Yes, it is slightly inland. This shot was taken on a street in Cartagena last summer by my daughter. The chair on the left is 3-dimensional and one can sit on it across from him. Some of the butterflies are 3 dimensional as well.

Yes, this I do remember reading. I think there were several arrests that led to the same outcome. Rose was born a Gallegos. It was her mother's maiden name I don't know... That woman's father is the one who bought the bar from Silva.

When I read it in college I thought it was an incredible fantasy story. Then I married a Colombian and lived there for 3 years. I got that Márques' genius was capturing the liminal space between reality and impossibility. I heard and saw things that could have come straight out of that book.

I've never been there... Texas is not a place I particularly want to visit... I have an interesting map of Texas. I'll see if I can find the folder and post it.

It is generally closed unless someone is renting it.

WHAT??? Damn damn damn...Mel Brooks, where are you? You can't make this stuff up...

Very whimsical, these posts. Thank you!

Where is Mel Brooks when you need him?

This is so wrong. We are on a fast ship. Takes time to slow down, more time to turn around and more time to head back to sanity. Or we just crash into the iceberg... I think we are headed for the second possibility.

poor beast...

damnitdamnitdamnit...

Before that, hard to tell... Lots of records were destroyed in the revolution as churches and government buildings were burned. Great grandfather Valderrama was head of a Methodist school for boys in Puebla in the later 1800's - the first Mexican to do so. Both surnames are Sephardic.

My mother's family, Báez on her father's side (and Fonçeca on his mother's) and Valderrama on her mother's were from Puebla, Pachuca and surrounding areas in Mexico. They came first to Alice, Texas in 1916, then on to Brooklyn where my mother and her brothers grew up.

As I understand it, Tecolote was settled by people traveling north from San Juan del Vado (or Bado). Genízaros, maybe even Tlaxcalans as well as descendants from Spanish settlers - definitely mixed lineages. Historian Estevan Rael-Gálvez might know more. He is pretty dialed in.

So you have deep roots here! From what I can gather, shared family names occurred quite a bit, the ones more closely related tend to be in one location. Like the Montoya families. A Santa Fe Montoya I know is unrelated to the Vegas Montoya - or the Tecolote Montoya family. As far as he knows...

I think Rose is still living. I haven't seen her in 25 years...

That's what Rose Gallegos told me her mother told her. There are truth/myths in Vegas... in NM. Magical realism is very real in Colombia, but here too. Just quieter, somehow. Selva versus desert in a way. Márquez and Anaya both captured it.