Cock a doodle boo hoo

When we first checked into our room, the first thing I noticed was the giant skylight above the bed. Sounds great unless you’re a vampire sleeper like me – vampire in that if there’s light I’m awake. But it wasn’t the sun that woke me up because it wasn’t up yet when the rooster next door started. It was 3am so that whole thing about rooster’s announcing dawn is a lie, either that or this rooster had a defective internal clock. Somehow we managed to get back to sleep and dreamt of roast rooster until the sun came streaming through the skylight at about 6am.

Having done no sightseeing in Oaxaca, we were determined to make up for it here. Plus I still had to find the post office. First stop, for the second time, was the Mayan Medicine Museum. We retraced our steps past the blockaded land, this time going the two extra blocks that took us to the entrance. Being in the dodgy part of town, my expectations were low for this place despite everyone’s recos. And on first glimpse, it appeared that my expectations were appropriate. The Museum was more of a compound with a handful of small buildings scattered behind a wall (the photo above). But once inside I realized that this was more of a living cultural centre than a museum.

The first building was museum like with well-done displays on various aspects of Mayan Medical procedures still practiced today. It was then that the Mayan women I’d seen around town weren’t wearing the furry skirts and embroidered clothes for the tourists; that’s what they wore everyday and that’s what they’ve been wearing for centuries. Also learned about Mayan religion, an interesting combination of Mayan traditions and Catholic practices. But the most popular (or at least the most talked about) display was the one on Mayan childbirth – complete with a video shot and dubbed into English by anthropologists. What makes the procedure unique is the participation of the father. The woman kneels in front of him and he hugs her to support her as she pushes out the baby into the midwife’s arms. He has to go through the whole thing with her and if he’s not available to help out, it’s a big deal. There were some odd things that happen afterwards like the use of a live rooster to bless the baby. Apparently roosters are sacred animals to Mayans which may explain why the time-challenged one next door to the hostel was allowed to live despite his nighttime cockadoodledoos. And then there was the Coca-Cola ritual, wherein Coke is swallowed and then purged (either literally or occassionally just spit out) as a way of get rid of evil spirits in a person. Some of the folks from the hostel were going to see this ritual performed in a neighbouring town. I wanted to go, but something about intruding on a ritual seemed a little circus-like especially since the Mayans don’t even like to have their picture taken.

After the museum building, there was a well-labelled pharmaceutical garden and pharmacy where you could by traditional cures for everything from baldness to gout. Adrian of course wanted to buy the baldness cream and then every other remedy as he began reading the list of curable symptoms. He soon convinced himself that he had rheumetism and anemia. But thankfully there was no cashier on duty so I was able to drag him and his money away from the complex.

We headed back across the stinky river of sewage to the old part of town, past the market, through the touristy cobblestone area to a much quieter and hillier part of town where there were far fewer tourists. I thought we were going to have to scale a mountain, I mean, hill but our next destination, the Na Bolom House, was located at the foot of it. Na Bolom is a combination hotel and archeology museum located in an beautiful old colonial house that was once home to a Danish couple. Almost 100 years ago, they settled in the area to search for Mayan temples and ended up dedicating their lives and their fortune to the preservation of the Lacondian Mayan tribes. Mr. Blom explored, kinda like a real Indian Jones, and Mrs. Blom documented it in photos.

The house itself was beautiful and would have been a great place to stay if we weren’t on a backpackers budget. It was run more like a home with guests eating dinner at a communal table and staff living on the grounds with their families. But it was also the home of the Na Bolom Foundation so there were extensive displays on the Lacondian Mayan whose way of life is quickly eroding now that foresters have cut down most of the forest they inhabit. You could even sign up to volunteer (Andrea, I was thinking of you) if you had the time. And in one of the many peaceful gardens they had partially recreated a traditional Lacondian village complete with women making and selling textiles and crafts for sale. One of the women tried to coax me to buy her necklaces.

“Me gustan mucho pero no tengo dinero” I replied with a shrug of my shoulders.
"¿Donde vive?" She then asked
"Canada."
"If you have no money how did you get here?" she replied in a way that made me laugh.
Touche, lady. Like anyone selling anything in Mexico, it really was hassle-free. When you said “no gracias” the left you alone, with the exception of the old man in the Mexico city Cathedral of course. Other countries should take note (India I’m looking at you).

Pulling ourselves away from Na Bolom, we headed over to one of the two hill-top churches that overlook the city, the one Lonely Planet said that actually had a view of the city. It was a steep but relatively short climb to the top where the unimpressive church (unimpressive compared to the others in San Cristobal) sat. But the view was good with an almost 360 degree view of the city down below. We could see the amber museum was fairly close so we headed down to it before it closed and before it got dark – not because of any dangerous people but because the sidewalks in Mexico are narrow and pretty difficult to manage even in the daytime. And we didn't want to risk our ankles on them in the dark.

We made it to the Museo de Ambar without tripping and breaking anything. After buying our tickets, the attendant started our visit with a quick lecture on four ways to identify real amber from fake amber: temperature (real amber is cool), UV light (real amber glows), bug size (real amber only has tiny bugs), and burning (real amber doesn’t melt). Then sent us on our way with a handy booklet of English translations. I hadn’t realized that amber was mined in a just handful of regions around the world; Chiapas being one of the main ones. So many local craftsmen/artists/jewelry designers had some amazing pieces on display. One looked exactly like my $8 chunky plastic ring that I picked up at the Vancouver Art Gallery however the price had a couple more zeros. This time Adrian dragged me away from the little shop before I could open my wallet. So we headed back to the hostel chasing the sun and after dinner it was to bed hoping that the rooster developed laryngitis. It might be sacred in these parts but my sleep is sacred too.