Guatemalan Wall Hanging

Checking out some woven scarves in the main square, Antigua

The main square, Antigua

As I mentioned in a previous post, Guatemala is famous for its woven and embroidered goods. Their crafts in general, locally known as artesanias, are a part of Mayan culture, often using techniques that predate the arrival of the Spanish. The greatest craft is textile weaving and embroidery, often with designs that are traditional to a local village. All have fantastic patterns and vivid colors, especially greens, reds, yellows and oranges. 

A seller in the main square, Antigua

The main square, Antigua

Probably the best place to buy crafts is in the villages scattered around the country, but the markets in the towns all have good crafts shops and markets too. And the main square in Antigua, where we were based, has many roving craft sellers, the women wearing bright Mayan clothes. 

Meet Ruth, a seller loaded with lovely crafts

Ruth and I after we bought a gorgeous wall hanging from her

Rod had decided that we would buy a special wall hanging, so each time we walked through the square in Antigua we casually looked, just to get an idea of what was available. One late afternoon we chatted to a lovely Mayan woman called Ruth. She spoke really good English, and told us she learned it by talking to her friends. She’s from one of the villages outside Antigua, an hour or so bus ride away. We had seen her on other days, so we guess she comes into town most days in the hope of making a couple of sales.

The front of our wall hanging

The back of the wall hanging is just as beautiful—like a mirror image

Note the quetzals

After some chatting and a little bargaining (which seems to be expected) we ended up with a truly gorgeous embroidered wall hanging. We chose that one as it has quetzals, the national bird of Guatemala and the name of their currency. Ruth told us that her mother had embroidered it and that it took her over a month. It’s easy to believe that, as the workmanship is excellent, so fine. One side is brightly colored, but the other side is equally beautiful in a quieter way, like a negative of the front. We’ll have to figure out how to hang it so that people can see both sides!

WC Signs in Guatemala

Women’s WC at Guatemala City airport

At a brewing company in Guatemala City

As I’ve written before, wherever we travel in the world, whether at home, locally, or to far-flung places, we all need to find the WC. Some call them toilets, others the WC, a bathroom, or a restroom. Some just have the red female sign and the blue male sign—something we’ve found very useful in Asian countries. Whatever the name, in public they all need to have a sign, and over the years we’ve collected some really fun and interesting signs from different places—some are straightforward, some cute, some a bit risqué.

We were recently in Guatemala and found a number of pretty, different, and/or interesting signs, which I’ll post here.

Mayan glyph for men at Tikal

Mayan female glyph at Tikal

At the end of this post are links to other posts about WC signs that I’ve written. If you’re interested, please click and have fun looking at them.

Interesting Signs Around the World: For the WC

Dublin Loos

WC Signs

More Interesting WC Signs

Colorful Guatemala

These painted buses are called chicken buses, perhaps because passengers often carry chickens or other livestock in the buses

The chicken buses are repainted American yellow school buses

We recently visited Guatemala, as I mentioned earlier in the post about murals in Guatemala. One of the main impressions that you get in this country is one of color. There seems to be color everywhere–the walls of buildings and churches; bold murals; in the clothes that many people wear, especially the local Mayan women who sell bright curios in the main squares; in the gorgeous fabrics that are draped for sale in shops; in the gardens with a mass of blooming flowers; on the painted buses; the colorful native birds. Guatemala is known for its beautiful woven and embroidered goods, and the curio stalls and shops lay them out very temptingly.

Macaws

We dubbed this “curio alley”

An open-air stone pila, washing pools where local women could gather to wash, scrub and chat

We were mainly in Antigua, the old capital, and Tikal, where the famous Mayan city was—some parts whole, some in ruins, some still covered in vegetation, waiting to be excavated.

La Merced Church in Antigua has an intricate and impressive facade

Fresh flowers inside the main cathedral

Of course, there are some drab areas, but certainly not in the places where there are tourists—and the Guatemalans want the tourists as tourism is one of the main sources of income for the country.

A Mayan top, in the Ixchel Museum in Guatemala City. The museum has a great collection of traditional weaving

Another Mayan top. Many local women today wear similar ones

A street in Antigua

Many walls have wisteria and/or bougainvillea draped down them

We loved trying to capture the kaleidoscope of color photographically, so here is a small selection of photos—a kind of photographic essay on the vibrant colors of Guatemala. Enjoy scrolling through!

This lovely courtyard in Antigua has a restaurant where we ate a number of times

Women selling fruit at the main market in Antigua

In the main square Antigua

The roof terrace at our hotel

Even the fruit seller’s cart is decorated

A thought-provoking mural

Shrine

Murals in Guatemala

You love Antigua

You love Tikal

Following the theme of murals and street art, which I’ve written about in many cities (including our home town), we were on the lookout in Guatemala.

