Movement today: from Valladolid to Tizimín to Río Lagartos. It rains heavy in Tizimín but I have an hour to wait for a bus. So despite it being only midday and despite having just eaten a large breakfast I decide to visit a well recommended restaurant. On the way I get mildly lost and very wet and when I do arrive I order relleno negro, which literally translates as “black stuffed”. A bowl of black viscous liquid arrives with lumps of black sticking out and lumps of black-stained hard-boiled floating around. This is the black stuffed. And I regret. But I drink my beer, manage to eat some black, then hurry back.

At the bus stop there’s a large glass box on the wall. Trapped inside is the Virgin Mary holding an infant Jesus. In front of the case is a small prayer stool with a neat little coin slot sliced into the arm-rest. I wonder who receives the proceeds of this device; whether there is a company that installs these machines in bus stops around the area in exchange for a cut of the profits...

It’s said there are flamingos in Río Lagartos but I didn’t see any of them. Then again, the Spanish did name the place “Alligator River” despite there being no river (it’s a lagoon) and despite there being no alligators (they’re crocodiles). So no flamingos maybe, but plenty of pelicans.

Travelling again, this time from Río Lagartos back to Tízimin and on to Mérida. But before I leave I take a final walk around this beautiful, colourful place. Overhead I hear a series of strange squawks. I look up and see long necks and spindly legs, a big wingspan and a vague (it’s hard to see with such heavy backlighting from the sun) shade of pink. These are flamingos! There are flamingos!

They have trouble keeping a straight course in the heavy wind, and although it seems like I can walk and keep up with them they soon disappear over the horizon and once again reenter non-existence.

Merida. Wandered. Mostly aimless.

In a rusting yellow and green box on the wall I post three postcards. Although this box has the graphic design of a postbox - a soaring bird with an envelope in its mouth, its current condition and location suggests it is no longer a living postbox. Thus did I ponder after having posted the letters and I must admit that I found the idea of them sitting there for decades to come, mellowing in the heat, poignantly enjoyable.

Did some wandering around the market. Here I adopted a technique I’d developed in Peru. Set camera to fully auto, thumb on shutter, lens at hip, and point and click rapidly, all the while looking up, browsing calmly, trying hard to appear as if not photographing at all. The result? Many photos of nothing. Many out of focus, under-exposed, over-exposed, blurry, or some combination of all four. Some of these photos could have been really good photos had more care been taken but fear gets in the way.

In the radically different setting of a museum in a bank, there’s a curious painting of a girl, about 9 years old. She’s wearing a lacy white dress with blue embroidery and a blue ribbon tied round her waist. The base of the dress expands voluminously and rapidly in many layers and her hair forms tight ringlets that rest upon her shoulders. In one hand, resting on her side, is a small bouquet of flowers, and in the other is a pink rose which she holds out as if very suspiciously offering it to us. Her face wears an expression of ambiguity (or so memory recalls).

What’s particularly striking about this painting though, is the light. The dark room in which she’s standing is shaded by a curtain of deep red, and the sun, in its attempt to penetrate it, casts a red shadowy glow over one half of the girl’s face and body and renders the whole scene scarlet and equivocal.