pyramids with extra cheese

Sunday morning, I dragged myself out of bed and hauled myself over to Mexico City's north bus terminal. I met Sergio there a little after 9, and we bought bus tickets for Teotihuácan. Only about 40 pesos. We waited less than ten minutes before getting on the bus, going through the usual security check and pat down.

Teotihuácan is northwest of the city, about a 45 minute ride out to the outskirts, amid mountains and agricultrual fields. Not as pretty or dramatic as the ride out to Puebla, but about half as long. Some people actually rode standing, and a guitarista played a short set in the passenger aisle before passing the hat and jumping out on the way out of town.

The bus dumps you at the entry 01, and its a short walk to the entry. The vegitation is more open and sparse, like Phoenix or Tucson, with grasses, scrub, agave plants taller than I am, and sparse trees and a few bosques. The area is much more rural and more open to the sky. Actually, everyone warned me to put on a ton of sunscreen and bring a hat, and I did both. If you forget your hat, there are only about three hundred hat vendors happy to supply you with one on your way in. Actually, inside the complex, almost everyone was wearing a hat.

It's surprisingly easy to get around as far as orientation and navigation goes. The signage is decent, they give you map, and its pretty clear how to orient yourself. After all, you can't miss the massive pyramids. 

I'd been warned in the guidebooks about the vendors everywhere. They weren't agressive, just annoying. They were all selling the same crap: ceramic puma calls, ceramic eagle cries, toy bows and arrows, and some obsidian junk like mini hatchets and arrows and masks. The puma calls were the worst, but actually it got to be so ridiculous to be funny. The vendors would try to get your attention by blowing them, which sounds like kind of like a growling wildcat scream, and then all the kids who bought them were also blowing them, so everywhere we walked it was like we were surrounded by eagles and pumas. 

It's an amazing place to walk around, and the way that the site is structured and broken into plinths and walls and stairs means that the site is constantly dramatically revealing itself. You climb a set of wide stairs and boom, a sudden vista of a massive yard and a temple complex formerly hidden from view. 

I loved the fact you could walk pretty much anywhere and explore the ruins at your own pace and route. We saw pretty much everything there, taking about four or five hours for our explorations. The pyramid of the sun blew me away with its massiveness. For some reason, its more staggering and impressive than the great pyramid at Giza. The pyramid of the moon is really impressive more from its arrangement at the head of the great street of the dead and the cluster of symetrical pyramids arround its base. 

The entire time I was there, I wondered about the extents of reconstruction. I learned later that most of the surfaces of the building had been rebuilt, but with the same materials and using similar construction techniques. I'm not convinced, since there was a lot of what looked like concrete mortar in use. Still, its a huge contrast to the other giant precolumbian ruins of a city north of the border. The ruins of the Mississippian civilization at Cahokia are basically overgrown earth mounds not much different from hills, possibly the saddest UNESCO World Heratige site in the world. Interesting, but it takes a lot of imagination to visualize the massive native theocratic city that was there. 

In the ruins of Teotihuacan, it is not a great leap of the imagination to imagine the daily life in the city, the grandeour and severity. You can still feel the awe and dread when you ascend a neraly vertical stone staircase lined with stone snake heads to the sacrificial platforms.

After a few hours of walking, we were both famished, so we followed the recommendations of friends and guidebooks and went to eat at La Gruta, a nearby restaurant.

La Gruta (The Cave) is literally in a cave, a vast cavern with a wide ragged gash along the top which lets in a surprising amount of light and access to the dining terraces. It's a major tourist trap, overpriced, but not ridiculously expensive. It's also huge. You could probably seat ten tour busses of tourists inside. 

We were seated next to a large table of Russians being seranaded by a trio of Mariachis. I ordered a plate of Mixtas(?), lamb meat cooked with a kind of adobo chile sauce stuffed in maguey leaves (Maguey is basically like agave) and served with rice and refried beans. And a cold beer. 

Around the time we were finishing up, the floor show started. The commencement was heralded by a few men dressed up as Teotihuacanis, assumably, with elaborate headresses blowing conch shells around the restaurant. They followed this with an energetic dance on the stage joined by the Teotihuacani female dancers wearing traditional gold lamé outfits. From there, the routine progressed through a series of costume changes and dances from around Mexico and through its history. The conch blowers traded thier feathered headresses for the charro's sombrero and guitarrita. It was way cheese.

The bill came to about 200 pesos each, or about $16. It's four lunches back at the office, but you might as well go full tourist at La Gruta.