Day 2 – Part 2 – Climb the Pyramids? You Bet I Teotihua-can

When we last left the story, our fearless heroine was speeding through the streets of Mexico City in an Uber towards the Autobuses de Norte (bus station). I noted the driver buying an energy drink from a street vendor (literally a guy selling stuff through car windows) with the awesome name of Amped. How Jason Statham. I hoped his heart rate didn’t have to remain above 80 bpms for him to negotiate the Mexico City traffic. Rapido, por favor! He burned an appropriate amount of rubber to get me there on time. Mission accomplished, Mr Amped!

(Omg – as I write this Bindi Irwin is on TV in a cafe. The screen says Los Irwin. It’s dubbed. So strange. We now return you to your scheduled programming.)

I met Adriana, the young, bubbly tour guide who I later learnt was working and studying history. That alone was worth a tip from me at the end of the day. (Insert soliloquy here – I worked nine years in the evenings and on weekends to achieve my PhD while working full-time as a librarian. So respect to her! Rejoin main text paragraph now. ) On the morning of expansion pack guts 2.0 of the market tour, I ate a lot of included foods and scabbed a lot of freebies. Plus a good litre of water that I managed to not dribble down the front of me. I was essentially a fat agave plant ready to burst pulque if the issue wasn’t remedied. Naturally, the Baños (word for toilet) required exact change and the less-than-friendly-couldn’t-crack-a-smile-if-you-paid-me-wtf-is-customer-service-girls at the bus station shop refused to change money for such a purpose. Maybe if I was after crack it would be ok??? I was strongly tempted to perform a ‘clean up on aisle 6’ number for them out of spite but it wasn’t warm enough for my pants to dry. Fortunately, Adriana came to my rescue by rustling up change from the group. Naturally, I struggled to tie the knot back up on my pants as I heard the urgent call for my name reverberating across the tiled surfaces that desperately needed some White King loving. The real Spanish conquest was me triumphing over the drawstring to get on the bus in time.

The bus journey to Teotihuacán is 1.5 hours long, give or take. The time flew by as I chatted with Sylvia, a lovely lady from Brisbane travelling with her husband, Laurie. Turned out we were on the same tour group scheduled to meet the next day. After sharing our stories and commenting on the oddness of being offered something resembling a vanilla slice between two Saos as a viable bus snack for purchase, we arrived at the site. Incidentally, Betty was on the bus too! But today her name was Patty!!!! Had I heard one name wrong? Was she going by a different name each day? Could I do that? Could I really be anybody??? Like Alias?? I don’t know who I would even be! (Incidentally Jo is a terrible Spanish name. J is pronounced H so technically I am Ho. I never grew up aspiring to become a Ho. It’s not the path I thought my life would take me. I just hope all the Mexican baristas aren’t judging.)

Segue into Teotihuacan history. This ancient site pre-dates the Aztecs by hundreds of years – maybe even 1000, I can’t remember. But it’s physically close enough to Mexico City so everybody thinks it’s theirs. Also no wheels in PreColombian times so no Delorean to go back in time, so tough luck Aztecs. Teotihuacán was the biggest city of its time with a huge economy based on trade generated from the obsidian mines. Their cultural influence extended into the Yucatan Peninsula as lots of guys hoofed it for a really long way to trade with the Mayans in one direction and basically anybody else who would do swapsies with them in any other direction. Teotihuacán designs, motifs and styles were incorporated into other cities. It was founded by 4 different communities coming together and ultimately torn apart by its own internal power struggles. After Teotihuacán fell, the ruins became a ghost town. Incidentally, the Aztecs did discover them and adopted them as a place of great power because they were pretty impressed by their scale. Eventually, nature reclaimed the pyramids and hid them under big hills of trees, dirt, shrubs etc. But they were rediscovered in the late 19th century and excavated around about 1900. Adriana has a cute habit of referring to it as the city of the goths instead of the gods. No self-respecting goth would be out in their black lacy spiked best and alabaster white makeup in the Teotihuacán dust bowl on a hot day.

