We were joined at breakfast by the last member of our merry band, Sasha B. The B. clan had decided to take an orienting bus ride around the city while the rest of us headed for Teotihuacan. In the age of Uber it is surprisingly easy to get to the ruins: less than an hour and less than 40 bucks later we were strolling through the very nice site museum.
During our first visit, in 2015, it felt like we had the place to our selves. Today, on a Sunday, the place was mobbed! But it is so grand that even hordes of fellow sun seekers can’t blunt the impact.
Our first view of the site was from the back of the larger of the two pyramids, known as the pyramid of the sun.
Like all the mesoamerican pyramids, the interior is rubble, faced first with stone and then with a rough stucco. We assumed that the rocks protruding at regular intervals were intended to anchor the stucco.
When we were here last, one could climb the pyramids, but that is no longer permitted. The pyramid was named pyramid of the sun only by 16th century Spaniards; recent research suggest that it might have been dedicated to the water god, Tlaloc. There were certainly temples atop the pyramids, but what they looked like is forever lost.
And here are two Teotihuacanos.
The pyramids at either end of the sacred precinct are connected by a broad boulevard called “Avenue of the Dead” (a translation from its Nahuatl name Miccoatli).
The pyramid in the distance is called the Pyramid of the Moon; again, no one really knows which gods it served.
Our last stop was the Palace of Quetzalpapálotl, thought to have been the residence of a high priest. Its interior courtyard has been partially restored; it contains some stunning original murals
It had been a wonderful morning; and we made our way back to Mexico City in a flash with an Uber driver eager to get home…and driving way too fast!
We met the rest of the crew at the extraordinary Anthropological Museum. Since we had visited twice before, we cherry picked a bit, spending more time on the Toltecs, Zapotecs, and Olmecs, and less on the Aztecs. Here are just a few of the remarkable objects held here.
The one below deserves a quick comment: it is a votive mask of the Zapotec bat god. It’s believed the mask was created between 100 BC and 200 AD at the height of Monte Alban’s dominance of the region around Oaxaca. It’s made out of 25 pieces of jade, a green stone highly valued by Mesoamerican civilizations, with yellow, piercing eyes made from shell fragments.
We all rendezvoused again at the hotel for pre-dinner drinks and then made the ten-minute walk to the restaurant Azul Historico. This was a very different place than anything else on the trip: an enormous atrium with huge trees coming out of pots and soaring above the tables. It was crowded, a bit noisy, and definitely buzzy. Unfortunately, I started feeling queasy as soon as I sat down. I hopped an Uber back to the hotel and hoped for the best. But the best wasn’t good enough!
Reports from the others suggest that the food was very good!