WHY WAS FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT OBSESSED WITH THE MAYA?

 

The Ennis House, Los Angeles (photo TripSavvy).

Frank Lloyd Wright, considered by many to be the greatest architect of all time, never attended a formal architectural school. Wielding an avant-garde edge, he thought of interior and exterior places as one. This concept extended to his building forms and construction methods. Wright's signature on a certain type of architecture became not only an embellishment but a trademark. 

During a career that spanned 70 years, he designed over 1000 structures, created in harmony with humanity and the environment in a philosophy he dubbed organic architecture. His early beginnings were in the midwest where he was born and raised. That too is where he began his formal career as an architect in Chicago in 1893, after moving from rural Wisconsin.

THE PRAIRIE STYLE

From early on he experimented with different styles, incorporating one or more into his commissions, and by 1900, had developed a style that was to become his signature, the Prairie Style.  

Taliesen West (Architecturemagazine.com)

Coonley House/Prairie Style (Curbed Chicago)

1893 WORLD'S PRE-COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION

Though it's believed that Wright never stepped foot on the Yucatán Peninsula, home to numerous Maya pyramids, when he arrived in Chicago, lore has it he was inspired by the display of Maya artifacts and replicas at the 1893 World's Pre-Columbian Exposition in Chicago. It was there he glimpsed plaster castings from major Maya sites, Chichen Itza and Uxmal. A feature of the lesser known Labna site, in the Pu'uc Region in southern Yucatán, became important to his work due to his recurring use of its meaningful arch.

Nunnery Quadrange, Uxmal site (Archeology.eu)

Wright's interest in the Maya was piqued early on, from childhood. He was drawn to the Maya world when his mother showed him pictures in books about Central America and Mexico."Those images stayed in his mind most of his life," said Thomas Hines, UCLA architectural historian.

INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL BEST SELLER 

Las Monjas, Chichen Itzá (Frederick Catherwood)

In the 1840s, two books about Central America archeology became best sellers: Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatán, and Incidents of Travel in Yucatán, Part 2, by explorer John Lloyd Stephens and British artist Frederick Catherwood. The 1893 exposition's display of the ancient Americas lauded the indigenous people who first called this continent home. It was one of Stephens' books that drew Wright into the world of the Maya.

GOLDEN DOORWAY

Wright and his employer, Louis Sullivan, had contributed a monumental golden doorway for the Transportation Building at the fair and during his many visits to check on it, Wright would have seen Stephens' casts and photos of the Maya buildings. Both he and his employer were drawn to the style which would eventually be known as Mayan Revival; they both distained the European Neo-classical style that dominated other buildings at the expo.

Golden Doorway for Transportation Building

Eventually Wright broke from his employer and established his own firm in Oak Park, Illinois, where he designed numerous commissions, gaining ground and at times notoriety with many well-heeled clients. By this time he was married. With his wife, Catherine, and their six children, he settled into a white picket fence existence.

Edwin and Mamah Cheney house (compositiondelascasa.com)

THE CHENEY HOUSE

While designing a house for local residents Edwin and Mamah (Mamey) Cheney, Wright and Catherine began socializing with his clients at the precise moment that middle age, ennui regarding his Prairie style designs, and a craving for change and greener pastures collided. Mamah, a feminist and free thinker, could keep up with Wright intellectually. She intrigued him. Change won. She and her husband divorced almost immediately, allowing Mamah to escape the confines of her marriage. The couple soon left for Europe to avoid the brouhaha and the tabloids. They spent time in Germany and Italy, where he viewed various architectural styles. On their return to the US and despite his wife refusing to grant an immediate divorce, Wright was determined to build a house for Mamah in the rural fields of Wisconsin near his childhood home. It would be transformational and a beauty, and he would name it Taliesin.

Taliesin (Wisconsin Visitor Bureau)

TALIESIN 

Love and happiness, however, were short lived. At a nearly completed Taliesin in 1914, his lover Mamah Bothwick Cheney was murdered by a household staff member along with her two children and five others. After the heinous massacre, Wright sought solace far from the midwest. Los Angeles, known as a place for reinvention and recuperation, beckoned. He headed west.

Mamah Borthwick Cheney (history.com)

After the murders, he was again exposed to Maya architecture and pyramids at the Panama Pacific Exposition in San Francisco in 1915. As the displays at Chicago had stimulated Wright, mentioned by Thomas Hines, the Panama Pacific Exposition glimpse of Maya culture made a lasting impression.

Though the displays were based on a Maya fantasy world, they cemented the Maya link between architecture and death, "Which was not only the setting for a fantastic pyramid palace but also for human sacrifice; part of the complexes displayed where humans were buried."

WRIGHT IN LOS ANGELES

"A place where the living could communicate and remember the dead," said Hines. "And after the loss of his lover, Mamah Cheney, death was much on the architect's mind. The exceptional architectural style of the Maya sites must have greatly intrigued him, for it was an outsized influence on his Los Angeles architectural style," continued the UCLA historian.

