The Sun & The Moon

Along the Calzada de los Muertos, Teotihuacan

March 13, 2008: Teotihuacan, Mexico

Dear Grandma,

Today, I walked through the City of the Gods. No, I didn’t actually make it to heaven, but Teotihuacan probably comes pretty close. Just getting there was an adventure worth sharing. You see, we had to get 13 people from the center of Mexico City to this archaeological site about 25 miles outside of town. This required taking three subway lines and a bus, which is harder than you might think. Even though we all made it onto the subway at the first stop, we lost four members of the group when we were transferring to the next subway line. Hey, when you are crowded onto a subway train, you have to be aggressive about pushing your way out! Fortunately, the people we lost were pretty savvy — and had written directions — so they were able to catch up with us before we made the final subway connection.

Eventually, we made it to the bus station and loaded onto the bus headed to Teotihuacan. I popped a Dramamine, opened the window wide, and let the air wash over me as we made our way out of town. M. was behind me, talking to me as we went along, so the trip was actually quite enjoyable. Even better was the fact that a guy with a guitar got on the bus at one point and stood in the aisle playing tunes as we rolled along. At different stop, another guy hopped on the bus trying to sell churros. Just chalk that up to things you’d never see in the States!

We arrived at Teotihuacan, paid our fees, and walked into the Ciudadela (the Citadel) where we were surrounded by school children. And, I do mean surrounded! There must have been at least 20 different school groups running around the grounds, each dressed in color-coordinated sweatsuits. They were all so cheerful — and in damned good shape because they hoofed it up and down the stairs of the various temples and pyramids without a second thought. Me, I climbed up the Temple of Quetzalcoatl and those stairs liked to have killed me! The Coach and I used to have double-rise steps in our old rental house in Louisiana and it always bothered me that the stair steps hit me in the back of the knee. These temple stairs were worse. Narrow. Tall. Steep. That fear of falling that cropped up earlier in our trip really came back to haunt me when I had to go back down the stairs — and this wasn’t even a tall temple!

Well, we lost the first two members of our group at the bottom of this temple because they started negotiating with some peddlers. The rest of the group took off down the Avenue of the Dead, aiming for the Pyramid of the Sun. Yeah, I ended up losing them too because I kept stopping to take pictures. Plus, I knew if I climbed that pyramid, I’d probably be touching the face of someone’s god right about now. I figured that I’d end up catching up to them and I was right. All I had to do was look up the pyramid and I could see A.’s bright green shirt blazing against the dull brownish-yellow color of the stone.

I was taking pictures of the group climbing up the pyramid when one of the little vendor guys tried to strike up a conversation with me. “Present for your boyfriend?” he said. I turned around and said “No gracias,” and he must of have seen my wedding ring because then he said, “For your mother-in-law?” I made a face and said, “Yeah, no thanks” — because you know how much my mother-in-law hates me. The guy laughed. “Ah, your sworn enemy.”

It’s amazing how the whole in-law thing transcends cultural boundaries, isn’t it?

Pyramid of the Moon, Teotihuacan

After a while, the group made it down from the (almost) top of the pyramid and we continued down the Avenue of the Dead to towards the Pyramid of the Moon, and somehow lost another chunk of our group. (The kids, they just kept peeling away throughout the day!) I think that the climb up the first pyramid must have tired out the majority of the group because no one acted very eager to scale the second one.  That’s too bad because the Pyramid of the Moon seemed like it was the more interesting one. Apparently, this is the pyramid where Chalchiutlicue, the goddess of water, was honored with who-knows-what type of ceremony. Oh well, it’s not like I was going to climb the fucking thing. {SNORT} Yeah, I’m really going to have to get over that fear of falling thing before I go to Peru next year.

