It's not just any giant head, it's "Escultura Cabeza Gigante," or "Giant Head Sculpture." And it's quite the photo spot.
Google Maps officialyl calls this Giant Head: "Escultura Cabeza Gigante (Árbol Adentro de José Fors)," Giant Head Sculpture (Tree Inside by José Fors). Yes, there was a tree at the top of the head. If you need to ask why there's a tree atop the head, ask instead why the giant head?
Things continued to stay interesting as I walked northward on Avenida Fray Antonio Alcade. I was walking toward an interesting church tower and happened upon a pink carousel:
This is the Carrusel Monumental de Guadalajara. It's apparently permanent here in Parque La Reforma:
That's the interesting church tower off to the left of the Monumental Carousel.
Off to the left of the tower is a smaller church.
It's Presbyterian. Moving along ...
A metal bull.
The church with the high thin tower is Santuario de San José de Gracia.
It's Sunday. Mass was going on. But I snapped a picture of the church insides from the church's outside, which I think is OK.
Again, didn't want to interrupt the mass. El Santuario de San José de Gracia makes a nice backdrop for what I am guessing is quinceañera photography.
The tell-tale sign that it is quinceañera photography and not wedding photography is this: no groom.
I returned to the area of the Cathedral, heading for the state museum, where I stopped to listen to a blind trumpeter playing a very respectable version of the Cuban jazz standard
"Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White". I tipped because (a) I like the song, and (b) the trumpet part ain't easy.
On to the Regional Museum of Guadalajara.
The museum had artifacts from the local indigenous cultures:
Always pottery. Always anthropomorphic pottery.
Seeing the building was worth the price of admission.
The price of admission was, again, gratis, which is one of my favorite words in Spanish,
I do like the central courtyards in these old, repurposed structures.
They old extinct animal bones.
I believe this is a mastodon. Could be a mammoth. Do I know the difference? I'm not a biologist, as the saying goes.
More indigenous artifacts:
In that last set, the one on the left really looks like a hipster with that bored "too cool for school" facial expression. I guess the indigenous cultures of long ago too were cursed with hipsters.
Time to exit the small Regional Museum of Guadalajara and time to enter ...
Plazueta de los Mariachis. No wonder I did not find it on Friday. It's not a "plaza," but a mini-plaza. A "plazueta."
It did have a giant stylized trumpet player.
And a mariachi on a horse.
And the bust of a famous mariachi.
And that was it. I was told there would be strolling mariachi bands here. There wasn't. Dis. A. Pointing. I wanted mariachi music.
So as I am strolling back to the cathedral area, I again happen upon the notorious Fuente De Los Niños Traviesos: Fountain of the Naughty Children.
And the naughtiness is not limited to the statuary children.
Thankfully, the flesh-and-blood naughty child is with one of the children who has a respectable source of water: a frog. Soon, however, a non-naughty adult pulled the naughty child out of the fountain area and order was restored to the universe.
And just up from the Fountain of the Naughty Children is the Monumento A Beatriz Hernández: Monument to Beatriz Hernández.
I don't know who Beatriz Hernández is, but she must've done something heroic. Purple tree (got to find out what these purple trees are) and Cathedral in the background.
I then noticed this interesting building.
Templo de Santa Maria de Gracia. The dome is a bit weather-beaten, but I liked the statuary at the roof line:
Are they saints? Apostles? Prophets? I don't know. I need to find out. But I've walking in the hot sun and it's time to take a break for the afternoon.
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