Walking around the nearby neighborhoods is both taxing and pretty as described in yesterday’s post.  Whilst busy not twisting your ankle or getting run over by an aggressive driver, its imperative to take time to gaze at the amazing mix of homes to your right and left.  Well, its mostly not the houses that you see…its their entrances.  The villages are private so entry is via security point.  Then further security is added by high walls and big gates, and from street level all you can really see is the gates.  Although tops of some of an eclectic mix of housing styles appears here and there:

Many homes are ambassador residences.  We regularly walk past Morocco, Mexico, Paraguay and Belgium on our 90 minute jaunts.

Mostly what you see though are gates.  And a real mix of them too: old, new, modest, pretentious, or sometimes just weird.  I love this one guarded by magnificent tall bamboo:

This one is just rusty corrugated iron:

While this one is much more posh…

This one is my favourite.  Its a South American Embassy residence (Paraguay I think?) – the name is on the gate, but not visible in the photo.  Sort of spooky don’t you think?  Or it looks like it could be the hacienda of some drug baron.  All that’s missing is an armed guard..

Most houses have a blessing tile from the Virgin Mary next to the entrance and there’s quite a variety of those.  This is my favorite and they have gone a little OTT.  Sorry about the smudgy quality of the shot: