Scariest Place on Earth

I recently heard from a friend that Guanajuato was on TV as one of the scariest places on earth. Of course, my immediate reaction was "no way!" but then I remembered that Guanajuato has a really strange museum. It's been almost two months since I visited Guanajuato's mummy museum, and I can't believe that I haven't written about it yet!

The Museo de las Momias is one thing that Guanajuato is most famous for, so of course, I had to visit. I don't know what I was expecting...probably mummies like the Egyptians had. Not quite what I encountered at this museum - there were no gold sarcophagi or linen-wrapped bodies.

Apparently, the soil around Guanajuato naturally mummifies anything buried in it very quickly. As a result, the mummies are extraordinarily well-preserved. Most of them still have their original clothes and many have their hair, nails and skin.

The mummies all have unique stories. There is the world's smallest mummy, a pregnant mummy, and a mummy who had been buried alive. Because of the rapid mummification, it is possible to know exactly how many of these people died. Many of the bodies are from the lat 19th century and early 20th century. The dates show that the people were buried five to six years before they were exhumed and discovered to be perfectly preserved.

The reason the mummies were discovered in the first place was a shortage of graves. As a result, the people of Guanajuato were forced to reuse graves and in the process, they began finding the mummies. The mummies were originally displayed in giant stone hallways, but now they are in temperature-regulated cases. The mummies travel all over the world as part of various exhibitions. If you get the chance to see this exhibition, you should definitely jump on the opportunity.

The Museo de las Momias is a great example of the strange obsession people in Guanajuato have with death. While this is a fascinating museum, it is not a place that I would ever bring little children, however, there were whole families snapping photos of themselves in front of the mummies. Something like this would be considered morbid in the States, but here it is a part of life, and no one is shielded from it. I knew that the general view of death was different after studying the Dia de los Muertos or the Day of the Dead, but this really made me realize how differently Americans see death. As a culture, we try to ignore it and avoid talking about it, but here it is definitely a reality that is in your face! It raises the question of who has the better viewpoint....