A.D. German Warehouse (franklloydwright.org)

Prior to his exodus to LA, Wright tried out his Mayan Revival style on a Richland, Wisconsin commission in 1915, —the A.D. German Warehouse. On completion, the site hardly looked like something that would house the wares of a green grocer in a small Wisconsin town—it more resembled a temple pulled from a Catherwood drawing of the Maya Nunnery at Uxmal.

This commission helped test the Maya motif that would become the basis of his residential work in Los Angeles. On completing Wisconsin, he accepted an offer to design the Imperial Hotel in Japan.  

Hollyhock House (photo Curbed LA)

MAYAN REVIVAL STYLE

Today five iconic LA houses render his Maya look. While constructing the first, Hollyhock House, he worked simultaneously in Japan on the Imperial Hotel which helped shape his vision as an architect.

Though the houses Wright designed in Los Angeles pre-dated the Art Deco movement that began in the 1920s, they have the undeniable air of deco. We'll never know if Wright influenced the movement or vice versa. And though the Mayan Revival style itself had begun at the turn of the 20th century, its popularity accelerated once Wright got on board. This style is most notably seen in his Southern California open-concept layouts built from concrete stackable blocks molded with local materials and natural color schemes, and stamped with bold geometric motifs.

Hollyhock House, his first LA commission, was completed in 1921 for oil heiress Aline Barnsdall who had purchased 36 acres on the eastern edge of Hollywood. Wright's finished design was above all a Maya temple. Barnsdall had planned on a multi-arts center, and never intended it for residential use.

The hearth at Hollyhock House (photo Curbed LA)

HOLLYHOCK PLUS FOUR 

With its 17 rooms and seven baths, it's often noted as a bridge of Wright's two prominent styles: Mayan Revival, with textile blocks inspired by temples from Palenque, and Prairie Style, with its low-pitched roof line. 

In 1927 she gifted it to the city. But it was at Hollyhock House, named for the flower that Barnsdall most loved, where Wright began working with natural materials. 

A "cultural nationalist," according to leading Wright authority Kathryn Smith, Los Angeles, he strove to define an original American architecture and shied away from Victorian and Spanish colonial styles. Though of Welsh origin, he believed an indigenous architectural style would better suit the Americas rather than a European style architecture.

Kathryn Smith said he sought out traditional materials on the lands where he was building, making the concrete blocks from sand and granite, stamping them with motifs resembling Maya symbols. His open concept layout led to massive rooms and enormously high ceilings, in some cases creating the feeling of a mausoleum, as people who actually lived in his houses had been known to say.

Next came the Alice Millard commission on one acre in Pasadena, La Miniatura. This is where he truly refined the concrete molecular block system, with his stamped Maya patterns. Flat-roofed and mysterious, a wall of blocks stamped with equi-distant diametric crosses greets one at the property's edge. One historian said the cross is a reference to the MesoAmerican understanding of the cardinal directions, pointing to the cardinal elements that establish the shape of the universe. Some called the Millard House a small temple in a eucalyptus grove.

The Millard House

The placement of the house is in a ravine, with two towering eucalyptus trees standing nearby, and gives the feel of being at a jungle pyramid site, much like Palenque. 

After the Millard commission came the Storer House in 1923. Built on a steep hillside, the house is dominated by a large upstairs living room with a high ceiling. Maya inspired columns and tall narrow windows dominate. It's believed that this house was built on spec. It was owned by Joel Silver, Hollywood producer, from 1984 until 2002. He gave it a thoughtful renovation including a pool that had been in the original plans. Brendan Gill, one of Wright's most thoughtful biographers, said it was more like a home for a Mayan god.

 

The Storer House (Californiahomedesigns.com)

Probably the best known FLW house in Los Angeles is the Ennis House, built also in 1923, for Charles and Mabel Ennis. It very much appears to be another Maya grand palace, but the Ennis' insisted that Wright incorporate some of their desires into his design. Notably seen in a handful of movies—Blade Runner, Day of the Locust, The House on Haunted Hill—it overpowers the environment and looms over the neighborhood like an ancient ruin, visible for miles around.

The Ennis House (TripSavvy.com)

Ennis House stamped wall of concrete Maya blocks (photo Galerie)

And last of the FLW LA five is the house built in 1924 for dancer Harriet Freeman and her husband Samuel, the Freeman House. Donated to USC, the daughter and son-in-law of the Dean of Architecture lived in the house while attendeding university. "It felt like a ruin," she said in 2002. "It was crumbling down all around us."

The Freeman House

Of Wright's LA houses, the Freeman House had the happiest existence. It was home for 60 years to the Freemans, a Bohemian couple who befriended him and scraped together the money for Wright's commission. Notably it was the only Wright house in LA to hold long-term occupants. The Freemans lived there until 1986 when they donated it to USC. According to Harriet Freeman, the house was dense and introverted, but it well suited their purposes. Along with being their home, Harriet, a dancer, used it as a dance center and salon where she entertained and performed.

GRANDSON ERIC WRIGHT

Eric Wright, 91, the architects's grandson who lives at FLW's unfinished Malibu property high in the hills, was interviewed by Christopher Hawthorne, architecture critic for the LA Times, for his documentary on Wright, That Far Corner. When Hawthorne asked what drew FLW to Los Angeles, he was candid. "He was very upset about the loss of Mamey and the adverse publicity because they weren't married," Wright said.

"What was his state of mind when he moved to Los Angeles?" Hawthorne asked. 

"Sorrow," Wright said. "He had a wonderful life until her death."

Eric Lloyd Wright in Malibu (Los Angeles Magazine)

Hawthorne asked Tim Samuelson, Chicago's cultural historian, what he made of Wright's LA Mayan Revival look. "They seem like, the houses, almost mausoleum-like. They are heavy. One critic described them as dark and macabre—like the drama of Sophocles. The LA homes were. . . brutal, romantic, fantastic, and—strange."

FUNEREAL ASPECTS

Filmmaker Hawthorne continues, "The LA houses have funereal aspects. They're sinister, lacking joy. But scholars are hesitant to embrace the crude character of pre-Columbian death cults. These ideas, however, shaped Wright's understanding of pre-Columbian design and their meaning."

"His architecture," historian Blair Kamin said, "and this mission helped him to recover from personal tragedy. His architecture saved him in the end."

"His LA houses," continued Hawthorne, "stand apart from his work overall and apart from the rest of LA architecture of the period. They are not just heavy, but heavy-hearted—their starkness, and in some cases, their state of ruin. I don't think it's because the houses look crypt-like and that is why they are empty. It's because they are crypt-like that none are used as full-time residences. They are off-putting. The houses are shadowed by violence and even death.

"At the time, building these houses was a means for Wright to put a troubled period behind him for good. It exemplified his own uncertain state of mind. I believe they were a catalyst for putting aside that very troubled period.

"Wright buried Mamey in the Unity Chapel Cemetery in Spring Green, Wisconsin—but she's also buried in Los Angeles."

                        

                                                                  

Unity Chapel, Spring Green, Wisconsin—FLW's first commission

Who knew that Wright's ongoing obsession with the Maya would rescue him as he worked his way out of grief by creating mausoleum-like, cathedral/pyramid tombs over and over and over again in reverence of the woman he loved and lost. As the historian said, his architecture saved him in the end.

Gravestone for Mamah Borthwick Cheney in Spring Green, Wisconsin

Resources for this post came from Curbed LA—Demystifying Frank Lloyd Wright's Most Eccentric Homes; Coming Around to Frank Lloyd Wright—Architecture Magazine; Getting it Wright: Today's Prairie Style; Trip Savvy's Frank Lloyd Wright LA Homes; Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation: Peek Inside 7 Iconic FLW Houses; ChicagoCurbed.com's Take a Walking Tour of FLW's Oak Park Homes; WendyCity'sChicago.com's World Fair Moments: Sullivan's Golden Door; Sunset Ranch in LA: Frank Lloyd Wright in Los Angeles; Los Angeles Magazine's Inhabiting a Legacy; Curbed LA—Frank Lloyd Wright's Forgotten Hollywood Sand Castle; Artsy.net's How Frank Lloyd Wright's Take on Mayan Temples Shaped Hollywood; Loving Frank, by Nancy Horan; and the documentary That Far Corner, by Christopher Hawthorne.

If you want to read more about the Maya, Mexico and the Yucatán, sign up at the top right for my bi-monthly blogs, or check my website at www.jeaninekitchel.com. Where the Sky is Born: Living in the Land of the Maya, my memoir on life as an expat is available on Amazon. Also there check out my Mexico cartel thrillers, books one and two in my Wheels Up trilogy: Wheels Up—A Novel of Drugs, Cartels and Survival, and Tulum Takedown. For a journalistic overview of the Maya 2012 calendar phenomenon, check out Maya 2012 Revealed: Demystifying the Prophecy.

 

WHAT IS THE EQUINOX?

We're living in the 21st century. Those in western civilization are far removed from the jungles, the plains and the tundra. So why is the equinox important to us today? Called the first day of autumn, the equinox—when day and night are equal in length all over the world—occurs this year on September 22 and marks the autumnal equinox.

At equinox, the sun crosses directly over the equator and as the Earth orbits, it tilts neither away from the sun nor towards it. Because the equinox is based on the Earth's movement around the sun, there's a three-day window in which it can occur—as early as September 2o and as late as September 23.

HOW IT RELATES TODAY

But why do we take an interest in the equinox? Could be because we humans, going back to the Egyptians, the Maya, and Polynesians for starters, have always been stargazers. Early on in our coming of age, the ancients made up the constellations and stories about the night sky. Today we still gaze at the same sky but with more oomph—we send out advanced satellites, telescopes, and Rovers to retrieve information from the stars, the planets and far-away galaxies. And we're writing scientific documents, basically new stories, extolling what lies outside our atmosphere.

Nectarine blossoms (photo John Kitchel)

Even though we live in a sophisticated high-tech world, we still celebrate the importance of the relationship between our sun and planet Earth. In agrarian times, spring was ushered in by the equinox which meant it was time to plant, and at the autumnal equinox it was time to harvest. That may not be so important to us today, but have you ever wondered why Easter is also a floating date rather than fixed?

EASTER

Easter today, as in pagan times, is the first Sunday following the first full moon after the spring equinox. This year that full moon is March 28 and Easter falls on April 4. As sophisticated as we are with technology at our fingertips, we still follow some traditions that originated when humans were still hunter-gatherers. Though we may think the equinox has no influence on us, we're still rooted in a pagan cycle of historic events due to the date of that celestial occurrence. 

Because the spring equinox has ties to Christianity's most important event, Easter, many believe it centers on not only the Earth's waking call from a dark winter, but also the theme of resurrection.

CHICHEN ITZA AND THE EQUINOX

One of the most famous equinox ceremonies in North America takes place at the Maya pyramid site at Chichen Itza in Mexico. Around 4 p.m. the sun casts a remarkable shadow onto the most prestigious of the pyramids there, Temple of Kukulkan (Feathered Serpent). Due to the sun's position in the sky and the building's position thanks to precise mathematical calculations prefigured more than a millennia ago for the event, a shadow slithers down the staircase, ending at the tip of a serpent's mouth at the bottom. This feat was made possible by the Maya's ability to calculate the sun's effects on the earth at equinox.

In the Maya world many buildings are built to specifications that coincide with the equinox. Some scholars believe the importance placed on it relays to the resurrection of the Maize God, Hunahpu, and the turning from winter's darkness towards the light of spring, ushering in planting time. The fall equinox no doubt pays homage to the harvest.

The Hero Twins Consult with God (University of Virginia)

WORLDWIDE RECOGNITION

On the other side of the globe in Egypt, the equinox also represents a time of resurrection for the god Osiris. Because of this it's said the Great Sphinx of Giza is positioned to look directly at the rising sun on spring equinox. In Cambodia, scholars say the equinox represents the winning of forces of light over darkness, so the main temple at Angkor Wat also aligns with the equinox sun. 

Angkor Wat (photo the Ultimate Guide)

A certain theme continues to be played out with the equinox in the myths of the world—rebirth, awakening, and light overcoming darkness—exactly what takes place as Earth tilts into spring. 

So even though we're entrenched in this modern world, uber-connected through smart phones, computers and all forms of social media, it's important to remember there's a bigger picture out there and it affects all humanity on our green Earth. It is a thing as simple as how the sun and Earth relate, two days a year, on the equinox.

For more info on Mexico, the Maya and the Yucatán, subscribe to my bi-monthly blog above or check out my website, www.jeaninekitchel.com. I'm also author of a travel memoir Where the Sky is Born: Living in the Land of the Maya, that tells about my expat experience in buying land and building a house in a fishing village on the Mexican Caribbean coast. It's available on Amazon, as are books one and two in m crime thriller trilogy, Wheels Up—A Novel of Drugs, Cartels and Survival, along with Tulum Takedown.

HOW MEXICO'S YUCATÁN SINKHOLES AND UNDERGROUND RIVERS WERE FORMED

 

Photo MexicanCaribbeanTravel

CENOTES

PART 2

The Yucatán Peninsula emerged 65 million years ago as a vast coral reef according to geologists. As the oceans receded, mollusks died, creating the limestone shelf that now covers the Peninsula's porous land. Rain waters filtered down into the substructure and created underground rivers. After the last ice age, the oceans rose to their current levels and flooded the caves left by the lacy limestone shelves, collapsing some, creating sinkholes, commonly known as cenotes in Yucatán. Though not unique to the Yucatán, cenotes are fairly uncommon geological formations, and they can vary considerably in shape and size.

Image from CenoteFinder

Although cenotes are plentiful in the Yucatán, with thousands known, exploring them is a fairly new phenomenon. In the 1980s, geologists identified 21 variations and have since narrowed these down to five basic types: open air, angled wall, vertical wall as at Chichen Itza, cavern pool with stalactites, and underground domed.

Open air Carwash Cenote near Tulum (photo theworldisaplayground.com)

CAVE SYSTEMS

Some cenotes have small surface openings but unfold into an intricate cave system that can literally run for miles. This cenote type is popular with cave divers and tackled by professionals like diver Mike Madden, formerly of Puerto Morelos. Madden did some of the first explorations near Tulum, Quintana Roo, under the auspices of CEDAM (Club de Exploraciones y Deportes Acuaticos de Mexico) earning a spot in the 1988 Guinness Book of World Records for documenting the world's longest underwater cave system—168,400 feet in all—called Giant Birdhouse or in Mayan, Nohoch Nah Chich. Madden's explorations proved that an intricate series of meandering underground waterways exists, connecting cenote to cenote.

Nohoch Nah Chich Cenote (photo Steve Gerrard)

Considered an extreme sport, cave diving is gaining popularity and it's not uncommon to bump into serious divers on Yucatán's cenote route.

In colonial Valladolid, 28 miles east of Chichen Itza, Cenote Zaci can be found. A cavern pool 150 feet wide, its turquoise waters show off stalactites and there is a walkway around the entire cenote, to better view the massive pool. An adjoining restaurant lights up the area at night for diners who can either eat inside or on an expansive deck overlooking the fresh water pool.

MOST PHOTOGRAPHED CENOTE

Four miles south of Valladolid off a narrow, two-lane road is Centoe Dzitnup. An underground cenote with angled walls, it has a hole in its ceiling where sunlight streams in at mid-day. Tree roots stretch down from the rocky ceiling to reach the clear, still waters below. One of the most photographed of Yucatán's cenotes, a steep slippery descent leads one into this underground cavern.

Underground Cenote Dzitnup (photo Cliff Wassman)

Ten miles north of Merida, Yucatán's capital made famous for manufacturing Panama hats at the turn of the 20th century, Xlacah Cenote can be found at the Dzibilchaltun ruins. A popular cooling off spot, this open air cenote is not connected to any underground pools and seems more like a local swimming hole than a cenote.

AMAZING CAVES IMAX FILM

Dos Ojos (photo HiddenWorlds)

Leaving Yucatán and entering Riviera Maya territory, cenotes dot Highway 307 south of Playa del Carmen, 42 miles from Cancun. Dos Ojos, south of Playa, was the site of the Amazing Caves IMAX diving film. The film shows stunning footage of underground caverns with stalactites and stalagmites, and was the highest grossing giant screen documentary film of 2001. Well worth a watch.

IMAX Journey Into Amazing Caves (Blu-Ray review)

Aktun-Chen combines both a cenote and the area's largest caves within a massive rainforest park, ten miles north of the Tulum pyramids. A bit further south at the Coba pyramid turnoff, Car Wash Cenote is located on a road dotted with sinkholes. A wide pool, unspectacular at first sight but good for swimming, Car Wash opens into an underwater cave where freshwater tropical fish cruise alongside turtles.

SOUTHERN CENOTES

Heading south to Belize, Cenote Azul is located in Bacalar, 25 miles north of QRoo's capitol, Chetumal. Situated near Bacalar's famous Lagoon of the Seven Colors, the second largest fresh water lake in Mexico, Cenote Azul is Mexico's largest cenote. Stretching 600 feet in diameter, this stunning turquoise-colored cenote is a perfect spot for a swim. 

Cenote Azul near Bacalar (photo LocoGringo.com)

This vast peninsula, comprised of low scrub jungles and knockout white sand beaches, was considered "the most savage coast in Central America" only 60 years ago. No paved road existed in Quintana Roo, now home to Cancun, which was then just a territory.

 

It would not become Mexico's 31st state until 1973. Trying hard to overturn their mediocre at best ecological record, the Mexico government established the 1.3 million acre Sian Kaan Biosphere Reserve in 1986 in Quintana Roo, in hopes of preserving this outstanding piece of Mother Nature.

Sian Ka'an Eco Biosphere Reserve (photo UNESCO)

SIAN KA'AN UNESCO SITE

Named a World Heritage site by UNESCO, the biosphere encompasses hundreds of species of local birds, plants, mammals and fish along with acres of mangroves, lagoons and savannas. Sian Ka'an is all about eco-tourism and the preservation of this massive stretch of land, which covers one third of the Caribbean coast of Mexico. The reserve contains a buffer zone where limited human activity is allowed, such as bone-fishing or boat trips through the lagoons out to the Great Meso-American Reef, the world's second largest reef.

These cenotes are but a handful of many the Yucatán Peninsula has to offer. Local tour guides and guidebooks can lead to spur of the moment or planned cenote adventures, plus ensure a cool dip in a crystal clear fresh water pool for your efforts as a reward.

For more information on Mexico, the Maya and the Yucatán, subscribe to my bi-monthly blog above or check out my website, www.jeaninekitchel.com. I'm also author of a travel memoir, Where the Sky is Born: Living in the Land of the Maya, that details how I bought land, built a house and became an expat in a fishing village on the Mexican Caribbean coast. It's available on Amazon, as are books one and two in my crime thriller trilogy, Wheels Up—A Novel of Drugs, Cartels and Survival, along with Tulum Takedown. 

MEXICO'S MARVELS—CENOTES OF THE YUCATAN

 

Cenote in Yucatan 

Tangled green vines brush against my face as I trek behind our guide deeper into the low-lying Yucatan jungle. The narrow, gnarly path—recently cut by machete—oozes damp, musty smells.

It is July, rainy season in Mexico, and temperatures are in the nineties, a veritable heat wave. We’re in search of a cenote, a clear fresh water pool, also known as a sinkhole here in the Yucatan, a place the Maya named Sian Ka'an or Where the Sky is Born.

Although the Maya used these ancient wells as their water source in an arid land that offered few rivers, our search is for recreational purposes. We plan to cool off in the cenote’s crystal waters, to swim and maybe snorkel.

Traipsing through thick forest growth alongside a mangrove swamp, little did I realize this jungle spot forty miles south of Cancun and just seven miles north of Playa del Carmen (Tres Rios) would many years later become a major resort. With a wave of the hand, our guide motions us to follow.

Tres Rios cenote (haciendotresrios.com)

We ford the stream behind him and into a clearing. Now surrounded by brilliant green foliage, the scene becomes a primeval forest. The clarity of the cenote is beyond comparison. Gazing into it I see mangrove tree trunks reaching up from the pool’s bottom, breaking the waterline and stretching high into the tropical sky. 

Cenotes are plentiful in this part of Mexico and have become a favorite tourist attraction as vacationers discover they’re an ideal place to cool off in the sultry climate of the Riviera Maya. Nearly five hundred are known to exist in the Northeastern Yucatan where Maya civilization flourished for 3500 years from 2000 BC to 1521 AD. 

Cenote Bang by USGS.gov

To the Maya, a culture made great by ruling dynasties and strong religious beliefs, cenotes were more than just a water source. The Maya believed cenotes were the sacred entrance to the underworld of spirits where Chaac, the rain god, lived. On a parched peninsula, Chaac ruled in a long line of spiritual dieties. Water is life.

Of the Yucatan’s numerous cenotes, perhaps best known is the Sacred Cenote at Chichen Itza, a ceremonial center known for towering pyramids and spring and fall equinox displays of shadow and light. The vertical wall cenote has a diameter of 160 feet and measures 60 feet from its lip to the water surface below. Made famous by archeological explorer Edward H. Thompson, this well brought forth its diabolic history when Thompson dredged it in 1904.

Thompson knew Maya life intertwined agriculture, religion and water. Due to agricultural needs to feed a burgeoning  population, the Maya calendar was developed to determine auspicious dates for planting and harvesting. Thompson also knew the calendar was interpreted by the priests, but as their promises failed to bring rain, he’d heard human sacrifices were thrown into the cenote to appease Chaac. He was also positive that along with the maidens, other offerings would also have been made.

The Boston explorer tested his theory by creating a diving aparatus and taking diving lessons, hiring a Greek diver to assist him, traveled to Boston to buy a derrick and thirty-foot boom, designed his own diving apparatus, and shipped it all to the Yucatan.

Edward H. Thompson (photo americanegypt.com)

On his return, he dove and dredged the Sacred Cenote daily. Finally, about six weeks in, he came up with gold and copper discs, figures of Maya gods and the clincher, human skeletons. His exploration of the cenote proved that human sacrifice was indeed a part of Maya life, with human sacrifice hopefully giving them access to the rain god and his whims.

Chicen Itza's cenote is but one of many in the Yucatan. Part 2 will explore how cenotes were formed and give details on some of the more popular ones on the Peninsula. Stay tuned.

For more information on the Maya, Mexico and the Yucatan, check out my website, www.jeaninekitchel.com. My travel memoir, Where the Sky is Born: Living in the Land of the Maya, is available on Amazon.com. Also on Amazon, are books one and two in my Mexico cartel thriller trilogy, Wheels Up—A Novel of Drugs, Cartels and Survival, and Tulum Takedown. Subscribe to my blog above for my writings on Mexico and the Maya.

CAN MEXICO KEEP ITS JOURNALISTS ALIVE?

                                             "Being a journalist is like being on a black list."

                                          

Javier Valdez Cárdenas (theguardian.com)

MEXICO JOURNALISTS

PART 2

Mexico reporter and author Javier Valdez Cárdenas said, “The government's promises of protection are next to worthless if the cartels decide they want you dead.”

And that proved to be the case on a May day in 2017 in Culiacan, Sinaloa, where the fifty-year old journalist was dragged from his car at noon and shot 12 times in front of Riodoce, the newspaper he co-founded in 2003.

As Valdez had presciently stated, “Even though you may have bullet-proofing and bodyguards, the gangs will decide what day they are going to kill you.”

Valdez, well-known for his amiable nature, wide smile and Panama hat, was one of 119 Mexican journalists assassinated since 2000 because they dared to report news about the cartels. 

INTERNATIONAL PRESS FREEDOM AWARD

Valdez accepting International Press Freedom Award (cpj.org)

In a three-decade long career, the award winning reporter chronicled not only stories of Mexico’s organized crime, narco-trafficking, and the corruption of government officials, but also the unseen side—tales from musicians who composed the narco-corridos, mothers whose sons had been murdered, kids from unknown pueblos who dreamed of becoming hitmen. He spoke at a reception in 2011 when he received an International Press Freedom Award by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) where he was introduced as a writer who “combined the grit of a battle hardened reporter with the soul of a 19th century romantic poet.”

In his acceptance speech he said, “The youth will remember this as a time of war. Their DNA is tattooed with bullets and guns and blood, and this is a form of killing tomorrow. We are murderers of our own future."

THIS IS A WAR

“This is a war,” he continued, “one controlled by the narcos, but we the citizens are providing the deaths and the governments of Mexico and the US, the guns.”

Javier Valdez Mural (by Julio Cesar Aguilar, theintercept.com)

He watched as mayhem ensued, recording in his writings the sins and violence inflicted by cartels on his native citizens. He wrote about countless colleagues’ deaths, but somehow, he carried on. What may have secured the nail in Valdez’s coffin occurred shortly after El Chapo Guzman, notorious Sinaloa Cartel drug lord, was extradited to the US in January 2017, after his third arrest. 

Though Valdez’s reporting on the cartels had been tolerated prior to Chapo’s extradition, his attempt to explain the power struggle taking place inside the Sinaloa Cartel after Chapo’s departure may have pushed his once untouchable status to the limit. The splintering, Valdez reported, occurred because there were now two factions in the Sinaloa Cartel. Two of Guzman’s sons, known as the Chapitos, led one faction, while Damaso Lopez, a prison warden and right hand man who helped Chapo in his first prison escape in 2001, led the other. Infighting raged well into February.

DANGEROUS LIASONS

In March a man called the Riodoce offices and spoke to Valdez, requesting a meeting after explaining he had important information. Valdez agreed to meet the man in a car in a parking lot, a risky endeavor. The man was a lieutenant of Damaso Lopez, and while sitting in the car, called his boss then passed the phone to Valdez. Lopez claimed he had not betrayed El Chapo, stating he “loved and admired” his boss. But Lopez also criticized Chapo’s sons, the Chapitos, saying they were “sick with power.”

Remembrance for Javier Valdez (cps.org)

In his career spanning decades, Valdez had reported from deep within the narco world. Most of his sources were lower down on the food chain, and Valdez protected their identity with anomynity. Printing the words of someone higher up the chain of command, like Damaso Lopez, raised the stakes, pulling Valdez and his paper into the fight. In the end, Valdez decided to print the story, believing the information was important for the public to know.

THE CHAPITOS' END GAME

Before the issue ran, he received a call from a representative of the Chapitos, requesting a meeting at a nearby cantina. The Chapitos’ envoy said that the interview with Lopez could not be published because Lopez was a cartel insurgent. Valdez said it was too late—thousands of copies had already been printed and would go on stands the next day. The next morning when delivery trucks began dropping off papers, cartel affiliates followed, buying up every copy. Few copies were seen by the public.

With that action, Valdez realized he may have reached his expiration date with the Sinaloa Cartel. He contacted the Committee to Protect Journalists and discussed relocating. He ultimately decided against the move however, thinking it would be too difficult for his family, and in the next few weeks, the problem seemed to dissipate.

In an interview with Index on Censorship just a month before his death, he explained some journalists had to flee Mexico under threat of death. In his book, Narco Journalism, he described the Mexico journalist's plight: exiled, murdered, corrupted, terrorized by cartels or betrayed by police or politicos in bed with the cartels. 

"Now they kidnap, extort, control the sale of arms, beer, taxis. They control hospitals, police officers, the army, people in government and those who finance them. The omnipresent narco is everywhere.”

Even in the newsroom. In his book Narco Journalism, he wrote that local newspapers hired the occasional reporter on payroll who was a narco plant. “This has made our work much more complicated. Now we have to protect ourselves not only from politicians and narcos, but even other journalists,” he wrote.

Valdez’s final article was about a protest in Culiacán against the deadly attacks teachers face by traveling and working in some of Sinaloa’s most dangerous areas. At least six teachers had been killed in the state that year, 2017.

NO TO SILENCE

In spite of his international profile, Valdez knew he was not protected. After fellow journalist Mirosalva Breach was shot in front of her son in Chihuahua, he tweeted, “Let them kill us all, if that is the death penalty for reporting this hell. No to silence.”

Valdez was silenced forever on May 15, 2017, gunned down in the street as he was leaving to have lunch with his wife.   At first the murder was attributed to Damaso Lopez, but Lopez testified under oath during Guzman’s trial in New York City in 2019 that neither he nor his son, Damaso Lopez Serrano, murdered the journalist. He attributed the assassination to the Chapitos, El Chapo’s sons.

But with Mexico's appalling track record on closing out cases, Valdez's true killer may never be known. Suffice it to say it was cartel related.

Valdez’s last book, The Taken—True Stories of the Sinaloa Drug War, tells the stories of ordinary people, caught in a terrifying net—migrant workers, teachers, teens, petty criminals, police officers and local journalists. Building on a rich history of testimonial literature, he recounts stories from people whose world did not center on drugs or illegal activities but on survival and resilience, and how they dealt with fear, uncertainty and the guilt that afflicts survivors and witnesses. His last book was a testament to the people of Mexico.

RIP Javier Valdez.

Javier Valdez (assassination.globalinitiative.net)

For more information on my writing, check out my website www.jeaninekitchel.com. My first book, a travel memoir, Where the Sky is Born: Living in the Land of the Maya, is available on Amazon as are books one and two in my Mexico cartel trilogy, Wheels Up—A Novel of Drugs, Cartels and Survival, and Tulum Takedown. Subscribe above to keep up to date with future blogs on Mexico and the Maya and the Yucatán.

STAYING ALIVE—ARE MEXICO JOURNALISTS AN ENDANGERED SPECIES?

 

                              "We are not war correspondents. The war came to us."

Reporters holding photos of murdered colleagues (photo Rio Grande Guardian)

Since 2000, 119 journalists were murdered in Mexico because they dared to write about cartel violence and corruption. Thirty-five remain missing. A 2019 report by International Institute for Strategic Studies states 23,000 were killed due to the country’s “War on Drugs,” christened as such by President Felipe Calderon in 2006. Since 2000 due to cartel violence, nearly 200,000 are dead.

