Alux: Guardian of the Mayan Jungle

I just got back from spending a month on Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula. It was a great trip and I found myself delving into some interesting things while I was there.

A race of tiny people called Aluxob (the singular is Alux) live in the jungles and cenotes of the Yucatan. You assume I am speaking of ancient folklore? I am not so sure...

I had some personal experiences with one about 4 years ago in my home in Puerto Aventuras (a town on the beach in the Riviera Maya) and I wanted to dig into the experience a little deeper. So I interviewed local Maya to see what they had to say.

Let me tell you my experience first:

I was living in a nice condo on the ocean and my daughter, Sarah, and her Mexican boyfriend, Javi, were staying with me. Some weird things were happening in the house.

• In the middle of the night, I repeatedly heard someone yell my name right in my ear and it woke me up and practically sent me through the roof. Sarah and Javi experienced the same thing.

• The blender and other small appliances turned on in the middle of the night.

• While walking down the hall, I would feel a slap on my leg just above the ankle.

All this was odd, but not too troubling (Except flying out of bed to shut off the blender in the middle of the night. I hate that adrenaline rush.) The kids were experiencing everything as intensly as I was and several times Javi said, "You have an Alux."

Of course I didn't take him seriously.

Until the foot prints appeared in the hall.

This hall went to my daughter's room. My bedroom was on the other side of the house. When I got up early one morning and walked past it, I saw water on the floor all the way down to my daughter's bedroom. I figured Sarah had taken a shower and dripped all the way down the hall. The floors can be very slippery, so I started to go remind her to not drip water everywhere, but as soon as I stepped into the hall I saw that it wasn't just dripping water, it was tiny wet foot prints.