Teotihuacán was originally a city of colours with only vestiges now remaining from the ravages of time and man’s inhumanity to man. Adriana showed us red frescoes of leaders dressed as jaguars, pumas playing music and starfish with boggly eyes. As with everything, there was a deeper symbolism. The boggly eyes were in fact the symbol for water.

Below is a baby temple. Apparently the citizens of Teotihuacán used to just keep building little temples of top of or in existing temples.

This one depicts brilliant green birds and a symbol that looks like a flower but is the Teotihuacán symbol for the universe. The 4 communities, also how the city was structured with power at the centre.

Around the corner was an authentic sacrificial altar. This is what would have been at the top of the two pyramids you are about to see except that, in an ironic twist, the pyramids themselves have been decapitated of their top levels. I felt a definite chill pass through me here. It was a special kind of place where I felt I had to pay respect.

Time to check out the pyramids which aren’t actually pyramids because there is no pointy bit up the top. They are temples. But these buildings or structures have gone down in history as the Pyramid of the Moon and the Pyramid of the Sun so it’s easier to just go with it. Incidentally, revised opinion is that they are not the sun and the moon either – they are goths- I mean gods. But I am not spelling them!

The Pyramid of the Moon is the smaller of the two but the steepest to climb. Laurie pinged his quad muscle coming down. Going up requires a class from the Ministry of Funny Walks as you must zig zag across the steps. It was a short but punishing climb to the top for this view.

The walk past the Avenue of the Dead vendors hawking their wares commenced. Apparently the street was lined with bleachers for watching processions. So a bit like expensive premium seats for the Christmas Pageant they never pulled down??? The day was overcast and reasonably cool. Teotihuacán can be baking hot by all accounts but this was fake-it not bake-it. Sunglasses for glare only.

The hike up the Pyramid of the Sun was not as steep but there were a lot more stairs, so overall more vigorous. My cardio is excellent but I did puff a bit, feeling more like a waddling McHock with an expanding tailfeather than I would have liked. But it wasn’t too bad. Ask me in 6 weeks how fit I feel.

The view from the top was miles of cactus and unrecognisable landmarks other than the other pyramid.

Unlike the Moon which was blocked by bunting, you could summit the Sun. So yes, I went right to the top! After 10 minutes or so, it was time to meet up at the bottom and head for the home of Miguel, a local artisan. A pack of wild street dogs with amorous intentions, bared teeth and aggressive attitudes followed us the whole way from the site to a tienda (shop) and then to Miguel’s place. Miguel had three border collies and a cat so no way were those dogs getting in. After we gained safe passage to Casa Miguel, we learned the many uses of the agave plant.

Miguel made paper, food wrap, a needle, thread and dye to colour it just standing there in five minutes!

Miguel is also an obsidian artisan who toils away in a workshop. I busted open my crafts cherry and bought a few choice sock-hideable items including a bracelet that I am wearing constantly. More importantly, he showed us all these other uses of the agave plant. It truly is the plant that keeps giving!!!!

After the shots and splurge, it was time for dinner. We piled into the back of a ute (hey Mona!), seated on upturned Coke cartons. This was the life! Speeding through the back of nowhere, glimpsing the light show of the pyramids in the distance. Dinner was a pretty speedy affair with just our group around a table under a lady’s pergola. We dined on lentil soup and chicken enchiladas with green sauce and cheese before a short walk back to the bus station and the long journey home. We said adios to Adriana who did well out of the tips, judging by the crinkle of notes I could hear in my half-comatose state. My new mates, Laurie and Sylvia, were kind enough to shout me a cab ride as we were staying at the same hotel. I didn’t pass out on them. I think we were all grateful for that.

Stay tuned for the next exciting instalment – Indiana Jo battles the National Anthropology Museum and meets the Intrepid group.