EXPLORER AND PHOTOGRAPHER ALICE DIXON ADDS THE MYSTIC INTO MAYA EXPLORATIONS

Alice Dixon LePlongeon

At 22 years old, Alice Dixon met Augustus Le Plongeon, a world explorer of antiquities, in London, in 1871. Le Plongeon, 26 years her senior, traveled to Europe after successful journeys to South America and California. His extensive explorations in Peru and Chile led him to London to study Mexican and Maya artifacts and manuscripts at the British Museum where they met. 

Considered an amateur archeologist, Dixon, a second generation photog- rapher, photographed ruins at Chichen Itza and Uxmal alongside her husband.

Alice Dixon's father, Henry, was a copper-plate printer who became a successful photographer and was recognized for his development of panchromatic photographic for his photos of London architecture. Alice learned the principles of photography from her father and worked as his assistant in his studio.

SPIRITUAL INFLUENCES

Another family member with a strong influence on Alice was her uncle, Dr. Jacob Dixon, who practiced spiritualism. Alice became involved in that movement at a young age, participating in seances at her uncle's home.

As for Le Plongeon, in Peru he studied earthquakes and explored the country's archeological sites, including Tinhuanaco which he photographed while trying to assimilate clues as to who the builders of that empire might have been. In combination with his own Peruvian explorations, he'd read the works of John Lloyd Stephens and Frederick Catherwood, explorers of the Yucatan in the 1840s, and came to believe that civilization had early origins in the New World and he began to form philosophies on the world's great civilizations.

A few years into his South American sojourn, Le Plongeon heard of the California gold rush and jumped a ship to partake in that historic event, spending several years in gold country where he speculated on land and became a surveyor. There he managed to earn thirty thousand dollars in profits, enough to fund his trip to Europe as well as future South American travels. 

In Europe he stumbled onto a new photographic technique that used paper instead of metal and urged the inventor to teach him the process. This would serve him well when uncovering Yucatecan ruins, enabling he and Dixon to document their discoveries. Their photos of Uxmal and Chichen Itza remain some of the best ever taken as they show the pyramid sites as they stood for eons, long before archeologists re-discovered them.

HONEYMOON IN MEXICO

Soon after meeting, Alice and Le Plongeon were married. For their honey-moon they set sail for Cuba then onto Mexico, where they planned to explore ancient pyramid sites. They landed in Progreso, Yucatan, in 1873. 

A bout with yellow fever for Alice dampened their arrival but Le Plongeon nursed her back to health. During her recuperation the two studied Yucatecan Maya and became acquainted with local scholars. They believed communicating with present day Maya was an important step to interpreting the past. Alice remained a champion of the Maya her entire life, and wrote about them long after she left the Yucatan.

Alice in Palace of the Governors, Uxmal

Their first visit to see pyramids was at Uxmal, forty miles south of Merida. They were awed by the size of the site and camped in the Governor's Palace, sleeping on hammocks. They both took photos, cleared the land to better see the site and were determined to return again later.

Camping at Uxmal

CHICHEN ITZA

The number one item on the Le Plongeons' bucket list was Chichen Itza. He'd heard from a local that a sacred codex was buried there in a building with many chambers and he believed he could further his eccentric theory of Maya world supremacism if he could locate the text. Their timing overlapped the Caste War of Yucatan, and Piste, the pueblo nearby, was overrun with Chan Santa Cruz Indians. Le Plongeon, determined to search for the desired text, asked local authorities to post soldiers at the site as security.

He located the building, could not locate the text, but the building's lintel contained numerous glyphs which he believed could further his theory. He took 500 stereoscopic photos of the hieroglyphs, and he and Alice traced a number of murals and made molds of them in bas relief.

QUEEN MOO AND PRINCE CHACMOOL

They fixated on the Upper Temple of the Jaguars near the ball court. It was 1875. Workers discovered a large slab with carved figures holding outstretched arms. Le Plongeon called it Atlantis. Murals on the walls depicted village life, war scenes and rulers in court. The explorer concluded this was a generation of Maya rulers whose totem was an eagle or macaw. He declared it a symbol of a Maya princess who he christened Queen Moo (Maya for macaw). Her brother he named Prince ChacMool, powerful warrior, a reference to jaguar in Mayan. This flimsy attempt at a scholarly decision became the basis for his Maya myth as the center of world civilization and placed him squarely at odds with fellow archeologists of the time. His Maya "myth" led to much derision and plagued him his entire career.

The fabricated myth about a Maya princess and her warrior king brother who had been forced to flee Egypt, bringing their philosophies of the Maya with them, seduced the two at-one-time prominent Maya notables. They were viewed as the Maya world's "new age" scholars due to this far-fetched belief and the theory branded Le Plongeon as an eccentric crackpot, earning him disdain from those in his field. 