A wall on the highway out of Guatemala City towards Antigua.

The same wall. A child theme, as there is a Children’s Museum close by

In early February we spent 10 days in Guatemala, mainly in Antigua and Tikal. It was our first visit there and we weren’t sure what to expect: there had been a lot of talk about crime, but we planned carefully, and actually where we were it was pretty safe.

Mythical creatures—a mural near a brewery

Even the bins are colorful

Antigua, the old capital before Guatemala City, is a bustling city, vibrant with a lively tourist community. It’s bright and cheerful, with multi-colored buildings lining the narrow cobblestoned streets and the lovely central plaza. Local Mayan women, in gorgeous traditional dresses, wander around selling their wonderful woven goods (Guatemala is famous for its weaving). Tropical trees and flowers abound, adding to the feeling of color everywhere. Nothing drab here!

In a coffee shop. The quetzal is the national bird and the name of the currency

In the airport in Flores, gateway to Tikal

So, at first, we were surprised that we didn’t see many murals or much street art, as that is such a great vehicle for expressing part of a culture. But, as we explored more, we did find many instances, some tucked away, others more obvious. As you may know, we love murals and street art so, of course, we were delighted. 

A painted tuk-tuk

Tuk-tuk used as a clothing display in a courtyard store

Here are some examples of the colorful art that we found—from murals both outdoors and inside, to brightly-painted tuk-tuks, to splashes of color in other places. The photos are in no particular order.

Beautiful traditional clothes

The clothes and the weaving are really gorgeous and intricate

More on Guatemala coming up next!

More Urbana Murals, all beautiful vibrant designs

This may be my last post on local murals for a while, because I think that we have tracked down most of the new(er) murals in town.

The first two were created in 2022.

The first is “Dance on Illinois,” on an apartment building at 806 W. Illinois. It’s by Rafael Blanco, and was intentionally placed near the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts. When interviewed by Smile Politely, Champaign-Urbana’s online Culture Magazine, the artist said the best thing about creating an outdoor mural is transforming an empty/boring wall into an exciting work of art. He wants the mural to have a visual impact and for the grey and empty wall to become a source of inspiration with just some paint on it. For him, the most challenging thing about creating outdoor murals is the rain. In his opinion, public art is for all ages, backgrounds, and ethnicities, and it tends to connect and unite viewers despite their differences. See his website, https://rafael-blanco.com/home (click on the bars on the upper left for detailed information).

The second mural is “Native Prairie Roses” on the Rose Bowl Tavern wall in Urbana, by Kinsey Fitzgerald. She is on FaceBook and LinkedIn.

When interviewed by Smile Politely, she said the best thing about creating an outdoor mural is the continual collaboration with the elements, and the community. She said that for her, she loves working big. For her, the most challenging thing is the elements and the weather. As she said, the inspiration for this mural was inspired by the idea of re-wilding downtown Urbana with native flowers of this region to inform the public and to call attention to prairie flowers. For her, the Rose Bowl Tavern itself was an inspiration, partly because of the name, and the local music scene it is cultivating. She hopes to do more murals around town with the re-wilding theme, perhaps with Coneflowers or Black-Eyed Susans.

I’ve also added a lovely indoor bird mural at the café in Allerton Park, in the nearby town of Monticello, owned by the University of Illinois.

And a mural on the edge of a parking lot on campus, with a football theme (football is very big at the University of Illinois).

Sleepy Creek Vineyards

Vines at Sleepy Creek

For many years, as we’ve driven on I-74 near the town of Danville, east central Illinois, we’ve seen a sign saying an attraction is Sleep Creek Vineyards. And each time we’ve said, “Oh, we must try that one day” but never did.

So, last September when my sister was visiting from South Africa, we decided to make a small lunch outing of it. And it was fun, further cementing our idea that Illinois in general, and east central Illinois where we live, have so much more to offer than just flat corn and soybean fields.

People might think that Illinois is not a state that’s suitable for growing grapes, but it turns out that there are many wineries in southern Illinois that make quite good wine. And now here is one in the central part of the state too.

An owl sculpture, trying to protect the grapes from other birds

Entrance walkway

The winery is not difficult to find, and is only about 20 miles from our town Urbana-Champaign. Take exit 206 off I-74 and drive about 4 miles south, through the small town of Oakwood. The winery is clearly marked soon after you leave the town. You drive past vines as you enter the gate and then see the tasting room and winery in a lovely wood timber frame barn. Parking is at the back of that.

Events venue

The pond with vines beyond

The tasting room and winery overlook a large grassy area and pond, with the vines beyond. Next door is another wooden building, called the “Dragonfly”, used as a venue for special events, such as weddings or birthday parties. In addition, we discovered that upstairs above the tasting room there is a B&W (a bed and wine, not a B&B!) that people can rent. Live music is also offered many weekends.

