Mexico

The rest of my time in Mexico was pleasant but frankly I am glad to be in San Cristobal. Tulum was wonderful - the beach was perfect, few tourists and touristy things, etc. What screen savers are made of. Playa del Carmen, on the other hand, I did not like so much. WAY too many inebriated tourists and huge bins of cheap maracas and tequila. Not exactly my thing. At least I know now not to take a vacation there!

While in Playa I visited Chichen Itza, which is another Mayan ruin. It will be my last ruin because I am getting a bit "ruined-out" if you can believe it or not. While on the tour there the bus stopped at a buffet to have lunch. During the lunch, some kids did a traditional dance for some tips. To be honest with you, I was pretty disgusted. Here are families being forced to commoditize (make into a payable service) a special aspect of their cultural while rich gringos drank beers and ate from a buffet. You could see the humiliation/boredom on the faces. This kind of "cultural minsteralcy" is not glorifying to the culture but demeaning. Some people say that this is the only way for many cultures to survive, but I just don´t buy it. Yes, it is perhaps the only for it to survive within our economic system, but it was doing quite fine until we challenged it.

They do this because they have no other options, there is no way to "work up" and raise themselves up by there bootstraps. I think Mexicans and Latin Americans alike are some of the hardest working people I´ve ever met, people who will go to great lengths (quite literally) in time and toil to provide for their families.

Another ironic thing about the dance is that it was mestizo - derived from dances from Spain. The Spainish culture, who once "conquered" the area is now the subject, the lower class in relation to the gringos. If this is how the "conquerers" are living, then it´s tough to even think about the indigenous people. Irony irony irony.


Yesterday I made it to San Cristobal de las Casas. I really like it here, most likely because it is very similiar to Guatemala! It is a lovely colonial town with lots of great museums and the typical old stuff - churches, buildings, etc.

Yesterday I went to a Mayan Medicine Museum and it was very interesting. They use concepts of hot & cold, the cardinal directions (N, S, E, W), times of days, plants, and animals to diagnose and treat sickness. As strange as it all sounded to me, it must have had some legitimacy due to the fact that the civilization has survived for thousands of years! Also, at the end we got to see a fairly graphic video of the traditional method used in child birth. Nice!