Our first impression of the city was that it was very chilly - isn't Mexico supposed to be constantly hot? We learned that this is a result of the rather high altitude. Mexico City sits up in the mountains at approximately 2,250 metres above sea level.On our first day we decided to head from our hostel on foot into the historic centre of the city, approximately a two kilometre journey.
This was the first country that we had visited where English was not the primary language so we were a little nervous, but also determined to start building up a solid base of crucial Spanish words. Much to our surprise, the barista at the cafe we picked up our morning coffees from, listened to us stumble through a couple of awfully pronounced Spanish words before replying to us in perfect English!
The first thing we noticed as we passed along the city streets was the absolutely out of control traffic. If the country actually has any road rules, it is obvious that they are treated as optional suggestions by the local driver! At several traffic light intersections we witnessed whistle blowing traffic police standing on the road giving hand signals to the oncoming traffic. These hand signals did not seem to necessarily line up with the traffic lights and the end result was a choose-your-own-adventure traffic kamikaze! We later spoke to a young Mexican guy who had grown up learning to drive in the city. In his words, ‘the experience could not be translated to words!
We made it to the Plaza de la Constituciòn, the central hub of the old city. Along one side sits the colonial Metropolitan Cathedral of the Assumption, built in 1573, which is the largest cathedral in the Americas. Bordering the enormous square on the other sides are a whole host of colonial style buildings housing hotels, museums, galleries and government buildings. This square is also the base of the famous Dia de Muertos (Day of the Dead) celebrations that had occurred only a few days prior.
Also surrounding the square, are bustling markets in every direction, filled with locals and tourists alike. You could buy anything in this thriving mass of people, from electronics to traditional clothing to cheap trinkets to delicious smelling street food. All from vendors who were loudly spruiking their wares in tough competition with each other. Scattered amongst the stalls and shops were several brightly coloured murals representing the country of Mexico, including local fauna and traditional costumes and ways of life. We wandered through the throngs of people for a couple of hours, taking in the various sights and smells, while also checking out a few city landmarks including a couple of smaller, but still spectacular, cathedrals.
For our next day we wandered down along the major thoroughfare that is the huge and traffic congested Paseo de la Reforma. At the base of the beautiful Angel of Independence, we saw something we had never witnessed before, nor thought we ever would, a roundabout that seemed to have cars travelling around it both clockwise and anti-clockwise at the same time! In addition to this there were no lines marked whatsoever, so there was an ever changing number of lanes. I will say though that we never once saw an accident. Clearly only the strong make it past the learning stage!
We were on our way to visit one of the most highly regarded museums in the Americas, the Museum of Anthropology, located in Chapultepec Central Park. The museum was a huge, double storey complex that detailed the history of the indigenous races and cities of Latin America. The amount of historical artefacts on show was incredible and it was a phenomenal way to set us up for the ancient ruin sites we would be visiting over the coming months.
For our last day in the capital we booked a day trip through the hostel to visit the neighbouring Mesoamerican site of Teotihuacán. This city served as the capital of the region and was a home to up to 125,000 people between the years of 200 and 500AD, making it the largest city in the Americas and the 6th largest in the world. We first stopped by a ruin site located right in the heart of modern day Mexico City.
Incredibly much of the modern day city has been constructed directly over the top of the old ruins meaning that only a tiny amount remains. This site was known as Tenochtitlan and was the capital of the Aztec civilization. These days only the foundations and base of the Templo Mayor (Great Pyramid of Tenochtitlan), once a 60 metre behemoth, remain as the temple was torn down by the Spanish to make room for a church.
The site of Teotihuacán is located an hours drive east of Mexico City and the drive showed off several sites of interest along the way. A huge active silver mine which is one of the biggest exports of the country and some enormous mezcal plantations. Teotihuacán is huge, covering an area of over 83 square kilometres, much of which now is actually home to a modern town. The site is dominated by two huge pyramids. The Pyramid of the Moon, sitting at the head of the Avenue of the Dead to the north and the more centrally located, Pyramid of the Sun.
