Did you know Adelaide is in Egypt?

Last year the Adelaide Museum reopened their Egyptian exhibit. I was so happy to spend a couple hours wandering through it. I will get to Egypt one of these days.

The blue woman is Nut, a sky goddess.

One of the symbols that represented 'woman' was a cow. Hathor was a fertility goddess. The murals are so awesome.


Of course if you visit Adelaide wineries are around every corner. This is a pretty one. It's very easy to spend the day sampling wines and cheeses. Make sure you have a driver.

A couple hours outside of Adelaide is a nice park made up of a dam and lake. The water in the lake is the water resource for all the surrounding communities.

Check out the little dinosaurs! These lorikeets love the berries on a cedar tree.

Last thoughts on Mexico

Since this is my last post about my trip to Cancun I thought I'd close with some photos of some of the different art found during the trip.

The arts are very important to the Mayans and the examples are everywhere.

From plaques on walls showing moon/sun/iguanas emblems. .....


.... to ceramic plates used for wall decorations



Murals of ancient legends telling stories of their history...



And swans made of towels in the resort.










Don't we clean up nice? Every now and again there are reasons to dress up and pretend to be ladies.

Enough of Mexico. On to the next adventure!

More on Mexico and the ruins near Cancun

Several of the tours I went on included stops at a local gift shop that were quite happy to help lighten your wallet. These shops were for the local artists, and all revenue went back to the villages, not to some corporation in another country. The murals on the building walls reflected the Mayan history and were wonderful examples of the local legends.

Bundles of hammocks hung from the walls.  The temptation was huge to bring one home, but then what?

Beautiful platters and plates decorated the walls for you to choose from.

The murals on the white washed abode walls told the ancient legends of the Maya people who once lived in these lands.


The majority of the buildings and homes in the area are thatched roofs, with stone walls. This let the tradewinds blow through them and the stone kept them cool. No a/c in these areas. All of the rest stops along the way were absolutely spotless, with an attendant in the restrooms, wiping and cleaning all the time. Of course there was a tip jar, but with the floors spotless white stone, and the facilities clean and well stocked, I'm not complaining.


 

 Simple cotton dresses and shirts were everywhere, hand sewn and decorated with native designs and symbols.  The only problem with bringing it home is that the first time it's washed it will shrink to nothing because it is cotton that hasn't been treated like the fabrics we're used to.

Jewelry made from silver, obsidian stone and local jade tempted even the most stubborn shopper.  It was so hard to not bring home huge expensive pieces.

 Obsidian stone gleams gold in the sun when the angle is right.  One of the enduring legends of why the Spanish were looking for 'cities of gold' was the obsidian stone columns gleaned gold in the sun and visible from ships at sea gave the illusion of gold walls.

When the Spanish invaded and conquered the Mayan people they demanded 'where is the gold' not knowing that the black volcanic rock was what they mistaken for gold.
 

Hammocks ready to be bought and hung.

Murals covered the walls to tell the Mayan legends