Excavation of ChacMool at Chichen Itza

Yet in spite of his oddball theories, Le Plongeon discovered the famous statue, ChacMool, five feet long weighing hundreds of pounds, which is virtually synonymous with Chichen Itza and the ancient Maya. Originally spelled Chaacmool, Maya for powerful warrior, the word was misspelled as ChacMool through a mis-translation by one of his missives to a benefactor. The ChacMool statue was lauded by the American Geographical Society as a great archeological find. The Le Plongeons struggled to bring the statue to the U.S. to display in Philadelphia at the America Centennial Exhibition but the president of Mexico denied their request. 

In the meantime, they sent other Maya artifacts to the U.S. to display at centennial ceremonies but the objects arrived too late. And in another spate of bad luck, the photos Le Plongeon had labored over were stolen by another archeologist who claimed them for his own. Soon even their main benefactor would give up on their excursions. At times they found it difficult to find money to eat, so dire was their situation. 

"SURROUNDED BY ENEMIES"

"Surrounded by enemies, Remington always at hand, death lurking in every direction," Alice wrote in a letter to a friend in 1877, describing their predicament. The Mexico government had refused to pay them for the extensive work they'd completed in not only raising the incredible ChacMool artifact but in delivering it to the pueblo Piste. With this final blow, they picked up and moved on to other ruins—Mayapan and sites in Honduras.

Their travels continued and in 1884 the Le Plongeons left Mexico and settled in New York. There Alice focused on her writing, both fact and fiction. She became well known for a series of articles written for the New York Times and other publications in which she romanticized the Maya world. Her best known work was Queen Moo's Talisman. Both she and her husband lectured non-stop in Europe and the U.S. promoting the Yucatan pyramids and the Maya. 

Queen Moo's Talisman

In A Dream of Maya, by Larry Desmond and Phyllis Messenger, Desmond explains if history had been kinder to the Le Plongeons, it would have depicted an extraordinary couple whose lifelong work had not been fairly appraised. The book gives deep insight into their lives and their controversial views and document their hard-nosed earnestness and early pioneering excavations—from digging up pyramid sites to drawing architectural floor plans and tracing murals to keeping detailed photographic records.

A Dream of Maya by Desmond and Messenger 

Their extensive explorations were done under the duress of the Caste War, yet they persisted and came away with great discoveries. 

Augustus Le Plongeon died in New York in 1908. Alice died in New York in 1910.

If you enjoyed this post, check out  Where the Sky is Born: Living in the Land of the Maya, on Amazon. My website is www.jeaninekitchel.com. Books one and two in my Mexico cartel trilogy, Wheels Up—A Novel of Drugs, Cartels and Survival, and Tulum Takedown, are also on Amazon. And my journalistic overview of the Maya 2012 calendar phenomenon, Maya 2012 Revealed: Demystifying the Prophecy, is on Amazon.

MAYA SCHOLARS RACE AGAINST THIEVES TO THWART THE LOOTING OF A LOST CIVILIZATION

Xpujil Pyramid Site on Pu'uc Route (Yucatan Magazine)

PART ONE

"Tombs are robbed, temples are looted, and the past is destroyed, all to feed the international market for antiquities." Donna Yates, Archeologist and Lecturer in Antiquities Theft and Art Crime, Associate Professor at Maastricht University, Netherlands

In 1997 we drove across Mexico in our Ford Focus wagon, loaded to the nines with our belongings and our cat, heading towards a new life on the Mexican Caribbean coast. Our hearts quickened after passing through Escarcega. At the end of that lonely 170-mile stretch of road, we'd cross from the state of Campeche into Quintana Roo. Then we'd certainly be homeward bound. 

The road narrowed as Escarcega was left behind in our rearview mirror. I settled in for the long drive ahead. We decided when we got to a stretch of little known pyramids at the half-way point we'd take a break, make a sandwich, and let Max, then just a kitten, walk around. I'd recently read about this quartet of pyramids in NatGeo—Kohunlich, Becan, Chicanna, and Xpujil—near the great ceremonial center Calakmul. Though these sites didn't have the star power of Chichen Itza or Tulum, Kohunlich, known for its Temple of the Masks, gained fame in 1971 when looters tried to sell one of its huge eight foot stucco masks to New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. 

We made good time, virtually seeing no other cars on the road. Around 4 p.m. we passed Chicanna. Soon after, I spotted the towers of Xpujil from the road. "Can we stop?" I asked Paul. 

