Tourists In The Street

This is just down the block from our apartment here in Mérida. It shows the variety of colors used to paint most of the buildings in the historic center as well as a selection of the tourists in town for the holidays. You can guess they are tourists by the plethora of jipi hats on their heads. For sale on just about every corner, these hats are very popular in this part of the tropics because they fold up when not being worn, yet bounce back when needed. Commonly called Panama hats, they are made form la palma jipijapa from which they get their real name in this part of the country.