León is a beautiful city.
It's a pleasant balance of old and new, calm and chaos: centuries-old cathedrals, homes painted in every bright shade of green, orange, blue, and yellow you could imagine, coffee shops, the neighborhood pulperias (where you can purchase small amounts of anything you need, such as a few eggs, veggies, some bread for dinner, makeup, toilet paper, etc.) women walking down the street balancing baskets of groceries on their heads, people selling home-cooked food to the neighborhood, camionetas zipping around with passengers hanging on for dear life, merchants transporting their wares on horse-drawn carts, the daily wail of the city siren at 7:00am and 12:00pm (signifying the time to leave for work and to come home for lunch), and my personal favorite - the tortilla lady who walks down the street every day with a basket of tortillas on her head, yelling "TORTILLAAAAAAAS!" (I'll try to post a video in the near future)
Speaking of loud vendors, there's also the "CEBOLLAS Y TOMATES!!!" guy with the raspy voice, and the impossible-to-ignore cheese guy, who pedals his cart through neighborhoods while advertising his wares using a microphone. I never have any idea what he is saying because his microphone distorts his voice into a sort of robotic monotone. It's actually kind of scary.
That's one of the things I love most about living here - all the random, little things that surprise and shock me, like the first time I heard the robotic cheese man, or hilarious new experiences such as riding a camioneta for the first time, completely redefining my idea of personal space and bodily contact on public transportation.
However, like any other city, León is far from perfect. There are countless stray dogs that roam the streets and sleep on the sidewalks, picking through garbage and scratching at their emaciated, flea-ridden bodies. There are piles of garbage everywhere, because the city does not provide residents with garbage receptacles, so people simply dump it into the streets. There are people who walk around barefoot because they have no shoes, and children who pick through the trash looking for bottles to recycle. Men shout vulgarities and make kissing sounds at women passing by, a daily form of harassment that local women dislike but have learned to tolerate as a part of daily life.
Also, there's just a ton of poop in the street. Horse poop, dog poop....possibly human poop. Which can get kind of gross, especially during the rainy season, when streets flood, making a fecal/garbage/mud soup. (One of my greatest fears is accidentally falling into one of these puddles of poop-soup. I hope that day NEVER comes!)
However, despite these imperfections, I am still grateful to be in such a beautiful, interesting, and unique city, filled with kind people and beautiful places.
Anyways, enough talking - here are some pictures of the beautiful city of León:
Inside the main cathedral
The largest cathedral in León
Where's Waldo?
A lion statue with quite the mischievous smirk, pointed out by Sam
Central Park
One of the gardens inside the impressive city art museum
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