Instead of making a second summit, M. directed us over to the Palace of Quetzal-Papalotl where we looked at the carvings on the different pillars. These were of the Quetzal-Butterfly bird figure (one representing the day, another one representing the night). About this time, I got a little lost (in my mind, that is) because there were three temples all grouped together: the Palace of Quetzal-Papalotl, the Palace of the Jaguars, and the Palace of the Feathered Conches. Even after I bought a guidebook at the end of the day, I still couldn’t figure out which one was which. All I know is that I really liked the decorations throughout these buildings. It amazes me that these decorations could still be there, some still in vivid color, after all these years. I mean, Teotihuacan was built around the time of Christ’s birth (at least, that’s what the guidebook says), so we’re talking about a couple thousand years here.

It was just starting to get hot at the site when M. decided it was time to take a lunch break. We hoofed it across the site, out one of the gates, and down a road that skirted along the eastern perimeter of Teotihuacan to get to this restaurant called La Gruta. At the time, it felt like a heck of a hike, but once we got there, I was duly impressed. The whole restaurant is down in this immense cave, nice and cool, with sunlight floating down through a couple of holes in the roof. It must have felt really cold to the other group that was in the restaurant because they were actually wrapping themselves up in the colorful tableclothes!

I ended up ordering a spinach salad, to the chagrin of some of the members of our group. Yes, I know it’s risky to eat raw vegetables in Mexico because you never know what kind of water is being used, but I was dying for something that was not fried or covered in sauce. Plus, I was feeling a little brave because I had eaten a fruit salad the day before and it didn’t send me running for my Imodium. When it came out, the salad was not what I expected. Instead of being a pile of raw spinach, it was a pile of Mexican herbs (I’m not sure what kind) with four small scoops of cooked spinach around the sides of the plate. The herbs were a bit weird, but actually pretty tasty, especially since they were covered in some kind of salad dressing made out of cactus.

My only problem with the restaurant came with the bill. I gave the waiter 200 pesos for a 100 peso bill, fully expecting to get some change so I could leave a tip. Only, the waiter never came back! I sat there and waited. And waited. I was a little pissed, but figured that it wasn’t worth ruining my day over, so I was just going to leave and cut my losses. The boys, however, wouldn’t hear of it. They went after the waiter, then to another person (who I can only assume was a manager), and eventually got my change for me. Chivalry isn’t dead after all. {LOL}

 Figurine. Museo de Sitio, Teotihuacan. 

After lunch, M. offered to take the group to see some murals in an apartment complex on the other side of the site. I ended up ditching the group and staying behind with J. because I wanted to look through the Museo de Sitio Teotihuacan and the gardens around it. I’m a sucker for museums and plants, what can I say? Plus, I will probably never have the chance to go back to Teotihuacan, so I knew that needed to see the museum on this trip. Let’s face it: Mexico is not very high on The Coach’s list of places to go (and yes, I asked him).

Although the museum was small, it was full of odd figurines, like the one shown above.* I never could figure out what the heck was going on with that one, but it was so weird that I had to take a picture of it. According to the guidebook, the museum supposedly explains the Teotihuacan view of the universe, but seeing how everything was in Spanish, I wasn’t able to learn very much about their gods. Yeah, I am completely a social scientist — I’ve never really had an art history class and, like I said before, my sixth grade history class obviously did not make a lasting impression on me. {You’ll remember that teacher – she’s the one who called me a social retard. Ugh!}

I worked my way through the museum, walking over the glass floor that cut across the model of Teotihuacan. {I’m not sure that I would have been able to get my dogs to walk across that floor. Visually, it really kinda’ led to a cognitive distortion.} J. decided to head back to our meeting point and I set out with him. Soon, however, we decided to part ways because I kept stopping to take pictures of plants, especially these really cool cacti that lined the way. In a way, it was nice to have a little time to myself, just so I could reflect on everything that I had seen so far on the trip. It was peaceful, except for the people who zipped by on bicycles. I’m sure I looked like a real nerd because I practically crawled into the cacti to take pictures. {Don’t worry, I brought my tweezers, but I didn’t need them!}

Taken during my “alone time”