He nodded and we pulled down a sascab lane a good ways past an open wire gate into a rough parking area. I extricated myself from the car while Paul saw to Max. I stretched, then went to the back end of the car to find the cooler. I'd brought bread, mayonnaise and a couple cans of tuna. A quick sandwich would be welcome as we'd had only fruit and juice for a late breakfast around 11, not wanting to take time to stop. I pulled out a plastic container for mixing, located the can opener, mayo and bread, and began assembling a rather unglamorous tuna sandwich. As I finished up spreading the lumpy fish onto Bimbo wheat bread, I called to Paul. 

He'd put Max back inside the car. We leaned against the door, ready for our afternoon snack. After the sandwich I told him I wanted to have a quick look around the site. Just as I bit into the tuna fish, a white, older model International with a large tarp-covered trailer pulled into the parking area, leaving dust in its wake. Two men sat inside; an older man was driving. The vehicle was about 100 feet away when the guy riding shotgun jumped out. He was young and lanky, nineteen or so, and moved fast across the parking lot. The truck had Canadian plates and the driver kept the engine idling. 

"Weird," I said to Paul. "I wonder what they're up to. Why'd just one guy get out and why isn't the driver turning off the engine?"

"It is weird." 

We both watched the young man dart through the fence and run along the path leading to the pyramid site. 

With the truck still idling, we viewed the scene warily. "I don't feel good about this."

"Me neither. What are they doing?" Paul began to push things into the way-back. I followed his lead and closed the cooler, holding my sandwich in one hand. I tossed the can opener and bag of bread into the wayback.

"Let's get out of here. Something isn't right. Maybe they're scouting the ruins for artifacts. What's the trailer for?" I asked.

"Not good," Paul agreed. "And what's with the tarp? The cat's inside? Then let's go."

The truck had parked at just the right angle so we couldn't see the driver, as if it was planned that way. If these guys were grave looters, we didn't want to be around when INAH (National Institute of Anthropology and History) discovered them, or worse, the federales. 

Paul started the car and headed towards the long driveway that led out to the highway. The white International was still idling when I turned around and gave it one last look.

"Grave robbers? Were they grave robbers? Or looters?"

"We don't want to know," Paul said as we eased onto the uneven asphalt, amped up the gas, and headed towards Chetumal.

                          *********************************

NOT JUST WHITE COLLAR CRIME

Antiquity looters come in many guises as the above tale tells—unassuming tourist types, locals, businessmen looking to make a buck, collectors.

And as the international appetite for Maya culture continues to grow, so does the hunger for illegal artifacts. Researchers say it's a race against time and increasingly tenacious looters.

One of the Remaining Masks at Kohunlich

Art theft is big business. Ask any dealer of antiquities. It's a 'trade' worth billions, and it's not going away any time soon. As long as there's poverty in undeveloped countries where ancient civilizations once stood, you can bank on it. Some art dealers call it the world's second oldest profession. Any country in civil war or conflict is ripe for antiquities looting, says Tess Davis, archeologist from Boston University and legal expert. When conflict erupts in an archeological rich country, the world-wide art market is suddenly flooded with antiquities from that ravaged country. Artifact looting becomes a means of subsistence when homelands are war-torn and ravished, and it's practiced in a variety of environments, from Peru and the Andes Mountains to the Peten jungle and the Central Mexican highlands, for starters.

THE RISE OF NARCOTICS TRAFFICKING

"The public should be aware this is not just a white collar crime. Insurgents, terrorists are using the antiquities trade to fund their efforts. Unless we get it together soon, I fear there is going to be nothing left," Davis said in a lecture titled "Tomb Raiders and Terrorist Financing," for Boston University alumnae.

Of the organized trafficking groups involved in a diversified portfolio of illicit activities, most are dealing drugs as well as other commodities. The market prices antiquities can draw are too high for organizations dealing in contra-band to ignore. 

THE LOOTING OF THE PETEN

Palace of Palenque by Frederick Catherwood

Compared with well known ancient civilizations in Europe and Western Asia, archeological interest in the Maya culture came relatively late, partially because of the forbidding nature of the deep-jungle sites. The outside world was first exposed to Maya ruins through the writings and drawings of explorers John Lloyd Stephens and Frederick Catherwood. Their early adventuring shone a light on the Maya. After their travel memoirs about the Maya and the Yucatan were published in 1843, many adventurers trekked on through, conducting rudimentary recordings of archeological sites with limited removal of Maya artifacts. The first actual excavations were not conducted until the 20th century.

THE BEGINNINGS

Art and antiquity, according to Archeologist Donna Yates in her thesis, "Displacement, Deforestation and Drugs: Antiquities Trafficking and Narcotics Economies of Guatemala," underwent a huge upheaval in the first half of the 20th century. Aesthetic tastes in contemporary art shifted to modern looks and forms and an interest was taken in tribal art. Defined against a classic Western model, these disparate cultural traditions included ancient and modern cultural objects originating from Africa, parts of Asia, and the Americas. The appeal, her thesis stated, was that they didn't conform to familiar Greek and Roman styles. And demand grew as connections from these objects were drawn publicly between them and famous artists of the day such as Picasso, Kahlo, Giacometti, and Rivera. Soon, powerful collectors began to source them from their countries of origin for private collections.

The Maya on Display at Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

At the same time, 1957, Nelson Rockefeller founded the Museum of Primitive Art in New York. This was a watershed for the collection of Maya and other "primitive" cultural properties. The Maya were on the market.

MAYA DEBUT

Yates' thesis explained that endemic looting of nearly every known Maya site began around 1960. Collectors and museums, inspired by Rockefeller's acquisitions, were looking to fill the Maya gap in their collections and demanded the very best the Maya had to offer. This meant that even the large carved stone stelas that depicted the events of Maya lords and their recorded histories along with large architectural treasures from Maya temples were looted, trafficked, and sold. Size was not an issue.

Clemency Coggins is a professor of both Archeology and Art History at Boston University, and also holds a degree from Harvard University in Fine Arts. Decades ago she wrote,"In the last ten years there has been an incalculable increase in the number of monuments systematically stolen, mutilated, and illicitly exported from Guatemala and Mexico in order to feed the inter-national art market. Not since the 16th century has Latin American been so ruthlessly plundered."

RANSACKING RUINS

Guatemala Soldier Scouts Site of Xultun for Looters

Unfortunately this plundering tore the stelas, large concrete-like slabs that stood in front of pyramids to honor Maya kings and their empires' procla-mations, births, deaths and marriages, and they were ripped from where they stood. In order to understand any individual site, it's imperative for archeologists to know the provenance of stelas or pieces that have been looted. Without dates and locations it's impossible to place the art, the site, the structure, even the times and historical issues taking place when it was created. The Maya's very history was being torn apart, a story with no context, as various works of art floated throughout the world, moving to private collectors and museums across the globe. 

But looters cared not for the history of the ancient Maya. Their only concern was how to remove stela that could be 15 or 20 feet high, weighing several tons. Removal was their one and only mission and taking a power saw to the stela and cutting it vertically removed the face of it. This was then usually cut into quarters to make it easier to ship and the pieces could be sold off to separate investors. Sometimes the inscriptions along the sides were damaged by their mutilation.

This plundering set the archeology world back several decades in trying to break the Maya hieroglyphic code.

BANDS OF LOOTERS

Map of Yucatan and Guatemala (By NatGeo)

A landmark paper by Clemency Coggins that is often credited with exposing the gravity of the looting situation characterizes the 1960s as a time when bands of looters moved freely through the Maya region, particularly in the sparsely populated and heavily jungled regions of Guatemala's Peten, emphasizing the mutilation of large stone monuments with power tools. Countless Maya sites (Ixtonton and La Corona) were looted before they were even located by archeologists. "It was a terrible time," she wrote.

THE WHY BEHIND THE CRIME

She explained that the 1960s looting of the Peten is tied to two jungle economies: the trade in rare hardwoods and tapping gum trees for chicle. In both instances, she wrote, men (usually) at the bottom of the supply chain moved through vast tracts of wilderness searching for different tree types. In doing so, they encountered recorded but poorly protected remote sites as well as Maya cities yet unknown to archeologists.

THE CHICLEROS

Early on in the 20th century, archeologists worked closely with these men, paying them for info about new sites and monuments. Chicleros, as chicle hunters are known, are credited with locating many important sites in the Peten—Uaxactun, Xultun and even Calakmul, the famous Heritage Site. But when chicle prices bottomed out in the 1970s, financial gains for looting and trafficking in antiquities grew. Chicleros could expect higher rewards by reporting an unknown site to a trafficker rather than to an archeologist. And they could even be employed in the demolition, for added revenue.

Said one archeologist as he peered at the looting damage of a Xultun temple literally cut through the middle, "The humans are more poisonous than the snakes."

                                    ***************************************

Part Two will delve into a number of pyramid sites plundered, the lack of security at even famous sites, and what can be done to address the trafficking of antiquities. Stay tuned.

If you enjoyed this post, check out  Where the Sky is Born: Living in the Land of the Maya, on Amazon. My website is www.jeaninekitchel.com. Books one and two in my Mexico cartel trilogy, Wheels Up—A Novel of Drugs, Cartels and Survival, and Tulum Takedown, are also on Amazon. And my journalistic overview of the Maya 2012 calendar phenomenon, Maya 2012 Revealed: Demystifying the Prophecy, is on Amazon.

COULD AN ANCIENT INDONESIAN PYRAMID SITE REWRITE HUMAN HISTORY?

Gunung Padang in Indonesia

Maya Musings is branching out! My love of ancient cultures has lead me to focus on more than just the ancient Maya. This post on Gunung Padang is the first.

