Tagging along on a trip to a petroleum engineering conference that my husband attended last week brought me to Villahermosa, Mexico. With something over half a million residents, Villahermosa is the largest city in the state of Tabasco, as well as its capital and hub of regional oil and gas activity.
We visited the Parque Museo La Venta, an open air museum displaying dozens of ancient Olmec carvings dating from 700 to 400 BC that were moved from their original site in the 1950s to make way for an oil refinery.
According to Wikipedia, the Olmecs were the first people in the Americas to settle in towns and cities, the first to build monumental architecture, and the first to develop a sophisticated style of stone sculpture. Carved from a single block of basalt, this triumphal altar is typical in depicting a person emerging from a cave at the base.
The Olmecs made good use of basalt's natural forms, as in this tomb constructed from basalt columns.
Similarly, they carved colossal heads from round basalt boulders.
In addition to these carvings, the museum has a small zoo with regional wildlife specimens, including spider monkeys,
jaguars, which are stunningly beautiful, though sad to see in cages,
We visited the Parque Museo La Venta, an open air museum displaying dozens of ancient Olmec carvings dating from 700 to 400 BC that were moved from their original site in the 1950s to make way for an oil refinery.
According to Wikipedia, the Olmecs were the first people in the Americas to settle in towns and cities, the first to build monumental architecture, and the first to develop a sophisticated style of stone sculpture. Carved from a single block of basalt, this triumphal altar is typical in depicting a person emerging from a cave at the base.
The Olmecs made good use of basalt's natural forms, as in this tomb constructed from basalt columns.
Similarly, they carved colossal heads from round basalt boulders.
jaguars, which are stunningly beautiful, though sad to see in cages,
and crocodiles.
Even better than the caged animals, were the couple dozen coatis we found amid Olmec carvings. Coatis, or coatimundis, are related to raccoons are are about as bold as raccoons. They weren't bothered in the least by us getting close enough to take photos.
In the space of fifteen minutes we saw a whole range of behaviors, from playing and fighting
to sleeping
and grooming.
We walked around the central part of Villahermosa for a good part of the day, simply enjoying the colonial era architecture in the historical district,
and the appealing candy colored scenes to be found on nearly every street.
The local history museum is notable for its vibrant blue tile exterior.
Maybe I found the blue so appealing because I happen to be currently working on two different blue quilts. During this trip I stitched together a big stack of four patch blocks using blues from my scrap bin. It's going to be a pretty simple quilt so I hope to finish it shortly.
And now that I've been home for a few days I've had a chance to finish quilting another piece so visit again soon to see a completed quilt!
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