peeking through the rainbow

peeking through the rainbow

of a handwoven hammock,

beautiful dark eyes

When I was 8 our family made a road trip to central Mexico. It was the first time I had been to another country and it made a deep and lasting impression: handmade tortillas, handmade dolls, handmade silver jewelry and handmade hammocks. We brought a wide white hammock back with us and it hung swinging between two trees in our backyard for many happy summers.

In March this year I travel to the Yucatán for the first time. This is the home of Mexican hammocks and they are still handwoven. Hammocks in rainbow colors and pristine white hang in gracefull curves along the pedestrian streets of Playa del Carmen, a seaside resort, in a little shop in Nohoch Nah Chiich, a Maya village way back in the jungle, in a hammock haven in Xel Ha, a popular water park, and in every Maya home throughout the Yucatán.

Hammocks were not part of Classic Maya civilization, but are thought to have arrived in the Yucatán from the Caribbean some two hundred years before the Spanish.

Originally made of bark and sisal, today they are woven from cotton or synthetic thread. Woven by hand on looms, by men, women and children, the quality of the hammock depends on the number of threads used.

Hammocks are used for sitting, sleeping, rocking infants (and adults), as in this hammock haven at Xel Ha.

And sometimes they're great for just fooling around!