Tasting Room

The staff in the tasting room are super friendly and helpful. There’s a board listing the various offerings and for many people there’s a large choice, of mostly sweeter wines and wine mixes. Their wines are made on site, from their own grapes, and other fruit, like blueberries, from other growers. Sadly, for us, there was only one dry white wine, which is what we drink. (No dry rose wine either). We bought a bottle of it, called “Dreamer”, and opted to sit outside on the patio, watching hundreds of butterflies happily flitting around the colorful bushes and flowers. We also ordered a supreme pizza, which went well with the wine. I think that it’s also okay if people bring their own snacks.

My sister

Window in the tasting room. Note the dragonfly theme

The cellar where the wine is made

With our friends

It was lovely to sit outside and sip, enjoying the view. The wine was quite acceptable, just slightly off-dry, and we bought another bottle to take home. Another feature, good for cat lovers, is that the winery has a number of very friendly cats that are quite happy to come and say hallo and sit on your lap if you allow it.

We returned another weekend with some local friends and enjoyed the experience again. The winery feels warm and welcoming and the ambiance is lovely. Now we want to bring our family from St Louis when they visit. 

My sister and I

Sleepy Creek Vineyards, 8254 E 1425 North Road, Fairmount, IL

Summer hours, April-October. Sunday-Thursday Noon-6pm. Fri-Sat 10am-8pm

Winter Hours, November-March. Sunday-Thursday noon-6pm, Fri-Sat 10am-6pm

https://www.sleepycreekvineyards.com

Urbana, IL. More Local Murals

Urbana Adult Education Building

Bicycle Alley, Urbana

Urbana-Champaign in east central Illinois is a vibrant university town with lots going for it in terms of cultural activities, a great music scene, plenty of educational opportunities and a food scene with dishes from around the globe.

In recent years, the public art offerings have grown a lot too and we’ve had fun trying to track them down. I’ve written a number of times about some of the colorful murals before: see here https://viviennemackie.wordpress.com/2016/12/02/homegrown-murals/ and here https://viviennemackie.wordpress.com/2022/10/03/urbana-reading-is-magical-mural/ for example.

Bicycle Alley, Urbana

As I’ve written before, public art is wonderful for so many reasons: for example, it’s free and available to anyone who goes to that spot, it’s a way of sharing culture outside of a museum, it attracts people to that spot and hopefully beautifies it in some way, it may be decorative or functional (like ornate benches in a park or a decorated water tank), it may expose people to artistic ideas they might not otherwise have seen.

These next murals I’ll showcase certainly do brighten the spot they are in/on.

Urbana Adult Education Center, across from Urbana Middle School, has large murals by Rafael Blanco. Blanco is a contemporary artist who is very interested in identity, human expression and diversity & inclusion. He has painted many murals all across the country, so we are lucky to have some of his mural work here in Urbana. He is currently an Assistant Professor in drawing, painting and art history at Elmhurst University.

Curtis Orchard: the whole mural

At Curtis Orchard and Pumpkin Patch in Champaign is a wonderful mural on the big barn door as you approach the entrance. The central theme is the Yellow Brick Road in the Wizard of Oz. The flanking paintings feature goats, a horse, a sheep and many birds. It seems fitting, as Curtis Orchard also has some animals in a small petting area, and they offer tractor rides round the actual orchards in a fairly rural setting. I couldn’t find out who the artist is—-there is no name on the mural that we could see, and not much information online. But, whoever it is, they did a great job, as it’s colorful and eye-catching.

The third groups of murals are in the Bicycle Alley, a graffiti hallway between Courier Café, Pizza M, and Siam Terrace in downtown Urbana. It’s a series of murals by local artists spearheaded by Langston Allston (whom we’ve featured before). Allston is a local Illinois artist and an alumnus of the University Of Illinois. The murals are a way of celebrating bicycle culture in Urbana, and to offer a warm and welcome spot in downtown Urbana.

The murals I show here are closest to the Courier Café.

Harden Bison Ranch

The next best thing to seeing them in the wild

Illinois never ceases to amaze us with the variety of events on offer and the enormous diversity of its landscape. We live in east central Illinois, where it’s basically totally flat (due to long-past glacial movements) and fertile, so it’s corn and soybean country almost as far as the eye can see. But, there are many pockets of something different, and a bison ranch certainly fits the bill. Who would have thought that we had a bison ranch just around the corner, almost!

Our first view of some of the bison in one paddock

At the end of September, I read that Harden Bison Ranch not too far from our town was offering hayrides for a few weekends, so people could get closer to these magnificent animals and learn more about them. We signed up and paid online, luckily, as only a certain number can go on each hayride.