Mexico is the most dangerous country in the world for journalists, according to Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). Last December alone, three Mexican journalists were shot within ten days.

“You want to kill a journalist, you can do it without much of a chance that you’ll be caught,” said Jan-Albert Hootsen, Mexico representative of CPJ.

The Cartel Project (photo Forbiddenstories.org)

THE CARTEL PROJECT

In response to the disturbing rise of Mexican journalist murders, The Cartel Project, a global network of investigative journalists coordinated by Forbidden Stories, emerged to continue work by reporters who had been threatened, censored, or killed. Working together across 18 different countries over a ten-month period, they investigated the global networks of Mexican drug cartels and their political connections around the world.

The cornerstone of this collaborative work is Regina Martinez, journalist for Proceso, a national investigative weekly out of Veracruz. Eight years after her death in April 2012, The Cartel Project’s reporting team picked up where her work left off. Throughout her tenure at Proceso, she wrote scathing commentaries on two successive governors in Veracruz who looted the treasury and allowed cartels to operate freely with help from local and state police.

MARTINEZ'S MOXY

Martinez was on the verge of publishing a blockbuster of a story. Her reporting would disclose that traffickers and their accomplices had executed thousands of people: teenage dealers, their families, farmers, politicians, even young women who attended cartel sex parties. She’d discovered an exponential rise in the number of bodies being buried in pauper’s graves. She believed that public cemeteries were being used to dispose of victims of forced disappearances. 

Martinez interviewing AMLO, 1992 (photo Alberto Morales Garcia)

The Cartel Project noted that Martinez told a friend it was the most dangerous investigation of her career. Shortly after that confession, she was murdered in her Xalapa home, beaten then asphyxiated with a dish towel. This killing of a high-profile correspondent for a national magazine set off a wave of targeted violence throughout the country. Martinez was one of the few reporters who dared to refuse bribes or to ignore cartel threats aimed at censoring the news. She paid for it with her life.

JOURNALISTS AS TARGETS

In their investigation, the Cartel Project found that before her death, Martinez was one of a group of journalists targeted by a sophisticated espionage unit run by the Veracruz Public Security Ministry. The unit used surveillance technology and a vast network of informants to gather information, monitoring those believed to be political opponents of the governor. Leaked reports showed analysts maintained files for decades on hundreds of targets, their family members and co-workers, including info on their hangouts and political affiliations.

Martinez’s looming bombshell of an investigation was her death sentence. “She was becoming very inconvenient for people in power,” said a fellow journalist.

She was killed before her story came out. The murder investigation of her death was botched and investigators ignored the fact that her death had been caused by her investigative work. The final report stated she had been killed in a robbery gone wrong. During the ten-month open investigation, murders of journalists escalated, with ten more reporters killed in that time.

Regina Martinez (Elfaro.net)

LA CHAPARITTA

"Fearless,” said Jorge Carrasco, director of Proceso where Martinez worked as a correspondent from 2000 until her death in 2012. “Everything the local press didn’t dare to publish was published via Regina Martinez."

Born into a family of 11 children, Martinez studied journalism and began reporting news for a local Veracruz TV station in 1980. Called Chaparrita, or “little woman,” in reference to her height of 4 feet, 11 inches and 100 pound frame, she made a name for herself in the field.

“Her work was her life," said fellow journalist and friend Norma Trujillo. “She was really interested in social issues, human rights violations. She was close to the people. That was her superpower.”

It also didn't hurt that she was a gifted reporter, going after the tough stories. Three years before the H1N1 crisis exploded in 2006, she covered the horrible sanitary conditions on pig farms in La Gloria, a Veracruz pueblo that eventually was named the probable epicenter of the virus. And one year later, she accused the Mexican Army of raping and killing a 72-year old indigenous woman.

                                                                                    

THE GOVERNORS

                                                                                                         

Call to action. (Dartcenter.org)

No matter how dangerous the road, she traveled it. Her doggedness led her to investigate the excesses of power and corruption in Veracruz. That, no doubt, was her undoing. Fidel Herrera and Javier Duarte, who served as back to back governors in Veracruz, became central figures under the pen she wielded like a sword in her investigative journalism.

Under these two governors, Veracruz became the world’s most dangerous place for journalists. Since 2000, 28 journalists have been killed there and another eight disappeared— half during the 12 years these men held office. 

The Cartel Project's reporting team discovered that law enforcement authorities in Mexico, the US, and Spain had opened inquiries into allegations that Herrera colluded with the Zeta cartel as governor and took money for his campaign. He also money laundered while serving in a diplomatic post in Spain, but to date has not been charged with a crime. Duarte is serving a nine-year sentence for embezzlement and money laundering.

Part two in the series will pay homage to other Mexico journalists who died while reporting on Mexico cartels. Stay tuned.

Check out www.jeaninekitchel.com. Books one and two in my Mexico cartel trilogy, Wheels Up—A Novel of Drugs, Cartels and Survival, and Where the Sky is Born: Living in the Land of the Maya, my memoir on expat life in Mexico.