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

Centro Botanico Naturista La Melisa

Verbena verde in the drying house

Today, I had the pleasure of meeting Don Feliciano Patron Canul, an expert in natural medicine and owner of an herbal medicine garden, production area, and store.  The Embroidery and Herbal Medicine Workshop where Feliciano and his family live and work is located about five blocks form the city´s center, where I pick up a detailed map of how to arrive from Izamal's tourism office.   

Verbena in Feliciano's garden

The entrance to the family home is an embroidery shop, so when I begin to ask about plants, one of Feliciano's five daughters, who is working on a blouse, directs me to a side entrance of the home.  

Within minutes, I am sweating more than I already was on this humid day in the Yucatan.  Feliciano, notices and chuckles. "It gets really hot in here because of the roof.  I am used to it, and it's perfect, because all of these plants need to dry," he tells me.  For the rest of the morning, I continued sweating and Don Feliciano shared a mix of personal stories, plant knowledge and souvenirs from years of work as a botanist.  And, surprisingly, this doesn't appear as one of Tripadvisor's "Things to Do" in Izamal!

x-put-balam

A machine used to chop plant parts

Herbs finished drying and ready for packaging

Fruits of x-put-balam in the drying room

In the drying room, Feliciano explains each rack, describing the plant or mix of plants and how they can be used.  Verbena roja, he tells me, stimulates ovulation in a woman´s cycle.  The bark of the Encino tree, "Bek" in Maya, is boiled and gargled by people who are suffering from sore throats or vomiting blood.  Many of the plants names he uses are in Maya, like x-put-balam (Papera), a plant whose orange fruits and leaves are mashed, boiled and gargled to cure sore throats.  

Medicinal herbs are packaged and ready to sell

Feliciano's grandfather, a Men (Maya priest), shared his knowledge of healing plants with his son and grandson.  "He knew a lot about plants, and then other more mysterious things, which I never really liked," Feliciano tells me.  "Like animal sacrifices?" I asked.  "No, more like supernatural things."  Feliciano tells me a story of a Maya Rain Ceremony, in which his grandfather and other men would descend into a cave for three days, during time of drought.  Before entering, they would recite prayers and light a candle, which despite constant winds, burned steadily while the men were in the cave.  When the last man exited the cave, he pinched the flame out and put the candle in his pocket.  "I knew something wasn't normal, that a candle shouldn't burn like that for three days," Feliciano solemnly tells me.  Then he adds, "One thing I do like is a prayer he taught me."  Feliciano recites the prayer, which is in a rhyming mix of Spanish and Maya, and smiled at me, "Sounds nice, doesn't it?"

Feliciano's Backyard: A wealth of medicinal plants

While in his garden, Feliciano tells me that several people have invited him to work at a larger botanic garden in a nearby town. They would pick him up, he would give tours for a couple of hours (all dressed up, he notes), and then he would be driven home and paid 300 pesos (about $25/day).  While the money and opportunity were good, Feliciano felt that his operation at home would fall apart if he took on this job, so he turned down the offer. Feliciano recognizes the value of his knowledge and its connection to the Maya culture.  His story illustrates a tension between ancient plant secrets  preserved in a pre-Hispanic language and the desire of the modern world to access this knowledge.

  Feliciano is proud of his visitors from around the world.  He shows me photos of him with Former Mexican President Vicente Fox and famous latino pop singer Juan Gabriel.  On his wall, are framed newspaper articles with titles like, "An Example of Family" and "Deep Maya Roots, still growing."  However, after a morning at Feliciano's house, it becomes clear that who relies upon his plant knowledge most are his neighbors, who frequently arrive to buy dried leaves and bark, which they'll make into tonics, creams, and teas.  

  

With herbolist Feliciano and still sweating in the drying room!!