Thursday 10 July 2003
The city of San Christóbal revealed itself as a Mexican version of Cuzco in Peru, a beautiful mountain city with both great charm and atmosphere. A Belgian tourist expressed it like this: “It is almost too beautiful” implying that too much have been arranged and cleaned due to tourism and might have erased some of the genuine look. Most restaurants played music, each evening there were street theatre and jugglers on the square and Internet cafes on every corner.
Nevertheless, the city was a place where one can breathe freely also due to the calm temperature of 20-25 degrees Celsius. The primary sight for us was to visit “Na Bolom” (The Jaguar house), a beautiful colonial-time house previously owned by Gertrude and Frans Blom.
Both of them were deeply engaged in the Lancona jungle and the people who lived there. Gertude Blom was an anthropologist from Austria and dedicated her science life of studying the Indians in the jungle. She lived in the “Na Bolom” house till she died in 1994. Frans Blom was a Danish archeologist who emigrated from Denmark to Mexico in the 1950’s and excavated among others the Palenque and Yuxantian ruins.
Frans was a proud member of the international Adventures Club and had a library and office worthy to match that position.
He had a hand carved chair, a safari hat, and a riffle, a stick to brand cattle, an old Remmington typewriter and cigarettes of local brand. In the library, we saw nice sofas around the open fire, countless finds, dictionaries and books among those also some wrote by the Bloms themselves.
Today “Na Bolom” works partly as a museum, partly as a movement to inform about the natives of the rainforest. One can walk from room to room and watch or follow a guided tour and the place offers accommodation with meals included in the dining hall.
The place also includes a small church and a nice courtyard. It was not hard to imagine what a great time the family Blom had in this place, between the hardships in the jungle. This was a real interesting visit at one of my adventurous compatriots.
Our hotel recommended us to eat dinner at the restaurant “Emilianos Moustace”. Here we got the probably best Mexican fajitas available in San Christóbal accompanied with the superb Tequila “Don Julio Resposo” that matched the best whiskeys we know. I guess the Mexicans only export the cheap stuff and save the best for themselves.