Colourful Juarez Avenue on Isla Mujeres

Colourful Juarez Avenue

It’s almost 2017, time for that inevitable New Year’s Resolution – get more exercise! So, here’s an idea for you, take a stroll along colourful Juarez Avenue on Isla Mujeres. Enjoy the fun buildings. Enjoy the sunshine. And stop for lunch or a cold beverage. Hey, you are still exercising, you are just rewarding yourself for the effort.

There are more than a dozen interesting structures on Juarez Avenue with wild colour combinations and murals, or covered in bits of mosaic. Starting at the southern end, behind the navy base and heading north there is lots to see.  

Fluffy white dog and kitty will share their chairs with you

First there is Dede Clark’s tall, narrow home featuring a recent street-side addition of two benches painted to resemble delicate chairs. Friendly images of a fluffy white dog plus a black and white cat, invite you to join them in quiet contemplation of their neighbourhood.  

Across the street from her house is a single-level house decorated in hot pink and fuchsia, with a wild assortment of mythical trees, psychedelic flowers and solar images.  

A few steps further is the busy La Lomita Restaurante decked out in flowers and images, welcoming their guests to enter. As you crest the small rise look to the left. Red Buddha Yoga & Wellness centre glows a ruby red in the morning sun, directly across of another multi-coloured artistically decorated home.  

At the first cross street a solitary woman boldly stands at the corner of a derelict building. She is wearing an eclectic mix of leather and feathers or perhaps tatty fur. What appears to be a World War Two pilot’s helmet is pulled tightly over her short hair, the goggles pushed up and away from her eyes. She has an oddly compelling face. Defiant, yet apprehensive, staring at something only she can see.

Don’t give up explorations when you come to the more commercial looking buildings that are prevalent in the next two blocks, there are more to be discovered.  A little further north of the pedestrian-only street, is another home covered in a mosaic of tiles, glass, paint and poetry. It was a painstaking process for the young artist as she studied each piece before adding it to her creation.

Then there are a few of the old original wood homes with tin roofs, built when Isla Mujeres was a fishing village. We call them the ‘painted ladies.’ They resemble the Victorian-era homes with their intricate architectural details and interesting colour combinations. The interior-decorating business at 13 Juarez Galeria is another fun older building highlighted with orange, green turquoise and yellow.

At the corner of Juarez and Matamoras there are four beautiful structures: the terracotta-coloured Mundaca Real Estate office, the pink, yellow, and blue Café Cito, the wooden painted-lady belonging to Tony Garcia’s auntie, and the hand-crafted stonewall surrounding the home of long time-islander Hettie Veneziano, who sadly recently passed on.

Our current favourite is close by.  It is a newly remodeled space with a sky-blue wall, pink-trimmed doors and windows, mango-coloured interior courtyard walls.  We don’t know who owns the property but what a cheerful addition the neighbourhood.

There are many more buildings with murals and amusing paint combinations scattered all along the street.  Get out there and enjoy colourful Juarez Avenue.

And on a personal note, I would like to thank the many readers of my new e-book novel, Treasure Isla, for leaving reviews on Amazon. It’s a huge boost to my energy level as I am working through the intricacies of the sequel.

A very happy and prosperous New Year to everyone,

Lynda & Lawrie and our almost-famous mutt, Sparky

Happy New Year everyone - from Sparky