When looking through the Fototeca website I was interested in the Animales category. In this I found a photo of a horse drawn carriage on the street and immediately thought of the many many horse carriages I see all around Merida everyday. The specific photo I was looking at was taken around 1883-1930. The horse drawn carriages were the most popular form of transport in Mexico at that time period before cars came around. When horse drawn carriages became popular, they were used more by the upper classes since it was much more expensive to use back then. And now these services are much more cheaper and accessible and they are still very prevalent all over, mostly for tourists though. Even with all of the advancements in modern transportation, I really have begun to wonder why these services are still used so commonly. It is clear that they have become a tourist attraction and that really is the only reason why these are still used. It looks like a fun experience for tourists to see the towns for a cheap price but that is not the reality for the horses. Back then Merida was not as hot as it is now, so the conditions for the horses were much less appalling and the uses for the carriages were a lot more practical. But now these horses look like they are genuinely suffering with the intense heat mixed with being forced to carry these heavy carriages around all day. I discovered that the Mexican government has been considering putting a ban on horse drawn carriages for a while now but I am wondering why a ban has not been put in place yet? I read that some of the horses are actually forced to drink sewage water and they also get beaten by their owners. How is this not considered abuse? How are people still willingly getting on these carriages feeling no sort of way towards the animal suffering just for a 30 minute tourist ride around a city? It was obviously used in a practical way back when the photo was taken from the website, but now there is no more practical use…just purely for the tourists amusement.
