Visited a big museum today and met some more family who are also in town visiting. We visited the Dolores Olmedo museum, which is basically a collection of art and artifacts from a VERY rich lady. A large part of the museum is collections of art from Diego Rivera and Freda Kahlo, actually bigger collections than in the museums that carry their namesakes!
The museum begins with a tour of the founder’s actual house, which contains a lot of artifacts and photos from around the world. A large portion of items on display in the house are elaborate ivory carvings. Hence, her grandparents referred to it as “The Ivory Museum.” This part of the museum provided some real entertainment for me personally. One thing I’ve noticed in my brief time here is that Mexican bureaucrats absolutely LOVE crafting nonsensical ambiguous rules that they can choose to enforce arbitrarily. An example that created no small amount of drama yesterday was a sign at a museum that said no bags allowed inside, they have to be checked at the desk. Meanwhile, we’re in line watching multiple obese women with equally obese purses entering without a second glance. To make a long story short, let’s just say that for a group containing a gringo (me), the same latitude does not seem to be given. So today, we weren’t surprised that they had her check our tiny little daypack at the front desk while multiple women with their ugly giant purses just walk right in. Anyhow, I digress…. We’re at the rich dead lady’s house with the huge ivory collection, and as soon as I walk in, a very unpleasant lady dressed in bright red announces that there are no photos allowed inside the house (en espanol). Of course, there is no sign for this, and in fact everywhere else on the museum grounds photos are welcomed. Well, there were a couple really prominent pieces that were basically on display right in the doorway. Also, there were other visitors taking photos in the (and of the) doorway (albeit with cheapo point and shoots). Well, I think sour face lady in red was quite pissed off when a certain gringo with a 280mm equiv zoom snapped some shots from comfortably outside the building. You have no authority on the sidewalk angry underpaid lady in red! Anyway, snapped a few pics there. However, the Federale guys in bulletproof vests with large sidearms in the Kahlo/Rivera areas were sufficient enough deterrent to prevent me attempting any stunts like that in those sections.
So, besides the ivory collection and galleries of works by Kahlo and Rivera, the Dolores Olmedo museum also has some large gardens and some animals around. Lots of peacocks are roaming around the complex, which is cool and all, I’m just not sure of the significance. The animal that did make sense was a group Xoloitzcuintle dogs (Aztec breed of dogs, aka “Mexican Hairless”). The main theme of the museum seems to be Mexican art and culture, and in particular aspects and themes that embrace precolonial, native Mexico. That being said, these adorably ugly little dogs probably caught our interest more than anything else there, and there’s no photography gestapo standing around tapping their foot waiting for you to make a false move with your camera =)
I don’t want to turn the posts into just photo galleries, so I’m holding out a lot of photos for the gallery as each destination wraps up. Anyhow one more photo and story to wrap up today:
On our first day here driving home from the airport as we pull up to a red light a shirtless gentlemen with all exposed skin covered in bright silver paint emerges from the side of the road with three flaming bowling pins and begins juggling. That’s right, a silver painted man juggling flaming bowling pins at a red light. Welcome to Mexico! NO, I wasn’t able to get a good pic of it, I was too slow =( Since then, however, when we’re cruising around town I keep my camera with tele lens at the ready, because I wanted to catch one of these intersection performers at some point. Basically, they come out at the red light and put on a (usually dangerous) show. They have to complete their act and then get a few pesos from the nearby cars before the light turns green. We’ve seen several in the past few days, usually involving fire or juggling or some combination therein. This morning a main intersection had a “fire eater” and I was quick enough to get a few pics (and give him a few pesos).
Well, tomorrow begins our hiking trip starting with a ride to Puebla with all our gear. We’ll be gone for seven days, and I’ll most likely just post an update when we return.