air that by the time I got home I was a bit wheezy. I'll have to continue to search for a good route within myt neighborhood.

When we lived in Colorado Springs we had a terrible problem with squirrels, there were just so many. We used to catch them then transport them for release to local cemeteries; we had three with a few miles. I think that must be what is happening here in the Cementerio General. There were so many dogs, and in such horrible condition. Really Sad, I couldn't even take a picture of them.