Bison and calf

It was a bright sunny day, perfect for sitting on bales of hay and being pulled by a tractor on small tracks between the fenced bison paddocks. The owner drives the tractor and his wife stands on the wagon with the hay bales. 

On the wagon

When we stopped, at first the animals were not too interested but then they started coming closer

She is passionate about the animals and their ranch’s small role in trying to conserve these iconic creatures, which are the largest mammals in North America. They do not have a large herd (about 20-something if I remember correctly) but obviously care about them all. She tells our group facts and figures about bison: males can weigh up to 2,000lbs and can be 6 feet tall, while females weigh up to 1,000 lbs with a height of 4-5 feet; the average lifespan is 12-15 years, although some can live longer; females begin breeding at age 2 years, and have one calf at a time; they are herbivores, eating all kinds of grasses, weeds, sedges. 

Coming closer

This one has been rolling in a pile of dried grass

She also emphasized that bison and buffalo in the USA are the same animal and that some people use those two names interchangeably. Their Latin name is Bison bison. People think that the word “buffalo” came from the French word for beef, which is “boeuf”. The Lakota Indian name for bison is “tatanka”.

From the wagon—you can see how close we were

It was a fun hay ride and we learned quite a lot about the bison, as well as getting quite close to some of the animals—the owner got off the tractor when we stopped and threw some pellet treats into the paddock to entice the animals to come closer, which they slowly did. 

Rod took this photo—those are my hands holding my phone camera

At the spot where you wait for the rides there are some games and toys for kids, and a couple of picnic tables

Rod and I at the end of the ride

At the end of the ride, it was possible to buy T-shirts or some bison meat (we bought a pack of bison tails, similar to ox tails, which made a wonderful stew). The Hardens also have a stall at the Urbana Farmers’ Market sometimes. They are a family-owned and operated business. Read more on their website.

https://www.hardenbisonranch.com

Museum of The Grand Prairie

Get Transported Back in Time in Champaign County, Illinois

We live in a university town (Urbana-Champaign) in east-central Illinois, about 130 miles (200 km) south of Chicago. It’s not huge but it has many great educational and cultural facilities, right in the city, or in neighboring towns. 

One excellent small museum is the Museum of the Grand Prairie about 10 miles away in a town called Mahomet. 

Central atrium of the museum

The museum is on the western edge of a large forest preserve called Lake of the Woods (with a lake and a golf course), so it’s easy to combine a visit to the museum with some outdoor activities.

In the days before the European settlers arrived in this part of the country, much of the land was covered in tall-grass prairie, hence the name of the museum. The museum interprets the natural and cultural history of east-central Illinois with two floors of exhibits. These explore the stories of local residents and the prairie landscape, through artefacts, photographs, multimedia presentations (giving many hands-on opportunities), and a reconstructed store and small church interior. It’s a great way of looking into the past and discovering how people lived, learning about their survival habits, tools and habitation.

A theme that runs through most of the exhibits is “stories”—that everyone has a story to tell and share and that by sharing stories we pass down our history and traditions. There are many local stories shared here, making this feel very authentic. 

Abraham Lincoln was well-known as a US President, but he was also famous locally as a circuit-court lawyer and he visited the counties around here frequently. Many places in Illinois have a “Looking for Lincoln” trail and here is no exception. Go through the exhibit “Champaign County’s Lincoln”, and note his buggy at the entrance, see Kelly’s Tavern, and the prairie landscapes that Lincoln knew. There are hand-written letters and notices, some recorded voices telling stories and much more. Luckily, this was at a time when many things were recorded and written down, so there’s a pretty good local record.

Entrance to Lincoln exhibit

Another event that we learn was very instrumental in changing life here was the arrival of the railroad. The Iron Road opened up a new world of markets and allowed an influx of immigration. We’d always known that Illinois had many people with an immigrant origin, but this helped us understand where they came from and where in Illinois, and where in Champaign County, they settled. 

It’s an enjoyable, small museum, and we had fun when I took international visitors there. Kids also love it, as there are many hands-on activities for them.

From the back of the museum a short walk takes you to the botanical garden

Behind the museum is a charming small botanical garden and when we were there in late summer there were many gorgeous zinnias making a bright splash.

A little further down is a Japanese-style bridge over a pond full of hungry koi fish, and a small waterfall—another lovely outdoor touch, and the setting for a number of weddings, prom photos etc.

Well worth a visit and we’ll return in the spring to see what the botanical garden has growing then.

Dublin’s Tenement Museum

14 Henrietta Street

I have been writing about our trip to Ireland and Scotland here on this blog, but I have so many other trips to document that I’ve decided to re-start posting the Ireland and Scotland stories on my other blog, Viv’s Celtic connections.

Please do take a look and enjoy.

Dublin’s Tenement Museum, 14 Henrietta Street