Before gaining access to the site we made a mid morning stop at a local agave farm and learned how the properties of the amazing Agave plants. The Agave has many uses, but in this instance it is the distilled heart that is used to make the smoky tasting mezcal drink. For clarification mezcal is essentially tequila but only select regions have the right to the name, similar to the fact that only the Champagne region of France can name their product 'champagne'.
We had a few minutes to sample some mezcal and contrary to most health and safety recommendations, our guide decided that this was the perfect opportunity to show off his Friday night barman skills and whip up some cocktails, first mezcal based and then switching to the ageing tequila barrel. It would have been rude to decline, so several shots later we were ready to enter Teotihuacan and climb some pyramids!
We first headed north towards the Pyramid of the Moon at the top of a courtyard, surrounded by a series of smaller pyramids. The speculation is that this courtyard was used for ceremonial sacrifices after the victims had been led down the rather menacing sounding Avenue of the Dead.
At 43 metres tall this pyramid is the smaller of the two, and has also received less restoration from archaeologists so it is not possible to climb all the way to the top. Instead you are able to reach a large stone platform about two thirds of the way up, which gives a great view back down over the whole site. After taking in the view for a while we climbed back down and headed for the main attraction, the 66 metre Pyramid of the Sun, the third largest pyramid in the world.
This pyramid is safe to climb all the way to the top and after 248 steps we could sit back and admire the birds eye views. The day was a little hazy and also a little surreal with the modern day buildings essentially surrounding this historical site on all sides, but with a little imagination, it was pretty cool to picture what this city could have looked like at its peak. After hanging around on the summit for a while, we climbed back down and met up with our tour group for the drive back to Mexico City.
We had one final stop before being dropped off at our hotel, La Villa de Guadalupe. Here there are two giant church's side by side, one dates back to 1695 and one is much more modern, constructed in 1974. They are the old and new Basilicas of Our Lady of Guadalupe, constructed in the location where the Lady of Guadalupe is said to have appeared to Saint Juan Diego. The more modern basilica is the one with the most use these days and has a massive capacity of over ten thousand people. We took a quick walk through the basement and rode an escalator to catch a glimpse of famous and original cloak of Juan Diego containing the portrait of the Lady.
The older basilica was very interesting for a different reason, it actually has been slowly sinking into the soft ground of the area ever since it was built. This is the eventual reason that it was deemed unsafe and the newer basilica constructed. This gives it a significant lean, especially noticeable from the inside where there are several giant cracks visible. The entire area of the city was built over soggy marshes resulting in over 25 feet of sinkage since construction. There is actually a height difference of over 8 feet from one end of the main hall to the other! The cathedral has undergone foundation repairs and it was fixed in 1998, but due to the area all these repairs will achieve is ensuring the entire structure sinks at the same rate!
We arrived back to our hostel after dark and set about preparing for the following days journey south. We were traveling throughout the country by bus and more specifically the ADO bus company that we had heard a lot of good things about. We took a taxi to the train station the next morning and booked an 11am bus for the 7 hour drive to the colonial city of Oaxaca.
The ADO bus turned out to be even better than we could of hoped for. Clean, comfortable and nicely air conditioned. Really putting the North American Greyhounds to shame! We quite enjoyed the trip and were treated to some great views over craggy mountain ranges along the way. Much of the surrounding landscape was dry desert with the typical looking spiny cacti sprouting up all over the place.
As we wound our way down to the town of Oaxaca we were treated to a great view overlooking the whole area. The smallish cluster of buildings surrounded by mountains on all sides. Oaxaca was more like our mental picture of Mexico, cobbled streets, all buildings only one or two stories tall and a drier and dustier climate. Here we stayed at the Azul Cielo hostel, complete with a beautiful courtyard garden and a cheap upstairs bar selling cheap local cocktails.
