Car show in Mérida

On Saturday, while browsing the fb posts, I noticed a poster from Mérida Cultura about a fundraiser for the Red Cross Mexico outside the Palacio Municipal. I am super proud to say that I read the poster and understood most of it without the help of Google Translate - woot woot!

So we decided we would go out and have a look. At around 3pm a huge thunderstorm swept through which lasted till almost 5. This did not deter us and we were on our way at 5:30. Right down the road at our intersection we encountered our first really large "dam" so we had to walk a block down the side road to avoid the giant puddle. This was mainly the case at each intersection on our road, which seemed to be low lying, so we turned towards Plaza San Juan to reach a little higher elevation but on our way there, we had to avoid several large inland "lakes". Luckily the drivers were courteous and slowed down not to splash the pedestrians.

After a few blocks we reached the heart of Centro (the historical district) and pedestrian and vehicle traffic intensified dramatically. Mérida Centro is always alive with people and never seems to slow down. Right outside the palace (across from Plaza Grande) the Beetles and a small number of modified saloons were starting to line up. They would then drive from here to Plaza Patio where they awards would be handed out. One of the competitions was for VW Beetles and one for modified sedans. There were a few of the old VW vans (of VW brode as jy Afrikaans is) and one VW beach buggy, but the rest were mostly modified or original Beetles. Of course no Beetle lineup would be complete without Herbie the Love Bug and we were not disappointed. One of the modified Beetles had a sticker on its window: Fuhrer Wagen Club (originally Hitler ordered the build of the people's car in 1934 so that not only the rich would be able to afford a car). Herman and I both drove Beetles when we were really really young. We took a trip down memory lane and talked about how awesome our Beetles could drift LOL.

We were walking around looking at the cars and taking pictures, Herman made a few videos, when we noticed the Mobil Girls. Mobil and Coca Cola were the sponsors of the event. I "convinced" Herman to pose with the lovely ladies, making sure he realized that they were younger or as young as his daughter (snigger) and without barely any struggle on his part, he struck a pose. The smile on his face says it all...

We waited for the procession to start and once they had all left, we walked back to the house. By this time, the roads had cleared of most of the puddles. We had a really nice time, especially since I love car shows!! I edited the videos and pictures we took and combined it in this video: