Cali slid the door open for us as we left El Rancho RV park to drive to Oaxaca. Unlike many other travelers we use our home as our car for excursions as it is easy to prepare for the road and convenient when we get there.
We parked near the cathedral and museums before street parking was filled up and left rusty in the van while we went to places he is not welcome. There are many off street parking lots but for some reason Mexicans like to build the entrances with height restrictions. We are nine feet tall (2.8 meters) and that’s just too high for most of them. I check on Google street view to make sure but there were no convenient estacionamentos available.
The cathedral was built in the mid to late 1500s over a span of fifty years on land gifted to the Dominican friars for the purpose. They used local cantera stone quarried from the nearby hills, and the city’s main aqueduct from those hills also ran nearby so the industrious friars immediately hog to work building gardens as well.
It’s called the Cathedral of Santo Domingo de Guzmán who’s dates are 1170-1221. He was a Spanish priest and mystic who founded the Dominic order and is the patron saint of astronomers. The Dominicans built up the cathedral on a platform requiring you to walk up some steps. The idea was to recreate a design similar to the Mixtec temples which were built on steps to approach the gods in the clouds. Apparently the Dominicans wanted to make their church resemble what was familiar to their converts. Below you see the order’s founder Domingo de Guzmán on the right hand side holding a model of a church. It’s above the entrance to the cathedral dedicated to him:
The interior is lavish with many posted notices warning you not to touch the gold surfaces. However the church is wide open for you to wander at will.
Layne gets a bit wigged out by these ostentatious displays of wealth in communities with glaring social needs. I grew up surrounded by Catholic displays of wealth dedicated to God (not personal aggrandizement they’d have you believe) so I’m not as inclined to question it. Most people need to believe in something outside themselves and though I’m not one of them I understand the comfort that comes from feeling part of something like this. Even if you are on starvation rations at home.
It is also one reason I enjoy traveling Latin America because the rituals and symbols are familiar to me. I am not much attracted to the Far East in part because I don’t get the cultural symbols. I accept it’s a shortcoming in me but I feel too old and entrenched to start learning a whole new culture from scratch. Think of me what you will.
These few photos encapsulate my childhood in Italy, the boredom of kneeling in the pews, the exotic and disturbing smell of incense, the sound of the bells and the enticing sunlit views outside the church doors. I am eight years old again and as certain of the resurrection as I was of the slingshot in my pocket waiting to be used to wage war on my buddies after Mass.
And then there were the dogs. I couldn’t believe my luck. Xolos are native hairless Mexican dogs described here as fellow travelers. Suddenly I missed Rusty really badly.
I shall gloss over the fact that some Indio cultures ate dogs -not cool- but focus instead on the concept of the dog as a cherished companion. If you don’t like dogs the attraction is hard to explain but for me life without a dog is incomplete.
Let me say that I find Mexican hairless dogs terminally ugly and I’m glad that Rusty looks like he does. That Mexican icon Frieda Kahlo felt obliged to live with the national dog…
…as did Diego Rivera says something about hairless dogs. He was no great beauty but his dog had a face only a mother could love. I rise above such superficialities and remember these are dogs, ugly yes, but when was that a reason not to love a dog?
Much better represented as statuary. One point I did note in the discussion of native Mexican dogs is how the arrival of Spaniards resulted in the introduction of European breeds which tended to overshadow and push out the Xolos.
It’s in Spanish but they listed the various native breeds before the European invasion.
I wish modern Mexicans would take care of all their dogs. It will be an uphill battle to get neutering, shelters and vet care to be social habits. However dogs you may think are strays are actually family pets. They don’t get coddled like dogs in the States but they do belong. Unlike US dogs stuck home alone all day these animals get to spend their days running around with their buddies on the streets. Street dogs are not necessarily abandoned. Middle class Mexicans are also adopting our relationship with dogs and there are lots more leashes in evidence than years past.
The Museum of Culture is next door to the cathedral and in addition to the dog expo there is a library partly open to the public and partly reserved for scholars.
The texts are hundred of years old and a quick scan showed numerous copies of the Bible but also philosophical works by religious writers. I didn’t spot anything by Agatha Christie so perhaps free time was at a premium in those days.
Upstairs we entered the cloisters of the nunnery, long corridors connecting rooms filled with treasures uncovered from the archeological digs at Monte Alban. The archeologists pointed out that these treasures were found where they were left underground, not pillaged, not delivered to the Spanish conquerors. They were buried in Tomb Number Seven.
In addition to coral necklaces they used an actual Conch horn. Conchs are everywhere!
Walking the former nunnery was a reminder that for a hundred years Mexico outlawed religion and these buildings were variously used as stables and military barracks. In 1902 President Porfirio Diaz restored some of the properties to the church. The nunnery remained and remains a museum. The anti church drives in Mexico come and go. If you are interested you can read Graham Greene’s novel The Power and the Glory published in 1940.
And so, after many photos back to the streets.