We took a walk around the Central zone of the town. Like much of Latin America, there were beautiful old churches dating back to the Spanish colonial times scattered along the major thoroughfares. Again there were plenty of cheap market stalls and hole in the wall local restaurants serving delicious foods. Pretty much all of them featuring the typical rice and beans!
On our first full day in the town we took the tour up to the top of a nearby mountain to visit the ancient Zapotec ruins of Monte Alban. This was a medium sized city, home to 17,000 people in its peak years from 100BC to 750AD. The city consisted of an enormous courtyard area ring by medium sized pyramids on three sides and to the North a set of larger temples and viewing points. It is believed that the location, on a plateau 400 metres higher than most of surrounding area, gave the town much needed security and stability as any approaching hostile forces would easily be spotted regardless of the direction they came from.
Monte Alban is regarded as being one of the earliest cities in the region of Mesoamerica, and it believed to have been established somewhere around the year of 500BC, and rose quickly to become the regions capital in the next few hundred years. The area was completely abandoned by the year 900AD, well before the Spanish conquest, and therefore has never been observed and documented as an active city. It is also unknown as to what drove the decline and eventual fall of Monte Alban, but it is speculated that infighting and a breakup of the population led to the population leaving in smaller groups to start new cities elsewhere in the region. Even the name of this city during its active period is unknown and the name Monte Alban, is derived from a combination of the name of a Spanish soldier who helped discover the site! The location gave us some great views of the surrounding hills and also a birds eye view back over the town of Oaxaca.
We also saw a great example of an ancient sporting field set just to one side of the primary courtyard. Here the field was shaped similarly to two capital 'T's joined at the base. This ancient Mesoamerican game dates back as far as 1400BC and involves two teams using body parts such as hips, forearms and chests to control and pass around a rubber ball. The ball was able to be bounced off the sloping walls on each side of the field and the goal was to successfully guide the ball through one of two sideways hoops erected at the midway point of the field. The craziest thing about this game was a fact we had learned a few days earlier at the Anthropology museum, often these teams were competing for the honour of being the chosen human sacrifices to the gods! After wandering the site and admiring the views we headed back down to the waiting van and returned to the modern day.
On the following day our next tour covered a much larger area with visits to several points of interest throughout the Oaxaca province. For our first stop we had the brief chance to view what is believed to be the largest tree in Mexico. The tree is known as 'El Arbol del Tule' (the tree of Tule) and has the approximate dimensions of being over 35 metres high with an incredible trunk circumference of over 42 metres! Scientists believe that this Montezuma Cypress has been alive for over 1500 years and is freakishly huge, even by the standards of its species! It was certainly hard to get a good photo that showed off its full glory as the trunk was nearly impossible to get in a single frame!
Next was the Agave plantation itself where both traditional and non-traditional methods are used in the creation of a variety of mescal drinks. At the end of our demonstration we were able to sample a few products ranging from standard level, to a whole variety of flavoured liquor infused drinks with strawberry, chocolate and mango being my highlights!
For our final stop we visited the centrepiece of the tour, the Hierve El Agua 'waterfalls'. This site is not actually a waterfall at all, but instead is a rock formation that has built up over thousands of years. As mineral rich water has bubbled its way to the surface of the cliffs, it overflows and tumbles over the edge, each time leaving a tiny trace of the minerals behind. This is similar to the way that stalactites are formed but in this case the end result is a 30 metre high petrified waterfall that reaches all the way to the valley floor below.
The high levels of calcium carbonate give the whole formation a white colouring, further enhancing the appearance of a natural waterfall. We took a quick hike down to the base of the formation to really take in the size. As we posed for pictures drops of water dripped down from above, growing the 'falls' at snails pace.
We then returned to the top and admired the views out over the San Lorenzo valley, watching as water bubbled out of the two lukewarm pools responsible for the whole attraction. Finally it was time to head back to Oaxaca after a very full day of taking in a huge amount of highlights from the region.
Next stop - the southern Oaxacan coastline!
Adrian.
Great blog and beaut photos mum xx
ReplyDeleteThanks, yeah Mexico is cool. Xoxo
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