Seems like Mexican people don't eat breakfast at home much. Walking the streets in the early morning (that would be around nine in Mexico), I see many people sitting at tables under arcades, eating tamales or tacos; occasionally even scrambled eggs and bacon.

Restaurant food is expensive. Might cost you as much as $30 pesos ($2.70 US) for breakfast. These young women are economizing, buying a bowl of pozole (pork and hominy stew) for $10 pesos from a vendor at up an informal setup on the sidewalk. Her prices reflect the low overhead.

It's socializing time, before the workday begins at ten. Assuming there is work, that is.

Friends stand or sit together spreading gossip, the glue that holds a community together.

You don't see faces this careworn in the USA anymore. Our lives have become so much easier since the dust bowl days.

On a small square, a weekly pottery market sets up. No tourist items are for sale here—just utilitarian ware intended for use in the homes of ordinary people.

Utilitarian or not, Jean is there, looking for pots to use with her new parrilla (grill). Jean allows no shopping opportunity to slip by.

This evening, we order salads in a restaurant decorated with a mural of typical Lake Pátzcuaro life.

OK, it looks like a scene from 1948, the mustachioed man serenading the shapely woman in dishabille, her four-inch heels improbable for hiking to the bank of the lake.

A romantic view of a Mexico that never was.

—§—

Later, sounds of sirens and a drum and bugle corps announce the arrival of torch-bearing runners in Plaza Don Vasco de Quiroga.

They're getting a head start on the celebration of Mexican independence, the anniversary of which falls weekend after next.

The runners make a spectacular show. But after they form up on the plaza, they have to stand and listen to a long, boring speech by the Mayor. We watch the youngsters wilt.

Seems like whenever the people do something creative and noteworthy, politicians horn in, grabbing a share of the glory.