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Published: January 14th 2012
Arriving in Merida was like arriving in a different country, but I immediately loved it. Partly it was the heat, today was a delicious 28 degrees, and secondly I was cured of all ills by a Shaman. Well cured? I'm not sure yet, I'll have to tell you in about a month.
Lucy and I had just finished lunch at the excellent Chaya Maya restaurant and were walking down the street towards the main square, when Lucy struck up conversation with a very friendly man who we later discovered happened to work in the tourist centre. One of his recommendations was that we go to Maya Mundo, where we could see a Shaman and get a traditional treatment. It sounded interesting, so feeling intrepid we ventured in.
It was an interesting place. Essentially a large two storey building of upmarket Mexican goods, the Shamans aren't advertised anywhere, but thanks to the random man in the street we knew to head upstairs, and we were soon pointed in the right direction. Right up front they told us that we didn't need to pay the Shaman, and purification ritual was entirely voluntary. Nobody could tell us what that might cost, because
it would depend on what the Shaman diagnosed us with. It didn't sound altogether bad.
First of all we met Harold, who worked in the shop selling Mayan things. When we expressed interest in meeting the Shaman he took us upstairs and introduced us to his cousin, who is the Shaman. Harold told us that he is training to be a Shaman - yes, even with the very un-Mayan like name of Harold (he told us his father had been drinking Tequila) - however exactly when he will become a fully fledged Shaman is hard to say. I asked about training timeframes and he said, "sometimes it can be one year, sometimes it can be thirty years, it depends on the energy". This general vagueness set the mood for the entire experience.
Harold, our trainee, and the "real" Shaman, Manuel, explained the process to me. The Mayans believe that there is the Mind (pointing to the forehead), the Spirit (pointing to the heart) and the Body (pointing to the navel), and these three things need to be in balance. First of all Manuel needed to examine these three areas and determine if they were in balance. He
would then advise a suitable purification, and this would be entirely optional for me to take part in.
The ....examination? diagnosis? review? inspection?.......I don't know what to call it, are free. Shamans don't charge for their services at all. However sometimes the purification rituals require special things that we would need to pay for. Aha! This was where the cha-ching sound rang in our ears. Anyhow, we thought it sounded harmless, and it was certainly an experience I wasn't getting at home.
I was first to be "inspected" for my balance. This itself was a fascinating process. We were upstairs in the back of the shop. I was told to relax, breathe in through my nose, out through my mouth, and try to empty the mind. Sounded like yoga - this I could at least attempt to do. I closed my eyes while Manuel did his thing, which included making lots of weird bird-like noises, lots of puffing on me, laying of hands and stones (obsidian, red amber mainly) on the "mind", "spirit" and "body" parts of my body. Then he asked me to lie down while the stones were laid on my body and I was
told to remain like this for 10 minutes or so. Other people came in to the shop and were shown various items, politely stepping around me.
It was at this point that a fit of laughter nearly overcome me as I realised how ridiculous I must have looked. I stared fixedly up at the ceiling, breathing, emptying my mind, and trying to concentrate on the Mayan paintings. Unfortunately this wasn't helpful either, as I swear that one of the symbols looked exactly like Mr Burns from The Simpsons. After several minutes Manuel returned and started prodding around my stomach and my belly button. "Do you feel that?" he asked excitedly? "Um, yes?" I answered somewhat dubiously, and clenching my jaw as I fought off more inappropriate laughter. I had no idea what he meant. His hands prodding me? That I couldn't miss. "The energy," he said, very animated ..... O-kay.
Then he dragged Lucy over from her stool and told her to prod my stomach / bellybutton. Here we made a fatal error, because our eyes met, and it was too much for both of us. The giggling could no longer be contained. "You have to BELIEVE,"
scolded Manuel. Lucy was banished back to the stool. I tried to concentrate and BELIEVE.
Manuel stood me up and completed the examination. Then he gave me my prognosis. There was too much energy in my mind and a blockage between my mind and my spirit. My spirit / heart was not recovered from previous disappointments and I was keeping it all in my subconscious, and overworking my mind. Hmmm, I do have a very good imagination - did he mean that my imaginary affair with George Clooney was stifling my "spirit"? Is this why my tortillas wouldn't puff up? There were other problems too. I was holding a lot of stress in my neck and my back. This was certainly true, as my recent mystery illness also included a very sore neck.
