Visiting Teotihuacan

We last visited Teotihuacan, the major ruins outside of Mexico City, just over 16 years ago on our last long trip to Latin America, back in 1995.

I'd forgotten just how overwhelmingly huge the site is. The main site stretches along a grand avenue that is a couple of kilometers long. The "Pyramid of the Sun" is second in size only to the Great Pyramid of Cheops in Egypt. And the part that's restored (along the main avenue) is only one slice through the most impressive ruins that are contained within the fenced off region of the archeological zone. If you wander behind these restored facades, you'll find all sorts of unrestored pyramids and grand plazas, each of which would be a major site if it occured anywhere else. And wait, that's not all! The ancient city of Teotihuacan stretched far beyond the official archeological site. There are restored palaces scattered through the modern village of San Juan Teotihuacan, and innummerable more modest ancient houses have been obliterated by the current village. (On the way to one of the palaces we passed a house with a huge pile of rocks in the corner of their yard....doubtless they'd gathered up these annoying remanants of their ancestors to make their yard a little less bumpy).

I love ruins. I put it down to having grown up in Western Canada, where European settlement dates back to just before the dawn of the 20th Century. Now there are archeological sites that you can visit that preserve and explain ancient remains of aboriginal culture, but growing up, the visible human presence was less than 100 years old. And often much less. So the idea of a building that is hundreds of years old is exciting. And ruins that date to 100 AD or earlier? It's awe-inspiring.

We arrived at the site before 8am, as the sun was still rising, and as "los globos" arrived. Who knew it was "a thing" to take a hot air balloon ride over the ruins at dawn?

A local, very friendly dog greeted us at the entrance, and accompanied us up the Pyramid of the Sun. Or I suppose I should say, "accompanied Harv to the top of the pyramid". I have this problem with heights. Sometimes it's worse than others. And despite the fact that I have photographic evidence that I made it to the top of this pyramid when we last visited 16 years ago, I just couldn't do it today. I stalled at a platform about 2/3 of the way up, and sent Harv and the dog to the top without me.

This gave me lots of time to contemplate how I was going to manage to get down. And then watch a local guy who'd been riding around the site climb the main staircase while carrying his bike! It made me feel pretty stupid. And somehow magically made about 1/2 of my fear vanish, which gave me just enough courage to descend without a helicopter rescue. :-)

We spend the next 7.5 hours at the site, stopping only 1/2 an hour for lunch. We were both so excited by everything that we were seeing that I didn't notice that I was tired until we got back to our hotel. I'm not sure I'm going to be able to walk tomorrow..... In the meantime, you can see some of our photos here.