When you pull into the parking lot, you are greeted by the skeleton of a whale which has been reconstituted into a sort of macabre memento mori for marine mammals. It hangs under a shelter, next to the snack bar, which was presumably meant to be staffed by the nice lady with the empty coke bottles who looks like she is doing a spell as she draws in the dust on her table.
Legend (aka my father) has it that the whale was impaled on a cruise ship and killed, then the children of Bonaire put its bones back together for the display. As it turns out, this is just the beginning of the bone parade.
The five-room museum itself is full of the islands dead. Here we see the glorious skeletal flamingo, no doubt filtering for undead shrimp. Night at the museum here must be terrifying.
Also on display, a dead iguana, which looks like it would make a fun pet. You know, if the dead were raised and you needed a seeing-eye skeleton.
Goats get their own case, probably because they run in herds. With what is probably the goat king hanging over the doorway. Or its the bunny from Donnie Darko.... I wasnt sure which.
Donkeys seem under represented, with a donkey jaw relegated to the musical instruments display. I am especially excited that calling this place the death museum in dutch makes it the doodsmuseum. Sounds right.
Bird bones must be harder to care for (and feed), because the islands birds are depicted via painting.
There are exhibits on the geology/archeology/slavery of the island in the museum too. They are all pretty small and may have originally occured as school reports. One room is dedicated to displaying coral.
Now that we have faced death, we are off for the next stop... The Golf Course of Dooooooom.
No comments:
Post a Comment