When I got back to the main area of Teotihuacan, three of the students were already there. They were out of water and pretty close to broke, so we just sat there for a while waiting for other people to show up. I did take N.’s shopping advice (he’s the king of t-shirts) and found a pretty decent deal on shirts for my little nephews, along with the aforementioned guidebook (purchased six hours too late). Eventually the other two students showed up and we wandered out to the main gate where we were supposed to meet the rest of the group. Again, we waited. And waited. And waited some more. Soon, a couple of the kids started to head back towards the marketplace at the Citadel where J. was waiting for his wife. It was about that time that the rest of the group staggered up outside the gate because they had been locked out of the site. {Oops!}

We watched a ton of buses go by, each time thinking that maybe this one was the bus back to Mexico City, and each time seeing a bus loaded with school kids. I was beginning to wonder if we had missed the last bus back to the City when it finally pulled up. Going back to the City, the bus ride was pretty uneventful. No churro salesman. No guitars. Just conversation with S. as he practiced some of his B-material on me.

The subway, however, was a whole different story! This guy hopped on the train holding up a portable DVD player that was blaring that old Village People song, YMCA. I was just getting into it (Yeah, there’s my inner nerd showing) when he started shouting out a sales pitch. Hysterical! I have to say that the public transportation on this trip has turned out to be most amusing.

I do, however, really need to point out one thing about riding on the subway. There’s something to be said for being safe, but stupid-safe is a whole ‘nother matter. I made sure that my passport was in my money wallet thingie and I buried all my important stuff (well, the camera) deep in the middle pocket of my backpack. I left my extra money back in the hotel in my locked suitcase. No big deal, right? Well, one of the group members questioned my common sense because I didn’t switch my backpack to the front of my body while riding the subway. WTF? Later, I looked over at the person and she was clinging to her husband with their backpack smashed between them, looking just like a scared American tourist.

Yeah, those are the people that the locals like to screw with. Stupid-safe just ain’t worth it!

Otherwise, the rest of the evening was rather peaceful. Teotihuacan was so damned dusty that I had probably had grit between my teeth, so I took a long, hot shower and brushed my teeth. Looking in the mirror afterwards, I realized that while SPF 50 might keep the sunburn away, it does absolutely nothing for windburn. My nose and chin were a real mess. I’m sure I didn’t look very attractive when we set off for dinner down near the Cathedral.

M. had this place in mind, a patio restaurant at the top of the Hotel Majestic, but it took a while to find it because the Hotel Majestic had been turned into a Best Western or a Holiday Inn, or some other freakin’ chain. We finally found the place, but it had changed. Apparently, it had ambiance two years ago … but the chain ruined it by making it look like every other Best Western / Holiday Inn in North America. Yet, the food was decent and we could see the fireworks that someone was setting off near the airport. Plus, it was amusing to listen to the people behind us as they were pretty hyper about the soccer game that was on the TV.

I managed to talk B., K., and M. into staying up for deserts and nightcaps in the hotel restaurant because I wasn’t really ready to go to bed. Poor Disenchanted. Too old to go clubbing, too young to go to sleep at 9 o’clock. {SNORT} I was really tickled when my “do-it-yourself” gin and tonic came out. Yes, they brought me a glass of ice, a snifter of gin and a bottle of tonic water. I wasn’t the only one who had to make my own drink. S. and J. (a different J.) showed up for dinner and S. ordered Jack and Coke — another assembly job. Really, the only person who didn’t have to fix his own drink was M. and that’s because he drank his rum straight. {Impressive!} Anyways, we sat there gossiping about the fact that one of our group members managed to pick up a Spanish telenovela star in the bar earlier in the day. {Doubly impressive!} You know, this was probably the best part of the day, just sitting around, relaxing, and chatting with people who were likable and interesting and all sorts of funny. I wish that I could find that kind of camaraderie at home.

Kisses and Hugs,
Disenchanted

 

*There was also a very odd display of teeth, some of which were painted red. Someone told me that teeth were collected by warriors as war trophies. I don’t know if this is true or not and I really don’t have the inclination to find out. All I really wanted to do when I saw the teeth was let out a big girly “EWH!”

And then I took a picture of them.