Got Murals and Public Art?
Every day we walked and walked in the village of Ajijic and its neighboring town of Chapala, and with every day and each new neighborhood we found new murals and public art. I did my best with my iPhone camera.
After seeing the three dimensional statue below, set into a niche and illuminated by candle light I walked into a nearby art collector’s store to inquire if the statue depicted the Virgin Mary or Our Lady of Guadalupe. Turns out both are representations of the Madonna, and the owner of the store gave us a lengthy tour of her art collection. Notice the crescent moon the Madonna is standing on? That represents Christianity conquering Islam.
I fell in love with these milagros. Each little charm represents a prayer or wish. The tiny arm, for example, could mean a prayer for an injured arm, or a desire for someone to reach out and give you a hand. An eye milagro could be a prayer for failing eyesight or a wish for greater insight.
Back out on the street…..
Even just shopping and enjoying more modern street art was great fun:
One day I lost my WiFi and cellular connectivity for the morning. Oh noooes! I was relying on it for navigation and explanation of all I was seeing around me. Luckily our rental had a Majic Jack set-up, and I was able to get my U.S. carrier on the line who fixed me up, and then we were off to explore the Lake Chapala Society and the highly recommended Nuevo Paseo Hotel, which were both as gorgeous as advertised. I imagined the angel in the lobby weeping over her lost WiFi.
Another day we took a cab to the neighboring town of Chapala where we met Giant Jesus and another startlingly huge Islam-conquering Madonna, with life-sized bronze soldiers guarding her:
Because of light and shadows and passing traffic (and not being a particularly good photographer) I was unable to capture the size and scope of the sprawling and somewhat deteriorating mountainside mural below, much less its final panel, but it clearly showed the history of the region.
On the road that joins Ajijic with Chapala and that surrounds the lake, near the boardwalk is the mural "La ribera del lago de Chapala", [The Bank of Chapala Lake] created by the artist Javier Zaragoza Castillo and finished in December 2009.
It is a very large mural, about 5 meters high by 50 long, so it can not go unnoticed. The images painted on the mural tell the story of Chapala and its surroundings, from pre-Hispanic times to the present day. It is divided into 8 parts, each destined to a period of history, passing through the Spanish conquest, evangelization and the defense of the nearby island of Mezcala. In addition to important historical milestones, it also refers to the evolution of fishing and communications with the arrival of the train, without forgetting the local culture, for example the chinchorros and laundresses. Each part has an explanatory text very well elaborated in the lower part.
One thing I haven’t mentioned is the level of noise due to the week-long festival for the patron saint of Ajijic, San Andres (Saint Andrew, the first apostle). This was celebrated with rockets (not firecrackers, rockets) that went off at random intervals starting at sunrisecomlete . A veteran with PTSD would have a very hard time of it.
The courtyard and fountain blocked out a great deal of street noise. Earplugs were my friend, and I gradually got used to the commotion. On our final morning an entire high school mariachi band complete with tubas came marching down the street right outside our wall, singing and cheering and shooting off rockets at 7:00 AM.
I slept right through it.
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Amsterdam to Seoul - 5320 miles
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