Gunung Padang in Indonesia may be the greatest mystery of history and what we know about ancient civilizations.

Graham Hancock, a 30-year journalist interviewed in a new Netflix series, Ancient Apocalypse, explains he is neither archeologist nor scientist: He reports what he sees as a journalist. He has spent the past three decades investigating human pre-history and in the series, gives his first-person account.

ANCIENT APOCALYPSE

In the documentary he states it's his suspicion that "humans are a species with amnesia about an incredibly important thing in our distant past." That important thing, he says, "is that there is a lost civilization of the Ice Age."

Graham Hancock on Ancient Apocalypse

The possibility of civilization emerging earlier than we previously thought gets stronger each year and in Hancock's opinion, definitely demands a re-write of history as we know it. He suspects his theory is upsetting to experts because they insist the only civilization that existed during the Ice Age was that of our simple hunter-gatherer ancestors who—and he questions this premise—on their own initiative, suddenly began to farm and raise livestock, creating settlements and eventually cities until the first civilizations emerged 4000 BC. His own research with new discoveries has led him to believe otherwise, and his findings keep pushing that timeline back. He tells a completely different story.

ENTER GUNUNG PADANG

One such discovery takes place in Indonesia on the island Java, in the village of Karyamukti, four hours south of Jakarta. Hancock went there to check out one of the most controversial discoveries of our time: Gunung Padang. The evidence at the massive site, some 400 plus kilometers, has confounded archeologists because it calls into question everything they have taught us about the pre-history of humanity.

What if an advanced civilization flourished at Karyamukti during the Ice Age, he asks—a civilization lost to history until now. The name Gunung Padang means mountain of light or mountain of enlightenment in local dialect. Today and for centuries if not millennia, pilgrims have traveled from far and wide to make offerings to this mountain. They purify themselves before climbing 360 feet to the top, an arduous venture. 

Hancock says Gunung Padang's answer is buried in the mountain underneath where it sits. And potentially, it could force humanity to re-think our entire history as we presently know it.

THE SITE

It takes about 20 minutes to hike to the top of Gunung Padang on stairs made from rocks that lead to the top plateau. From that spot, one can gaze over a jumble of the building blocks from an ancient construction that are scattered across brilliant green grass. Shaped like long rectangular blocks roughly two meters in length, they are heavy. But these are not man-made. The rocks, forged long ago by a volcano, may have been cut. They were merely transported to the spot and arranged into whatever structure once occupied this peak.

TERRACING

Technically there are five levels of terraces. The first is relatively quiet with a meditative quality. Second is much larger and made up of shallow levels of turf, each built slightly higher than the other. The rocks, like those far below, are strewn haphazardly about. It's uncertain as to whether they were used as columns or laid in horizontal fashion to construct buildings and altars.

Artist Rendering of the Terraces

The upper two areas is where intense research on Gunung Padang's history is presently taking place. And the quest to discover the truth has become animated, complicated by a mix of politics, money, and national pride. The cause for a prolonged and intense discussion comes down to what is below the surface. Some archeologists believe the mountain itself was made by humans as an enormous tomb, a sarcophagus made from dirt.

AGE IS JUST A NUMBER

These archeologists claim they have evidence for this feat that state humans may have built Gunung Padang up to 20,000 years ago. If that claim is true, it would make this site 10,000 years older than the pyramids of Egypt and one of the most jolting historical discoveries of our time.

With the possibility of a world-changing archeological site on Indonesian soil on the rise, the national government is throwing enormous support behind these research efforts. To furnish the manpower needed for the excavation, the Indonesian military was brought in to do the digging. They're doing hard labor under the supervision of scientific experts. 

Indonesian Military Work at Site (by Time Turtle)

QUESTIONS FROM EXPERTS

However, despite the insistence of certain experts and the hopes of the Indonesian government, a large number of academics believe it's impossible that Gunung Padang was built 20,000 years ago. Firstly, they say the evidence doesn't support that fact and there are alternative reasons why some of the tests have come up with such old dates.

They also state that it's not logical that a civilization that could build this enormous structure would leave no other signs of existence. One expert, as quoted in Time Turtle, made the point that 40 kilometers away, there's evidence people were using tools made of bone at that time, which seems odd if such a large advanced civilization was so close by.

FRINGE DATING

Based on unpublished and undisclosed numbers from carbon dates and strategic studies, Indonesian geologist-earthquake expert Danny Hilman Natawidjaja is the front man pushing for Gunung Padang's long date certification. He's suggested the site had been built as a giant pyramid between 9000 and 20,000 years ago, implying that it's proof of the existence of an otherwise unknown advanced civilization.

