Last Day
Trip Start
Aug 28, 2009
1
22
Trip End
Sep 20, 2009
Teotihuacan, México, Mexico
Monday, September 21, 2009
At its zenith in the first half of the 1st millennium AD, Teotihuacan was the largest city in the pre-Columbian Americas. At this time it may have had more than 200,000 inhabitants, placing it among the largest cities of the world in this period. The ethnicity of the inhabitants is debatable and some scholars have suggested that it may have been multi-ethnic, making it the first ever multi-cultural city!
Being a self confessed ruins buff, this was one part of the trip I was really looking forward to and I was not disappointed. The scale of the site is nothing short of monolithic. The layout being pretty much symmetrical, with the Avenue of the Dead running right through the middle, the humongous Pyramid of the Sun half way down on the right, the smaller but more evenly proportioned Pyramid of the Moon at the end and a cornucopia of other lesser pyramids, temples and structures radiating outward. What's more, even though the site itself is perfectly flat, the whole 83 square kilometres is ringed by mountains.
We quickly discovered that the main obstacle to our appreciation of this ancient site was going to be the incessant attentions of the many touts attempting to hawk their cheesy faux statues and masks. We began with endless repetitions of 'non, gracias, non gracias' but by the end were simply blanking them. A good way to slip through the net and get a different aspect of the site was to go into the countryside wide of the main drag so we went off-road into the cactus strewn bush and gave them a wide berth.
We spent the next half an hour climbing the 45 degree steps to the top of the 3rd largest pyramid in the world, the view from the top over the whole site giving us our first real perspective of the incredible size of the site and an idea of how the city must have looked when in full effect, along with the city’s placement in the flat valley. Compared to the mind boggling construction method of Egypt’s Great Pyramid where 2.5 million family car sized blocks of stone were somehow manoeuvred into place, the Pyramid of the Sun was erected in a cruder manner, by compacting huge quantities of earth and rock and facing with stone blocks, which are long gone. We walked on up to the Pyramid of the Moon, climbed up that one and then adjourned to the top of another lesser pyramid nearby for a cheeky dooby, before sitting back on the steps to contemplate the site through a new filter.
After checking out some of the bas relief carvings in the Palace of Quetzalpaplotl we exited the site feeling a little peckish. Before us stood a row of around 10 empty and identical restaurants and for each one 2 young boys who assailed us in one huge swarm, each trying his best to crowbar us into his restaurant. We settled for the only one with customers in and ate some decidedly bog standard but not poisonous fare before catching the bus back to Mexico City.
Alas, the end of our American odyssey was nigh! We had only a few precious hours remaining until our flight back to Blighty and still had to get our hands on a bag of quality tequila. The Lonely Planet came through with a specialist shop in the Centro Historico so we swung by and after gazing blankly at the bewildering array bought 3 bottles off the sexy assistant and exited stage left, taking Simons recommendation and going up to the 9th floor of the Sears department store where there is a coffee shop overlooking the majestic Palacio Des Bellas Artes. So we sat and drank in our last view of Mexico City over a smoothy, walked back to the hostel and caught a cab to the airport. Jobs a good un!
