Many of the street corner names clearly refer to a building or structure that is, or once was, on that corner. Like Los Arcos de Santa Lucia, showing where one of the original gates to the city was located. Or El Elefante, which I will get to in a later post. Those are the easy ones. Some, however, really do make you wonder just what the people were thinking.
Take 'El Toro Agachado' (61 x 74) for example. It means 'The bull crouched', which should be pretty straightforward, right? Bullfighting has been a beloved sport here for hundreds of years, and Merida has a working bullring.
Not so fast..... The corner in question is many blocks from the bull ring, in what has, as far as I can tell, always been a relatively well populated area. So what's the story?
There are two recorded explanations for its name, neither of which contain an actual four legged, horn waving bull. I know which one I will choose to believe, but I will leave you to decide for yourself.
The first legend concerns young couple in love, but the girl's parents did not approve of the young man, and did not want their daughter seeing him. Not far from their house was a vacant lot, where the young man would hide, crouching under cover, to wait for his love. Touching, and appealing to the romantics among us.
The other story also speaks of a basic human need, although this one is quite different from young love. In the first half of the 19th century, General Francisco de Paula Toro was appointed ruler of the peninsula by Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, not because of any particular talent that General Toro possessed, but because the two had been military brothers.
One day, General Toro was riding in his buggy through the unpaved streets of the city, when he felt a sudden and urgent need, the likes of which many visitors to Mexico will be familiar. The General ordered his driver to stop the buggy near a vacant lot, where he scurried into the bushes, and crouched down to relieve his belly-griping. No one knows if there was someone else nearby who spread the tale, or if the buggy driver shared what he had seen, but we do know that Mexicans, like most other people, love to gossip, and soon the neighbours began pointing out the corner, saying "Here is where the bull crouched". And that name stuck.
Whatever the true story is, this street corner name dates back around 200 years. The placa itself was placed here in the 1980s.
Take 'El Toro Agachado' (61 x 74) for example. It means 'The bull crouched', which should be pretty straightforward, right? Bullfighting has been a beloved sport here for hundreds of years, and Merida has a working bullring.Not so fast..... The corner in question is many blocks from the bull ring, in what has, as far as I can tell, always been a relatively well populated area. So what's the story?
There are two recorded explanations for its name, neither of which contain an actual four legged, horn waving bull. I know which one I will choose to believe, but I will leave you to decide for yourself.
The first legend concerns young couple in love, but the girl's parents did not approve of the young man, and did not want their daughter seeing him. Not far from their house was a vacant lot, where the young man would hide, crouching under cover, to wait for his love. Touching, and appealing to the romantics among us.
The other story also speaks of a basic human need, although this one is quite different from young love. In the first half of the 19th century, General Francisco de Paula Toro was appointed ruler of the peninsula by Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, not because of any particular talent that General Toro possessed, but because the two had been military brothers.
One day, General Toro was riding in his buggy through the unpaved streets of the city, when he felt a sudden and urgent need, the likes of which many visitors to Mexico will be familiar. The General ordered his driver to stop the buggy near a vacant lot, where he scurried into the bushes, and crouched down to relieve his belly-griping. No one knows if there was someone else nearby who spread the tale, or if the buggy driver shared what he had seen, but we do know that Mexicans, like most other people, love to gossip, and soon the neighbours began pointing out the corner, saying "Here is where the bull crouched". And that name stuck.
Whatever the true story is, this street corner name dates back around 200 years. The placa itself was placed here in the 1980s.
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