A Visit to a Heritage Garden in Sisbichen

Danny (U Chicago Grad student) ponders the magic of the Saramuyo (sugar apple)

After about thirty minutes of driving on the tollroad from Valladolid to Cancun, we turn down a small dirt road.  We pass Uspibil, then Chechmil, finally arriving in Sisbichen, a town with about 1500 inhabitants, most of whom speak Maya.  Sisbichen is named after the Vanilla planifolia orchid that grows abundantly in the town's jungles, whose pods are used to produce vanilla.  The plant is called Sis bik in the region, which means "the one that moves like a snake in the shade.'  Chen means cenote or well.  

Sis bik growing on a tree

We've come here to meet Don Antonio, a man with great connection to nature and plants.  "Don Oxte?  Is it Don Oxte...Abuelo?" she asks another woman in the group that is gathering.  Several other women walk across the square to see what we're looking for.  They begin to speak to each other in Maya, and Danny and I anxiously exchange smiles with one another, waiting to see what the verdict is.  She tells us that we'll need to go to Rancho Yokdzonot, several kilometers down the main road.  As we pass through the gates, we enter a sort of paradise, home to an unusual mix of plants and animals and a man with a vision for harmony with nature.  

Don Antonio and Cintia

Don Antonio and his wife Cintia direct a non-profit called Jardines del Colibri Dorado (Gardens of the Golden Hummingbird) dedicated to reforestation of fruit and lumber trees, as well as jungle reforestation.  In the town of Sisbichen, they run a teaching project, giving lessons on organic gardening.  Today, Cintia is waiting to hear back from a man who will deliver many gallons of paint, which will be used to paint the local school.

The Entrance to Don Antonio's Ranch

Antonio Oxte is returning from a swim in a cenote when we meet him.  He begins the interview by introducing himself and labeling the small Maya pueblo where he's from on my map.  He's been at the ranch for 7 years, and in this time, has cultivated plants that he brought as plants and seeds from around the world - including the Andes, Greece, Africa, the Amazon, and Canada.  His vision is to have a place where he can grow plants to eat and to cure. "How did you come to travel to so many places?"  I ask.  He chuckles and begins a story that is so far-fetched, you'd need to hear him tell it yourself to believe it. From an early age, Oxte learned of his talents as a healer.  He spent many years walking across the globe, once all the way from Canada to South America, where he stayed for 7 years in the Amazon.

Rare orchids

Papalo

As we walk around the property, their knowledge of plants and their commitment to living off of the land becomes very clear.  It seems that after almost every plant we see, Cintia adds "we eat this almost everyday," and tells us how it is used.  Each plant has a story - where it came from, why it's important, and how brought it to the ranch.  There's a pine seedling from Canada that's struggling in the Yucatan heat.  Don Antonio is sure it will live: "It's already taken to the soil.  A little stressed out from when I moved it, but doing really well now" he reassures.  A bean plant from Peru is thriving, spreading out over a trellis and a nearby tree.  The seed it grew from was hundreds of years old, dormant when found in a cave.  In about a month, the plant will be filled with half-dollar sized beans, half-white and half-black.  There's cucumber growing on a tree, and an orchid yet to be classified, and a healthy bush-like papalo, which Don Oxte uses to treat anemia.  Cilantrillo, a plant with delicate flowers, he tells us is the most powerful antibiotic.  La hierba del zorillo (skunk) (in Yucatec Maya: Payche) can be inhaled or rubbed on the skin to treat bronchitis and muscle aches.

Cilantrillo's small white flowers

Evidence of an earlier ceremony

Walking around the property, we come to a huge cenote, with birds flying in and out of its cave-like walls.  A blue butterfly flutters by.  The cenote is virgin, used only for bathing and drinking water.  Candles from a ceremony the night before form a shape along its edge.  It's a perfectly balanced ecosystem.

One of don Oxte's virgin cenotes

With doña Cintia on the Sac-be

Walking back towards the house, we begin to meet many of the beautiful chickens and ducks that call the ranch home, as well as a deer who was raised from a baby after her mother was killed, and several pets who are half coyote/half dogs, whose coyote-ness becomes evident when they begin to howl at a visitor.  The road we're walking down is a Sac-be, one of many sacred Maya roads which remain perfect preserved after thousands of years.  In many ways, the scene is surreal.

Patricia

The coyote dogs

For the moment, Don Oxte is looking to partner with an organization or university to create a survey of the Flora and Fauna on his property of more than 100 hectares.  "There are so many unidentified species here.  I'd really like to know exactly what I have"  he says.  I'm in agreement.  From green bees to rare orchids, a day on the Ranch leaves me wondering if I've imagined some of things I've seen.

Looking up at a pich tree in amazement