Since none of these radio-carbon dates have been formally published and the age of this site based on these dates differs greatly depending on who is consulted, some experts view Hilman's theories as "fringe dating."

In fact, 34 Indonesia scientists signed a petition questioning the motives and methods of Hilman and his team. Archeologist Victor Perez described Hilman's conclusions as pseudo-archeology. The dates of the site, based on Hilman's numbers, vary greatly depending on what publication is consulted and even when publications are by the same author, the recorded results vary. 

Long View of Gunung Padang (By Beritabali.com)

But Hilman's conclusions did attract the attention of the former Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who set up a task force several years ago, while he was still in office.

A vulcanologist, Sutikno Bronto, suggested the carbon dating results could have been influenced by weathering and concluded the elevation is the neck of an ancient volcano and not a man-made pyramid.

But whatever the case may be, Gunung Padang is undeniably the largest megalithic structure in South East Asia. Though the jury is still out, its very existence and the amount of effort recently allotted to excavate the ruins has begged the question: Are there other relics of pre-Ice Age civilizations out there that have yet to be vetted? And without the blessing of First World scientific experts, will they see the light of day or be left at the altar?

If you enjoyed this post, check out  Where the Sky is Born: Living in the Land of the Maya, on Amazon. My website is www.jeaninekitchel.com. Books one and two in my Mexico cartel trilogy, Wheels Up—A Novel of Drugs, Cartels and Survival, and Tulum Takedown, are also on Amazon. And my journalistic overview of the Maya 2012 calendar phenomenon, Maya 2012 Revealed: Demystifying the Prophecy, is on Amazon.

 

FROM STRANGERS TO FRIENDS IN PROGESO DURING THE HOLIDAYS IN MEXICO

In Mexico, the holiday season seemingly goes on forever. And in actuality, it does. From Feast of Guadalupe on December 12 through Noche Buena, Navidad, and Año Nuevo, it finally ends with Dia de Reyes or Feast of the Kings January 6.

As early travelers in the mid-80s to the Yucatán Peninsula, we loved all the festivities and fiestas. That's part of what makes Mexico so Mexico! The pageantry and the color, the fireworks and the continuous holidays. 

For years we planned to move to Mexico so every vacation was centered around a Mexican get-away: from long weekends to a blissful week or two around Christmas. These trips were a quick fix to our serious addiction to the Mexican lifestyle. 

Hotel Trinidad, Merida

FIRST STOP, MERIDA

In 1986 we made our first trip to Merida and Chichen Itza. We arrived in Merida December 23 and located a hotel near the main plaza, Hotel Trinidad. I spotted heavy wood and brass style Spanish doors with "Open 24 Hours" painted at the top and took a look inside. On entering I discovered a hotel straight out of Barcelona, a tribute to Bohemia everywhere. Bright mosaic tiles in wild patterns covered the floors and gaudy paintings with broken pieces of mirror patterned into the frames decorated the walls.

Behind an antique wooden bar that served as reception, a studious looking clerk gazed up from a stack of papers. I looked behind him to an unruly growth of areca palms and a cascade of jungle plants that created a bountiful interior garden.

Within moments we'd checked into a room with 16-foot ceilings, no windows, but an enormous skylight that delivered all the light we needed. The rooms faced the terrace courtyard and during the day many guests left their doors open to take in fresh air and direct sunlight.

On Christmas Eve we woke early and walked to the bus station to catch a bus to Chichen Itza. Crowds thronged the depot as many people were traveling for the holiday. In Mexico as in Europe, December 24, Noche Buena, is celebrated as the feast of Christmas rather than Christmas Day. We were enroute to Piste, the pueblo that served as a base for travelers coming and going to the popular pyramid at Chichen Itza.

CHICHEN ITZA

After the crowded bus trip, we were dropped off a few hours later on the highway near the site. We grabbed our belongings and readied ourselves for the four kilometer walk. Chichen Itza did not fail. We spent the entire day taking in the vast site, but that's another story. Our goal after sightseeing at the pyramids was to head back to Merida and Hotel Trinidad. We made our way back to where the bus had dropped us off and waited for the next bus heading back to Merida to arrive.

The Merida depot, now late in the day, was packed to overflow with those traveling home to their pueblos. We shuffled along the narrow city streets, walking single file as crowds headed in the opposite direction to the terminal. Finally we were back in the tourist zone, where shops were closing their doors. We saw people carrying small bolsas with what I imagined were gifts, and when we passed the open door or window of an apartment, I peaked inside. Unlike American Christmas's, there were no decorated trees nor piles of wrapped presents. Instead we saw small family gatherings and dinner tables laden with platters of food, a happy display of camaraderie apparent by the sound of laughter and conversations we heard in passing.

