Photo in feature image by Bettman via Getty Images
You wake in a walled garden, overlooked by a bright house painted cobalt blue, a shade darker than the cloudless sky overhead. Inside the house, you see a woman with a lush monobrow stood at an easel, pondering a half-finished painting of naked women surrounded by slightly suggestive vines. It’s Frida Kahlo! It looks like Frida is having some serious trouble with her painting, probably because there’s a ruckus outside the garden walls from what sounds like an army of barking dogs.
You see Frida slam down her paintbrush and dash out through the garden to the streets beyond. You follow behind her and watch as Frida pets a variety of stray dogs roaming the streets of her well-to-do corner of Mexico City. Frida decides that she must rescue as many of the dogs as she can, so she can house them in comfort of her basement in Casa Azul. Then maybe they’ll stop barking and she can concentrate on her art!
Can you help Frida round up the dogs so she can get back to finishing her classic queer painting Two Nudes in a Forest?
There are 3 breeds of Mexican dogs roaming the streets: xoloitzcuintlis (aka xolos, which are Frida’s faves), chihuahuas and chamucos.
You know that:
- A xolo and a chamuco together weigh 18kg
- A xolo and chihuahua together weigh 10kg
- A chamuco and chihuahua together weigh 12kg
The floor in the Casa Azul basement can hold 96kg. Frida wants to rescue at least one of each breed, and as many xolos as she can, without breaking the floor!
What’s the maximum number of dogs Frida can rescue?
Additional Tools:
Listen to an audio file of Nicole describing the puzzle below:
