Ancient Mayan City ‘Chactún’ was discovered one year ago in Campeche
http://www.theyucatantimes.com/2014/06/ancient-mayan-city-chactun-was-discovered-one-year-ago-in-campeche/
Deep in the jungles of Campeche, Southeast Mexico, a team of Mexican and foreign experts from the National Geographic Society and the National Institute of Anthropology and History, headed by Slovenian archaeologist Ivan Sprajc, made a major discovery in June 2013.
A whole ancient Maya city, complete with signs of pyramids, remnants of palace buildings and ball courts. This hidden archeological gem, named Chactún (which means “red stone” or “great stone”) was described by the country’s National Institute of Anthropology and History as one of the most important archeological breakthroughs recently encountered in México.
“It’s a total gap in the archeological map of the Maya area,” Slovenian archaeologist Ivan Sprajc, who led the team, said in a taped interview in Spanish.
Mexico, Medical Tourism World Class Destination
http://www.theyucatantimes.com/2014/06/mexico-medical-tourism-world-class-destination/
The worldwide market for medical tourism in 2013 was said to be worth about $2.847 billion, with by most accounts 7 million patients looking for medical treatment outside their own country every year. As per Patients without Borders, a U.S. business that specializes in the field, Mexico is right now the second most popular medical tourism destination, after Thailand.
Across the nation, Mexico has more than 71,000 specialists working in medial centers and private facilities. Nearly two-thirds of all doctors in Mexico are specialists, contrasted with a normal of 57.7% for all OECD countries.
Mexico’s Economy Secretariat says that medical tourisim in 2013 contributed $4.2 billion to the nationl economy. This figure is growing at a rate of 7% a year and includes spas, massages and holistic approaches.
Patients without Borders say that patients from the USA and Canada pay somewhere around 36 and 80% less for operations and treatments in Mexico than the expense in their nation of origin. The most important states for medical tourism are Nuevo León, Baja California, Baja California Sur, Sonora, Tamaulipas, Chihuahua, Jalisco, Quintana Roo and Yucatán.
A plan to construct a new “medical city” has been announced by health officials in Quintana Roo. The new center will be called “Jardines de la Sabiduría” (Gardens of Wisdom) and built on a 550-hectare parcel in the middle of Cancún and Puerto Morelos. The new city would have four zones: residential, medical, entertainment and cultural/educational, and would incorporate no less than four healing centers: for children, cancer care, dental work and orthopedic surgeries.
Temazcal: A Treatment for Physical and Spiritual Diseases
http://www.theyucatantimes.com/2014/06/temazcal-a-treatment-for-physical-and-spiritual-diseases/
You are locked inside a pitch-black concrete dugout in Mexico, sweating in unbearable heat. With you is a shaman who has been chanting ceaselessly for the past two hours as strange vapors swirl around him.
It may sound like a harrowing ordeal, but you actually volunteered for it.
This is the world of Temazcal, a practice dating back centuries to when Mexico’s Mayan Riviera was wilderness and the Mayan civilization was at the height of its power.
Temazcal entails entering a stone igloo with little or no clothing on and sweating it out to the sound of chanting and the fragrance of herbs.
Typically carried out for small groups by a shaman who’s usually a member of one of the Mayan communities in the surrounding area, the process lasts two hours and it can be a tough experience.
Anyone with diabetes or heart disease should forget it, while those susceptible to claustrophobia or skepticism, might think it twice before entering the Temazcal.
Even skeptics, however, can rest assured that they’ll come out from their two-hour session feeling refreshed, invigorated and probably a few pounds lighter.
During the session, rosemary, basil, peppermint and other scents waft over a vapor created by the shaman as he gently throws water over a pile of hot rocks in a pit in the middle of the floor.
Visitors are kept hydrated with herbal tea and are permitted to lie down, walk around, or sit still — whatever it takes to cleanse body and mind.
But once they check in, they can’t check out.
The shaman covers the dugout’s door with a thick blanket, and you find yourself in total darkness within the Temazcal. Your eyes soon adjust to the darkness and it is time to enjoy a comfortable two hour experience.
The only light you see are the brief sparks from the rocks when the shaman pours water on top of them.
The shaman’s constant chanting — urges you to direct your woes and pains toward the smoldering rocks to rid your body of hatred and lighten your mental and spiritual load.
When the shaman says: “let your inner child out,” you laugh, carried away by the mood of the moment, you feel relaxed and drift away in an introspective journey while the chanting of the shaman leads you in a healing process. At the end, you emerge from the session feeling physically and mentally refreshed and lighter. Your skin feels amazingly soft too.
“The ancient Maya respected the steam bath’s efficacy and power for treating both physical and spiritual diseases,” says Rosita Arvigo, author of “Spiritual Bathing: Healing Rituals and Traditions from Around the World.”
