All the while, the sounds of hoes and pickaxes echo down the museum's halls. Workers are planting an immense walled garden, due to open to the public this month. Cacti, some of them hundreds of years old, have been transplanted from all over the state. The church next door, Santo Domingo, is beyond ornate. At night the floodlit, tiled domes look like a fairy-tale palace as they rise above this part of the city.
Booths have low roofs of plastic or canvas tarps, and ropes crisscross everywhere.
I come across a man with two canary cages. I'm besieged by two boys who, sensing weakness, pursue me until I agree to buy a bark painting from each. The shopkeepers are patient, and most can produce a calculator on which to indicate prices. Handy, since I tend to get flustered when bargaining in a foreign language, and make an offer that's twice the asking price, rather than the suggested half. Policemen direct cars on busy corners, whistling in a varied repertoire, sounding like inventive birds.