Merida Day 7 - Museo de Regional de Anthropologia

We were pretty anxious about the computer so made Carlos' shop our first stop this morning. On the way we passed 6, yes 6, hydro trucks working on the lines of one street. The hydro lines are a bit of a nightmare and we try not to look too closely but I had to take a shot of one of the workers (the others thought it was pretty funny) surrounded by lines.



This is a shot I took on one of our first days here of the hydro system on the street light.

Hopefully it will look safer after he has finished, or at least more organised.

 

Most of our neighbourhood is about 50% nice well kept places and about 50% vacant or rather run down places. Of course from outside it is hard to know what the interiors are like because, usually, on the street you are just seeing a wall and gate or door. For instance ours has a nicely painted wall and a gate and inside has lovely rooms, courtyards, pool, garden etc. (will post pics in future). Some neighbourhoods have different ratios. These pictures were taken on our walk to Carlos' shop.

SE VENDE - for sale

Right next door, I assume they sold

After picking up the computer and thanking Carlos profusely we walked on and found that the doors were open at the church on Santa Ana square. It is quite a small and simple church. There is a church at every square and there are about 5 squares within easy walking distance.

We walked quietly through the church admiring the simple but powerful wood carvings along the walls. We then continued on to the Museo Regional de Anthropologia, in the Palacio Canton.

The exhibits were pretty sparse; a couple of rooms with photographs and memorabilia from the building of the house and the creation of Paseo Montejo (mentioned in a previous post), a couple of rooms with photographs from the original excavations at some of the Yucatan archaeological sites and an area where wooden carving and molding from a church were being restored and repainted.All quite interesting but it didn't feel like much for such a grand edifice on such a grand street. However upstairs was an exhibit of Yucatan Hipil, the traditional dress that we have seen in the dances, for sale in the stores and worn as everyday clothing in the city. The displays showed sculptures from the ruins that seem to indicate the Maya wore something similar even before the Spanish arrived, there were many old photographs of Maya and Spanish in the brightly embroidered dresses, and there were many, many examples of the clothing. They were embroidered by hand until the sewing machine became available and then parts were machine sewn and parts hand sewn. We have seen women doing the hand embroidery and tatting/fine crochet in the markets so we know some, at least, are still done by hand.

One of the display halls.

 



Part of a hand embroidered collar

Crochet or tatting I'm not sure what to call it.

Cut work and crochet

A bit of everything

Cross stitch. Although most were adults dresses there were some

 baby and children's clothes

Although most of the examples were on white cotton this was cut work

done on blue cotton.

Examples of what could be done with the same pattern, using machine and

hand sewing, different colours and different techniques.

 

After the museum we continued up Paseo Montejo, to Wal Mart for such things as toilet paper, laundry soap and dish soap. On the way back we passed this Mayan lady sitting on a bench with multitudes of coloured cords hanging from her waist that she was macrameing into bracelets. We couldn't resist - bought 2, didn't even haggle, how could we when she only charged 10M$ ($1) each.

 

Well tomorrow is Chichen Itza, so we aren't going out tonight. Going to bed early as we will actually have to set our alarm tomorrow.