In order to fix my mulititude of problems he performed a number of chiropracter-like bone crunching twists on my body, after which I felt remarkably good. This addressed the stresses in my neck and my back. For "purification" and re-balancing the mind/ spirit / body he also recommended that I wear a red amber necklace close to my spirit, or heart, for 13 days,
then after 13 days to remove it and at the next full moon to wash it in salted water overnight. Then all will be right with me. I will be unblocked! My energy will be in alignment! I will be balanced!
By this stage I had invested too much and it was too risky to leave to chance that I will unblock naturally, so while Lucy went to have her examination I started inspecting the red amber. "This is the most expensive and most rare of all amber, but it is very powerful," Harold told me in a reverent voice. Of course it would be. Just my luck that I could only be cured with the most expensive thing in the shop.
He showed me a beautiful red-amber bead necklace, which I liked a lot, and could imagine wearing for 13 days on end. How much? It was $9500 pesos. Perhaps this was evidence of some kind of blockage because my brain failed me here. Usually converting Mexican pesos to NZ dollars is actually pretty easy because more or less there are 10 pesos to every 1 dollar, so it's a case of moving the decimal point over
one place. For some reason however, probably because I couldn't imagine it being so damn expensive, I moved the decimal point two places, thinking it was $95 instead of $950. I thought this for about 15 minutes. Harold thought all his Christmases had come at once as I showed genuine interest in the necklace and asked him about his best price. But then reality dawned on me with a crash of cash register bells. So this is how Shamans and their trainees make their money!
Lucy finished her examination. Not surprisingly she too has many problems. Hers required yellow amber and jade worn together for 21 days. By now both of us were in the 'believe' stage and we didn't want to leave anything to chance. We might have these problems for the rest of our lives! This was a real chance to fix our problems! Forever!
Rest assured we were not so foolish as to spend nearly one thousand hard earned dollars on necklaces for the Shaman purification. So we then spent a good 20 minutes trying to find the el cheapo alternative that would satisfy the purification required. We finally each found something that we hope
Gallery
This gorgeous gallery is run by a French man, who also gave us some great tips for restaurants.will do the trick. And while light-years cheaper than the premium necklace, we had to justify the cost by factoring in the 'experience' and a chiropracter's appointment when we made our final selection.
So we have been wearing the purification necklaces ever since, feeling vaguely ridiculous, but too superstitious to not complete the ritual. We keep telling ourselves that at the very least, we have bought very nice necklaces, while secretly hoping that we are 'cured'.
One thing you will all be relieved to hear I am sure is that the world is not going to end in 2012. I had read that the Mayans believe that the world will come to an end on 21 December 2012, so I asked Harold what was going to happen. He looked vaguely annoyed at my stupid question and told me that of course the world isn't going to end. That's when the current calendar ends, and then they will simply move into a new age, or new calendar.
What the Shaman didn't fix however was my ongoing mystery illness which started back in Guanajuato. While it's not serious, it's been like having a very bad hangover for days on
end - nausea, headache, fatigue, loss of appetite. I've certainly improved since Guadalajara which is good - maybe the Shaman's treatment has already had some benefits after all?
In the meantime, I have spent some time on google trying to determine what my illness might be and what the cure might be, by inputting symptoms and seeing what pops up. I do not recommend this approach. According to the internet there are several possible reasons for my symptoms, including anthrax, meningitis, west nile virus, subdural hematoma, diabetic ketoacidosis, kidney diseases, mountain sickness, swine flu and so it went on...... I have decided it's probably a virus, but Lucy donated some old antibiotics she found floating around her backpack which I have started taking and will kill off anything bacterial. Doctors will be horrified! I am not too unhappy about the loss of appetite, it comes in very handy as I am about to embark on the bikini part of the holiday, although already my appetite is picking up again so I must be on the mend.
All up though, Merida gets a big tick from us. Warm humid weather (signalled by the return of my curls), lots to
see and do, many friendly people and we're staying in a great place. I have two more nights here and already there are some adventures planned for the last couple of days. Stay tuned!
Now blogging at
www.beautycharmadventureonline.com - check it out!
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Rosa
non-member comment
My friend and I went to Mundo Maya two weeks ago
Funny that I found this blog. My friend and I ended up on the 2nd floor of that store and for a minute we thought we were going to be murdered because we didn't know these people and no one knew we were there. I ended up buying a red amber necklace that cost roughly $170. I'm not even sure it's real amber, but I hope it is. My friend brought a jade necklace. Hers was about $75. I decided to buy the necklace when I was pretty sure Manuel wasn going to murder us. I was so relieved to sill be alive that spending the money on a necklace that may or may not be real was ok with me. Rosa ;)