Pisa has nothing on Melaque.
Pisa has a leaning tower.
Melaque has a leaning conch shell.
You may recall that I was crowing about Mexican ingenuity in solutions on the half-shell. When we last left our intrepid heroes, Juan and Mauricio, they had devised a method to install two conch shells as finials on each gate post leading to the beach.
Their inspiration was to imbed a piece of rebar in the post. Drill a hole in each shell. And then mount the shell on the rebar, caulking it into position.
The solution sounded clever to me at the time. But I share the impatience of young men.
If I had been thinking like an engineer, I would have recognized that one of the environmental parameters was probably being neglected: the temperature.
It gets hot here. And it gets even hotter on the sands of the beach -- a fact Dudley Moore discovered in 10.
Well, Huitzilopochtli had his way with the shell -- rather, with the caulk holding the shell in place. And when the caulk gave way, so did the shell. It now sits at a coquettish angle that would be the envy of a Catrina doll.
Pisa could teach Melaque a thing or two. No need to rush into a quick fix. Let it lean and charge tourists to view the unique wonder of it all.
There are no mistakes. Merely opportunities to separate tourists from their pesos.
Pisa has a leaning tower.
Melaque has a leaning conch shell.
You may recall that I was crowing about Mexican ingenuity in solutions on the half-shell. When we last left our intrepid heroes, Juan and Mauricio, they had devised a method to install two conch shells as finials on each gate post leading to the beach.
Their inspiration was to imbed a piece of rebar in the post. Drill a hole in each shell. And then mount the shell on the rebar, caulking it into position.
The solution sounded clever to me at the time. But I share the impatience of young men.
If I had been thinking like an engineer, I would have recognized that one of the environmental parameters was probably being neglected: the temperature.
It gets hot here. And it gets even hotter on the sands of the beach -- a fact Dudley Moore discovered in 10.
Well, Huitzilopochtli had his way with the shell -- rather, with the caulk holding the shell in place. And when the caulk gave way, so did the shell. It now sits at a coquettish angle that would be the envy of a Catrina doll.
Pisa could teach Melaque a thing or two. No need to rush into a quick fix. Let it lean and charge tourists to view the unique wonder of it all.
There are no mistakes. Merely opportunities to separate tourists from their pesos.