Real People of Cuba
http://www.theyucatantimes.com/2014/06/real-people-of-cuba/
As an American expatriate living in Merida, Yucatan, I was eager to taste the forbidden fruit that is Cuba. Nothing, however, could prepare me for what I found. In every respect, Cuba is a country torn between the old and the new, and the dichotomy is pervasive. Cuba is at the cross-roads of modern history, and this profound truth is nowhere more reflected than in its amazing people.
“I am Tony Montana; say hello to my little friend.”
With that perfect rendition of Al Pacino in Scarface, Tony also sets the perfect tone for leading us on our trip. He is a young, forty-something man with the personality of a star and the intelligence, experience, and knowledge of a political-science professor. He has been guiding foreigners (yumas) through his beloved country for twenty years, and it shows. He understands Cuba’s culture, politics, and people in depth and detail, and his sharing of this intriguing knowledge is mesmerizing and beguiling and capped always with disarming humor and a twinkle in his eye.
A stunning beauty, Yenni (Jenny) shines as one of Cuba’s newest generation. Bright, educated, curious and ambitious, she speaks English fluently and with vernacular fluidity. Yet, she remains: my Daddy’s little Cuban girl. She interrogates her tourist charges with an engaging and endearing persistence, bringing into her experience a knowledge of the world unavailable in books, and she is delighted by both the added information and her personal interactions.
We asked them to adopt us. Lovely Rafaela and her sprightly funny husband Oscar invited us cordially into their home, fed us with a gourmet breakfast, waited up for us at night, tucked us into bed, and treated us like beloved children. At least, that is how I remember them, because their overwhelming charm and generosity made me want to call them Mom and Dad. We did not feel like yumas after. They told us we were family now. Always and forever.
We are on the road. Up into the mountain jungles, down into a seaport village. Off the beaten path. Down a thinly sliced strip of beach-front property – the poorest kind. To a tiny, wood-stripped house with broken steps. Into the yet tinier living room of a man and his wife, to sit on several child-sized wooden chairs spaced along the walls. It is hot and humid. Confined.
The man is old. Outside the open door, we can see the sea. The man does not meet our eyes. He looks only at the guitar he holds. And then he sits, cradling his guitar like some beloved pet, or friend, or both, and gently begins to strum his song. And then he sings, and suddenly we hear old Cuba. And in his eyes we see the heaven to which his blissful voice is singing.
He mans the boat we take upriver. Quite literally, he does. We form a group of nine, and then himself. We are heavy yumas, most of us; he is not. He is one man, not so very tall, but lean and strong, and willing to work so very hard without complaint. The boat is but for rowing. The only motor is this uncomplaining man who must row us up the river – against the current. He never breaks the rhythm of his rowing. What we are witnessing is Cuban spirit – a determination to proceed no matter what the work required, without a single word against the work. He is not stoic; he is simply working for his living. He drops us on an island while he rows his boat downriver – where further work awaits him.
You might expect the worst, but I do not expect correctly when I see him standing just beyond our group. He listens to every word our guide is speaking. He seems lost among the details of the history our man is telling. Maybe he is there. But he is waiting, and he bides his time as patiently as I have ever seen a human do. Until our guide is done and then we break. Then he touches just my sleeve, as lightly as the slightest breeze, and softly rubs his fingers. By instinct, I say no. He does not press, but sadly shuffles to his bench where he sits down quietly to eat. I walk to him and place some Cuban coins into his soft and wrinkled palm, but his eyes do not light up with gratitude. They simply say, thank you for doing what is right. Turns out, I am the grateful one.
She is but one of many Cuban children we encounter. Like most, she remains quite shy and somewhat timid, but she insists also on inclusion and participation. She stands inside the doorway, watching. These children watch us yumas with wary fascination; unsure, but just too darn curious to ignore so many strangely-talking humans. Like Cuba herself, they wonder how best they might approach. Do we mean them harm? Or do our words encourage trust. Dare I say, love?
These, then, are the real people of Cuba. The young and the old, the workers and the beggars, the singers and the children. All representing a country at the cross-roads of its life, yearning with hope and optimism for a prosperous new future, yet defiantly proud of their independent and glorious but complex past. A generous and welcoming people, wary of the stranger, yet smiling him inside.
The Colors of Yucatan
http://www.theyucatantimes.com/2014/07/the-colors-of-yucatan/
MÉRIDA, YUCATÁN – There’s something to see around every corner in Yucatán, and colorful surprises wherever you look. For the last couple of years, I’ve been documenting some of the moments of color I have encountered, and the results follow. It can be as simple as a blue house, almost becoming part of the sky: Blue house contrasts with the sky or a pink house, vividly contrasting with it