Osadía ... Small Bites and Big

San Cristóbal de las Casas Cathedral

One of my new words … osadía … means daring and audacity. I got a chance to exercise a tiny bit of osadía today but also saw it writ large in one of the city's main landmarks.

First the small version. I went to the Museo del Jade and it was incredible … not what I expected but so much more. It wasn't particularly about jade the stone, more about the history of its ceremonial use. One of the amazing features was the recreated tomb of one of the rulers of Palenque. The restorers did everything they could to make it look like it might have 1,300 years ago. You step down into a burial chamber with its bright colors and feel like you might be really be there. We weren't actually supposed to take pictures but I took one of one wall (but not the tomb itself … even though no one is actually buried there).

From the recreated tomb from
Palenque, approx 1300 years ago

The Museum provides a binder with English descriptions of the exhibits. I found it very helpful but, as is often the case, there were a lot of spelling and grammar issues with the book that detracted from the information. So when I was finished with the exhibit, osadía struck and I asked the guy at the desk, in the most garbled Spanish imaginable, if I could help them make it better. It wasn't pretty but we finally deciphered our thoughts and I'm going to go back tomorrow to see if "el jefe" wants to give me the computer file to work with.

From the Museo del Jade

Recreation from Jade Museum

Cathedral Facade

The larger osadía was observed in the facade of the Cathedral dedicated to Saint Christopher. The highly ornate Baroque facade was finished in 1721. As I looked at the facade, I decided it was a pure act of daring and audacity … osadía. Imagine taking on a task that not only had to please the people and the Church but God herself. And, almost three hundred years later it is still breath taking … even when candy vendors are part of the picture.

Osadía … which, to me, sounds like "Oh, seize the day!" comes in big bites and small. I guess the important thing is to keep taking those bites. 

More pictures from the day ...

A bit of whimsy.

Must have been a chicken kind of day.

Street murals abound.