The mythic blue skies and bright yellow sun searing a burnt desert of siestas and sombreros have eluded me since arriving to Mexico two years ago. Even driving across the desert plains, from the high altitudes of the Sierra Madre Oriental to the low, flat dust of border towns in Texas, there is life in the form of ranches and wild flowers. An hour south of McAllen, Texas, a town built on sand and consumerism, the terrain is hilly and majestic - a mix of fenced-in green foliage and cacti, a mix of brown and green and wildflower purple. There the sky is blue and white and stretches forever and you can see storms from several miles away, gray and black smudges against cerulean and sapphire.
In Monterrey, the sky is different, a limited window into the heavens framed by toothed peaks. When the sky is blue, the green and white limestone peaks of the mountains illuminate and create a Tolkeinesque vista (minus the hobbits and dwarves). But today, like most days this summer, the peaks are black and gray shadows against a gray and white sky. There may be a drizzle today, or a storm, or the sky may just lay across the mountains trapping in the pollution, trapping in the heat, making the air a wet blanket through which one must breathe. Just before sundown, a patch of blue will peek under the blanket, to give us hope that tomorrow the air will be clear and make us want to rise early to see the sun.
It's a trick, I know. The sun has abandoned us until autumn to leave us feeling that the box of crayons that paint the sky has run out of colors.
All photographs were taken by, and are copyright of, the blogger.
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