A Sacred Site’s Treasure

Most travelers who know this central Yucatan city remember it as a picturesque, slightly down-at-the-heels place to have lunch, get gas or simply meander through while traveling from the Caribbean beach resort of Cancun to the ancient Mayan capital of Chichen Itza.

But an hour’s drive past the roadside statue of former Mexican President Lazaro Cardenas, tucked away in the colonial city once known as “the Sultana of the East,” is an often overlooked treasure: the Convento San Bernardino de Siena.

One of the oldest buildings of its kind in Mexico, the structure designed by Juan de Merida in 1552 overlooks a small, treeless square only five minutes off Highway 180, which runs right through Valladolid’s main square, best known for its distinctive stone love seats.

The convent, abandoned by Franciscan nuns in the 1920s, is a massive, fortress-like structure with crenelated walls. Like many religious structures built by early Spanish settlers, it was erected on a site sacred to Native Americans. In this case it was constructed over the huge Cenote SisHa, a limestone cavern. In Mayan the name means “well of cold water.” The ruined cenote’s opening is still visible behind the convent.

An inland city, Valladolid--and the convent--have been buffeted by the tides of Mexican history. Founded by Francisco Montejos in 1543 on what was the Mayan city of Zaci, the city is home to 80,000.

Because its primary patrons were Spanish landlords who grew wealthy on the agricultural labor of the Indians, the Mayans saw the convent and other Valladolid churches as bastions of privilege as well as Christianity.

As a result, the convent was repeatedly sacked and stripped of most of its dressings during various rebellions and upheavals. One local rumor maintains that the collected wealth of the landlords, hidden during one of the revolts, is still beneath the convent.

The three-story structure, which has been undergoing extensive renovation for more than a decade, is a honeycomb of rooms and wide staircases.

There are hooks where the hammocks of the nuns once hung, and graves dating back hundreds of years line the walls of the sacristy. Large iguanas scuttle in and out of the old stone rooms, and the once elaborate back garden--irrigated by water drawn from the Mayan well by a team of horses--is choked with bamboo.

During the early stages of renovation in 1978 the resident priest, Father Andres Lizama Ruiz, discovered some 16th-Century frescoes behind several wooden altar pieces near the front of the convent’s large chapel. Neither the dates nor the identity of the artists have been determined by government experts, nor has the reason that they were hidden from view.

However, Norman Neuerburg, professor emeritus at Cal State Dominguez Hills and author of “Decoration of the California Missions,” suggests that the realistic color representations of religious figures appear to be native handiwork and similar in detail to some paintings in a chapel north of Puebla, Mexico. The paintings, which are faded, can be viewed through lighted openings near the front of the chapel.

On the road to Chichen Itza, just west of Valladolid, is another little-known treasure, the Cenote X-kekan at the village of Dzitnup. A wonderful cavern with cool, clear water perfect for a refreshing swim after touring ruins, the cenote is illuminated at midday by sunlight streaming down from the well’s opening, 30 feet above the surface of the water.

The cenote’s Mayan name means “pig.” The entrance was discovered by a villager who found a lost pig lodged in a hillside opening to the spring.

Up the road in Chichen Itza, where the Montejos family first hoped to establish Valladolid, there is something really new . . . for the first time in 700 years.

At the entrance to the archeological park the government has built a striking visitor reception center complete with clean restrooms, a restaurant, an air-conditioned theater and an ice cream parlor. Visitors can check their parcels at the center and climb the ruins unencumbered.

The center features a well-designed museum and exhibition, with titles in English, French and Spanish, explaining the development of Mayan civilization and Chichen Itza’s part in it. New multilingual signs giving directions and historical background also dot the park.

Gone from the old dusty parking lot and the grounds of the ruins are the scores of peddlers who used to crowd the paths with trinkets, carvings, T-shirts and blankets hanging from rope lines.

Adjoining the new visitor center is a covered, organized mercado (marketplace). The old, crowded ticket office and reception center has been abandoned to the jungle and the ruins . . . like the rest of the ancient Mayan city.

-- -- --

The Mexican Government Tourism Office in Los Angeles reports that despite Hurricane Gilbert, which smashed into the Yucatan last September, Mexico 180 from Cancun to Chichen Itza is clear, the new visitor center at the ruins is open and the Convento San Bernardino de Siena in Valladolid escaped serious damage.

You can contact the Mexican Government Tourism Office at 10100 Santa Monica Blvd., Suite 224, Los Angeles 90067, (213) 203-8191.