We drove south from Merida on the Convent road that leads towards Uxmal Arch. site. As the name says – there are several small towns with convents by that road, the history of bringing a “better” religion to Maya people.
Lucky enough we stopped at a right time in one of the towns -there was a Maya weeding going to start:
The middle aged ladies are wearing Maya national dresses, which they wore at all times and everywhere we saw them. Those dresses are very elaborately embroidered, different decors on each of it , therefore they are pretty expensive from what we saw in their stores and more so having in mind their life standards. But – the ladies look always very white and clean and pressed – are they not busy enough ? that was my question…Also – they don’t have to think much or fuss about what to wear for a wedding :-).
For me the outsider the wedding looked very sad…No smiles, no joy, no happiness on the bride’s or flower girls faces. Maybe they are not used to show their emotions, or maybe their suppression of many years is manifesting on those serious faces…
The priest was also pretty fast and non emotional in reading his words.
The churches on that way were not very impressive. but..they told the story of how Catholic missionaries came, took away their pyramids and built their churches on the sites from the stones of the pyramids. Here one can see the glyphs on the open stones on this wall. At least they didn’t cover them…If there was a reason to bring Mayas on the right path to spiritual joy – that very much failed. They are now not so much into their old gods, neither to the new ones and didn’t look very happy…
This convent garden seems to being restored. So we walked to take pictures. A man ran towards us shouting “privado!”, like in Felini’s movie . So we left. Would be nice to know – what is it going to be there, but we don’t speak Spanish…On the other hand – a secret is sometimes more romantic that a plain truth. The thing that we noticed in Yucatan – they like painting, repainting their walls and facades. The makes their towns rather colorful and prety for us, travelers.
This is not a doll town or dog town, but a cemetery!
And lastly – the sad part – they have no landfills, evidently, so they dump their trash by the main road at the end of each town…creating a gathering place fro skinny and aloof dogs and some big birds:
