Teotihuacan

I love me some ruins.  Not necessarily the ones you are supposed to climb, but those are ok too.  Teotihuacan had been on my "need to get there" list for a long time, probably since my college archaeology classes.

I ended up on a group tour, because the ruins were outside of the city. I was with a couple from London and a couple from Costa Rica. Our guide was an older man missing a lot of teeth, but he knew his stuff.  The actual site is large but doesn't have any signs or descriptors.  You are completely reliant on the guide or a guidebook.

We started the trip with a visit to a nearby Mezcal factory, learning how the liquor is made from a type of cactus.  Then we went to the historical site.  There were several small rooms to walk through before the main plaza.  We could see remains of carved art on the walls and some of it still had color on it.  The rooms were used mostly by priests and travelers to the site.

Our first big task was the Temple of the Moon.  It was at the left end of the long open court.  You could only climb halfway up this one.  The stairs were really steep!  Each one was about knee-high, and not very wide.  Definitely a "stop and breathe" kind of climb.  But the view from the top was pretty impressive, looking down at the smaller temples leading to the Temple of the Sun.  The higher sections are still being studied and not open to the public.

The walk to the Temple of the Sun seemed long, and once there the guide said we would reconvene in 45 minutes after climbing.  I looked at that pyramid in shock.  45 minutes? It would take at least that to climb it!  But I was wrong - even stopping to breathe a lot, it only took 20 to go up and about 10 to go down.  From the top you had a 360 degree view of the valley.  It was very hazy but still impressive. Some people were jumping for photos, but the surface was sloped and very uneven with rocks so that seemed like a death trap to me.  There are no fences or guardrails here!

I wish that I knew more about the sites before going-the guide talked a lot about construction but not much about the people who did the building.  I'm reading now, hoping to get more information about these mighty monuments.

After lunch we stopped to see Our Lady of Guadelupe, the miraculous image of the Virgin that inspires so many Catholics worldwide.  It was moving to see so many people attending mass and venerating this lovely icon.