Day 14: Grab your tit! (Leon)

I can safely say I've visited the weirdest (and most fun) museum in Leon, mostly likely Nicaragua and perhaps the world.

When artist Dona Carmen Toruna de Garcia asked the Mayor of Leon for somewhere to house her growing collection of giant papier-mâché models depicting the myths and legends of Nicaragua, he gave her Prison 21.

We'll never know what the Mayor was smoking that day, but what we do know, is that he gave rise to one of the greatest museum tours I've ever experienced.

To set the scene: Prison 21 was where the Somozas, the country's dictating dynasty, held and tortured political prisoners.

In 1979, Sandinista revolutionaries got hold of a National Guard tank and ram-raided the prison, freeing their comrades and ending its brutal regime forever.

Fast forward a decade or so and in comes Dona Carmen, with her giant papier-mâché figures and bang, you've got the tour of a lifetime.

My guide was the absolutely lovely Cindy, a tourism student at the University of Leon. Cindy delighted in telling me things like:

"This is where they'd hang people upside down naked and electrocute them."
"This is where they'd force them to drink salt water until they vomited."
"This is where they'd force them to swallow a button on a string which they'd then yank to tear their insides."

Cindy bloody loved this stuff.

Each of the prison cells is home to a different collection of large papier-mâché figures depicting the cultural and mystical past of Nicaragua, so alongside a gruesome prison tale, I'd also get a legend.

My favourite has to be the figure of an ugly woman with one giant breast hanging out of her dress.

Legend has it, the woman was so ugly no one would marry her (despite the big boobies) so her father offered half his fortune to the man who would agree to take her hand, but still, no one did.

The woman died alone and now, legend has it she stalks the streets of Leon preying on unsuspecting men, sticking her nipple into their mouths, suffocating them and shouting "Grab your tit! Grab your tit!".

Can you imagine an old dear at the National Trust explaining that one to you?! Me either.

A sample of other legends:

- Pig witches who stalk the streets biting unfaithful men
- A spurned indigenous woman who drags Spaniards back to her cave to kill them
- Gnomes who steal unbaptised children and abandon them in the mountains

Some seriously disturbing shit, and Cindy tells me they have school trips there almost every day - do the children get the tit story?!

Who knows what Dona Carmen and the Mayor were thinking when they made their deal, but thank God they did.

It's dark now, so I'm off to check the streets for crazed half-naked women putting their breasts in men's faces - just your average night out in Mansfield come to think of it!


Travel tips:

1 Entry to the El Museo de Tradiciones y Leyendas is under $2 and includes a free tour in English or Spanish - what a bargain!