Merida Streets near Cathedral

That was when I understood the wide divide in our cultures. Since then, NAFTA brought Costco and other mega-markets to Mexico along with fake Christmas trees in November and blow-up Santa Clauses. But in those days, it was different. Christmas was a holiday from the heart, not the pocketbook. It was not about gifts and giving. It was about family.

So naive was I that I thought we'd find a restaurant for a lovely Christmas Eve dinner. Nope. Businesses were closed. Every single person in that vast and marvelous city was certainly sitting across a table from loved ones, enjoying food and conversation. We passed shuttered stores and restaurants for blocks before finding one lone open tienda as we neared the hotel. We picked up a six-pack of cerveza and some antojitos and chips. That was our Christmas Eve fare. Little did we realize the pickings might be slimmer still on Christmas Day.

NEXT STOP, PROGRESO

The next morning, somehow buses were running, and after gratefully accepting coffee and a concha pastry from the clerk at the hotel, we decided to go to Progreso, a port town on the Gulf Coast, 40 kilometers north. But Progreso, small at the time, was locked down even tighter than Merida. After checking out the ocean, not the translucent blue we were accustomed to on the eastern coast but dark, cloudy water, we walked around town hoping to find something open. A few blocks from the beach we stumbled onto an unshuttered seafood restaurant, empty except for a sweet-looking old man who stood behind the bar. He looked like he was the owner, there to clean up, but when I asked if he was "Abierto," he couldn't say no to holiday strangers.

Progreso, Yucatán

"Feliz Navidad. Cerveza?" 

He gestured us in, bowed at the waist and pointed to a table.

We nodded and took a seat. He came around the bar with two Pacifico's and a well-worn menu, pointing to a photo of a shrimp cocktail. Assuming that was our cue, we nodded again. "Por dos," I managed to say.

Our Christmas dinner consisted of a good many cold Pacifico's and a delicious cocktail de cameron served in a giant fishbowl with a side of saltine crackers, undoubtedly the best, freshest shrimp cocktail I've ever had. By our third Pacifico, the owner had joined us at the painted wooden table, now cluttered with beer bottles. We three were a lonely hearts club, sharing a holiday. How many more beers we drank that day I couldn't tell you. But in time, my fractured Spanish was no longer an issue and we laughed and shared stories through sign language and an occasional common phrase.

What could have been an unmemorable Christmas became one we'll never forget, with a reminder on how the world works. At holiday time, everyone becomes your friend and someone to share a drink with, no matter where you are or where you're from.

LEST THEY BE ANGELS IN DISGUISE

And another lesson along the same lines comes from George Whitman, owner of Shakespeare & Company in Paris. His motto is prominently displayed over the bookstore's front door: Be not inhospitable to strangers lest they be angels in disguise. And let us not forget to return the favor.

Shakespeare & Company, Paris

Happy New Year to you! May your 2023 travels be rewarding and memorable.

If you enjoyed this post, check out  Where the Sky is Born: Living in the Land of the Maya, on Amazon. My website is www.jeaninekitchel.com. Books one and two in my Mexico cartel trilogy, Wheels Up—A Novel of Drugs, Cartels and Survival, and Tulum Takedown, are also on Amazon. And my journalistic overview of the Maya 2012 calendar phenomenon, Maya 2012 Revealed: Demystifying the Prophecy, is on Amazon.

NANCY DREW AUTHOR HAD DEEP ATTRACTION TO MEXICO AND THE MAYA WORLD

Who of us girls as young teens did not love Nancy Drew? The sleuth known for her voracious appetite for getting into trouble, being at the center of crime scenes and mysteries? Who taught us how to signal SOS with a tube of lipstick, break out a window using spike heels, and remember to always keep an overnight bag in the car, just in case?

CAROLYN KEENE? UMM, NO

For years I thought Carolyn Keene was Nancy's author but later discovered Keene was a pen name for Mildred Wirt Benson. The prolific Benson would write 135 of the first Nancy Drew detective tales that came to shape Nancy's "steely bravery," according to an article by Jennifer Fisher in "Zócalo." Benson's image of Nancy would create "the tenacious, bold and independent heroine we have come to know."

Mildred Wirt Benson aka Carolyn Keene

The real author of our favorite girl detective was an Iowa homegrown born in 1905, daughter of a country doctor, and the first student—male or female—to earn a masters degree in journalism from University of Iowa (later home to Iowa Writers Workshop). For 50 years Benson worked in journalism while penning famous mysteries, covering the courthouse beat, crime and corruption at "The Toledo Blade" and "The Toledo Times."

HEADING TO NYC

As a child, Benson was an avid reader of children's classics. Her first short story, "The Courtesy," appeared in "St. Nicholas," a children's magazine, and won her second place in a monthly contest. Finding Iowa too dull for a woman with an agenda, she ventured to NYC and landed a job with an icon in publishing, Edward Stratemeyer. In 1934, "Fortune Magazine" said of Stratemeyer, "As oil and gas has its Rockefeller, literature has its Stratemeyer."

