city at night

city at night

Monday, January 27, 2014

Last Day in Mérida

Yesterday was our last day in Mérida.  Being a Sunday, of course we had to check out all the activities that occur in the city...  the handicrafts and clothing market on the main plaza, the performers in front of city hall, the artists displaying their work in the little park by the "Monument to Motherhood", and the live music and dancing on Santa Lucía Plaza.

In the afternoon we took a taxi to someplace in Mérida that I had not yet seen... the new Museum of the Mayan World.  It is located on the far north side of the city, the modern part of town by the convention center and one of the big shopping malls.  It was opened in 2012 in time for the surge of tourism surrounding the so-called "end of the Mayan calendar".

The architecture is very modern.  I'm not sure whether I like it or not.  The round section on top (which Alejandro says looks a bird nest)  is not even part of the exhibit area.  It's apparently an IMAX theatre, although I didn't see any movies advertised.



The museum is interesting, but I guess I was expecting something a bit more awe-inspiring.  My biggest criticism is that the displays are not in chronological order.  First you are ushered into a hall dealing with the natural history of the Yucatán, including the asteroid which probably led to the extinction of the dinosaurs.  (The asteroid collided into the earth near the present day village of Chicxulub.)  Then you are led to the rooms which deal with the Mayas, but they are presented in reverse chronological order.  First come the displays on the present-day Mayan people followed by rooms dealing with the life of the Mayas during the 19th century and then colonial times.  Finally you come to the rooms dealing with the Mayan civilization.  Even here there is no sense of chronology... tracing the civilization from its earliest beginnings, through its periods of flowering and decline.

 
                                     A Mayan god

We enjoyed our visit, but I don't feel guilty for not having brought Fred and Nancy or Jane here earlier this month. 

Alejandro peering through a ring from one of the Mayan ball courts.

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