Interesting Tourist places and things

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Island Of The Dolls



The Island Of The Dolls (Isla de las Muñecas), located in the vast network of canals that lies to the south of Mexico City, near Xochimilco is one of the creepiest tourist attraction in Mexico. Here, among the branches and dead trees hang hundreds of old, mutilated dolls.




The story goes that some half a century ago a little girl drowned off a small island hidden deep amongst the canals of Xochimico. The island’s only permanent inhabitant was a hermit named Don Julián Santana Barrera, who despite having a wife and family, chose to live alone on the island. Soon after the girl’s death Barrera fished out one doll after another from the canals. Convinced that this was a sign from the evil spirit, Don Julian Santana began hanging them on trees to protect himself from evil and calm the spirit of the dead girl. Soon Don Julián had made the entire island into a shrine.



Santana did not clean up the dolls or attempt to fix them, but rather put them up with missing eyes and limbs, covered in dirt. Even when dolls arrived in good shape, the wind and weather naturally decomposed them over time creating a gallery of eerie and ghoulish faces.



As well as damage from the sun – which leaves many of the dolls covered in bubbles, blotches and blisters – the wind and rain have also left their mark, eroding any surface paint and leaving behind pale, skull-like faces, or gradually gnawing away the dolls’ fake hair to create jagged tufts that make them look as if they’re suffering from an agonising wasting disease.

Many are also missing arms or legs – or have been given the limb of another doll that clearly doesn’t match – and even toys without heads are welcome on the island, many strung from washing lines or shoved into the gaps between branches, their exposed necks becoming a home for the exotic spiders and insects that inhabit this sprawling agricultural region.

Don Julian Santana lived on the island for 50 years before his death in 2001. He was found drowned in the same area in which he believed the little girl had died.

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The Town With Population of One




Monowi is a village in Nebraska, United States, whose only remaining resident is a 77-year old woman named Elsie Eiler. Eiler lives in a mobile home a half-block from the only business left in Monowi, a dark, wood-paneled tavern, thick with smoke which Eiler runs. She also runs the town library, a tiny building jammed with 5,000 books left behind by her late husband who was a devoted reader. Elise is also the mayor of Monowi.



Monowi's peak years were in the 1930s, when it had a population of 130. Monowi, like many other small communities in the Great Plains, lost its younger residents to cities that were experiencing growth and offering better jobs. During the 2000 census, the village had a total population of 2 - only one married couple, Rudy and Elsie Eiler. Mr. Eiler died in 2004, leaving his wife Elsie Eiler as the only remaining resident.



Eiler's life as its mayor and sole resident is surreal. Once a year she raises taxes from herself to keep the four street lights on and a few other basic amenities going. She runs the town's only business, the Monowi Tavern, and lives in the only remaining habitable building. She grants her own liquor licence and elects herself mayor. Her customers come off the highway that runs through Monowi or from nearby towns.

This town is an extreme example of what has happened across America's heartland. The depopulation of the countryside over the last 50 years has been called the largest migration in American history. Nowhere is that more starkly illustrated than on the Great Plains, which includes Nebraska, Kansas and Oklahoma.



An abandoned building that was once a general store leans into trees as it slowly decays in Monowi. The general store closed when World War II started and the owner moved out of town to serve on the draft board.

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