Stratemeyer published The Bobbsey Twins and The Hardy Boys and famously hired ghost writers for a flat monthly fee. Benson's pen name remained a mystery until the 1970s when researchers discovered Benson was the Oz behind the curtain. During the Great Depression and WWII, parents were candid with their children, according to Fisher's article, and didn't hide life's gravities. Enter Nancy Drew, a new kind of heroine for a new age of young girls. Stratemeyer penned a three-page outline for Benson and depicted Nancy as an "up-to-date American girl at her best—bright, clever, resourceful, and full of energy."

TREATED AS AN EQUAL

In 1973 Benson wrote an essay about her famous heroine, stating Nancy was treated as an equal by her father and by many in law enforcement and she never gave up when the going got tough. Her spirit struck a chord. Nancy Drew personified "the dream image which exists within most teenagers," Benson said. According to Fisher's article, this 1930s teen remained culturally relevant for more than 80 years, even as young women's roles changed dramatically. Mothers and grandmothers passed the books down to their daughters. "Women still tell me how they identified with Nancy Drew and that Nancy Drew gave them confidence to be whatever they wanted to be," Benson said in an interview in 1999.

In 1928 she married an AP telegraph operator, Asa Wirt. In 1936, he was transferred to Chicago, and that same year, her daughter Margaret Joan Wirt was born. Neither change of location nor motherhood would deter her, however, from her writing, but things petered out with Stratemeyer as he tried out various other story lines. In 1940 Asa had a stroke. AP transferred him to Toledo, Ohio. He had another stroke in 1943 and permanently left his AP job. These were hard years for her family especially as WWII was raging. But for Mildred, this gave her an opportunity. "The Toledo Times" took on female reporters for the first time, under the stipulation that they knew once the war was over, their work days would be numbered. In 1947 Asa died from complications with another stroke. 

Her mother came to live with her and her daughter while Mildred reported for the newspaper. In 1950 she married Edward Benson, an editor at "The Toledo Times." These years were happy ones and they traveled to Puerto Rico and Central America where Mildred gained a fascination with the Maya ruins. In 1959, enroute to Puerto Rico, Benson died unexpectedly. 

The next years again were hard as she worked the beat at her newspaper gig. Another juvenile publisher asked if she would consider writing young adult books, but she felt the world had changed too much, and she decided to focus on her reporting, now at "The Toledo Blade."  

MAYA CONNECTION

As she always loved to travel and loved the Maya pyramids, she began to charter bush pilots to visit less accessible archeological digs. She canoed down the Usumacinta River to Yaxchilan on a three-day trip with local guides. "I used to hang my hammock in Maya temples, and once, when no other shelter was available, I hung it in a corn crib. Those were my adventurous days." 

Canoeing Down Usumacinta River

She traipsed through crocodile-infested rivers and hacked her way through jungles with a machete. She trained as a pilot in the 1960s and took solo trips to Guatemala. Benson was becoming her own best role model for the very Nancy Drew we all came to love. 

In a particularly harrowing Nancy Drew-like experience, she was even locked inside a room in Guatemala by locals who thought she knew too much about criminal activity in their town. Channeling Nancy, she overpowered one of her captors and escaped. "Like any good sleuth," reporter Fisher went on to explain, "she later returned to Guatemala to learn more about what had happened to her."

Mildred Wirt Benson in Skywriter

THE SMITHSONIAN

In the 1990s, twenty years after dedicated Nancy Drew lovers had discovered Keene's real name and ID'd Mildred Wirt Benson as Drew's creator, Benson donated a series of papers she'd written about her heroine, along with her trusty Underwood typewriter used for creating Nancy, to the Smithsonian where it sits to this day. And finally, the mystery author got public credit by her native Iowa in 1993 when the University of Iowa had a Nancy Drew Conference. That same year, she was named Person of the Week by ABC's Peter Jennings.

Mildred Wirt Benson's Trusty Underwood

Asked later if she would ever give up writing, Benson said, "The undertaker will have to pry me away from my typewriter." That's pretty much what happened. At 96, in 2002, she was sitting at her trusty Underwood when she died. 

Unintentional Feminist (From CBC.ca) 

If you enjoyed this post, check out Where the Sky is Born: Living in the Land of the Maya, on Amazon. My website is www.jeaninekitchel.com. Books one and two in my Mexico cartel trilogy, Wheels Up—A Novel of Drugs, Cartels and Survival, and Tulum Takedown, are also on Amazon/ And my journalistic overview of the Maya 2012 calendar phenomenon, Maya 2012 Revealed: Demystifying the Prophecy, is on Amazon.