The Wandering Chocoholic

So as you may have guessed from the title of this blog post, I climbed some ancient Teotihuacan pyramids today. Two of ’em, to be exact. The big one is dedicated to the sun, and the smaller one to the moon.

But I’m getting ahead of myself, as usual.

Pyramids of the Sun and Moon

We left Mexico City after breakfast this morning on a snazzy private van with a day tour guide named Luis. A former musician, a former inhabitant of Vancouver, and a self-described former douche (“in recovery”), Luis is now an archaeology buff and tour guide who knows more  Teotihuacan history than most people forgot.

Unfortunately, as he explained, knowing a lot basically means knowing lots and lots of theories, since hard facts are pretty thin on the ground. The Aztecs came across Teotihuacan hundreds of years after it had been abandoned, and much of it wasn’t uncovered until modern excavation techniques came around in the past few decades. Since no writings were uncovered, most of what is known about the people who built these impressive pyramids comes from records kept by other peoples whom they conquered. They were pretty much the badasses of the region, leading war and trade routes as far north as Arizona and as far south as possibly El Salvador.

We climbed up… and up… and up some more. The steps are steep in many places, but there are some handrails to help. And we reached the top of the Sun Pyramid, took a bunch of phots, and came down. Then we walked over to the Moon Pyramid and did the same thing. The way I’m describing it makes it sound pretty boring, but trust me when I say it was anything but.

As you’d expect from a major tourist site, there are touts everywhere selling stuff. Weirdly, the Teotihuacan touts also sell a noisemaker that sounds like a fake jaguar. Most annoying noise ever. One of the guys on our tour actually bought one, and we issued some colourful threats about what we’d do to him if he used it in the van. The jaguar and the puma were apparently sacred animals to the Teotihuacan — there’s a really cool puma image drawn in some rock, remarkably preserved all these years, in between the two pyramid sites.

Agave, Obsidian and more Tequila

Once we’d had our fill of pyramids, we made our way to the nearby town of San Martin. Tours like this one usually have at least one mandatory stop at a place where tourists can be parted with their money. This was no exception. We stopped off at a gift shop where the owner talked about agave and cactus farming, common to the area. He showed how the agave plant can be used to extract juice and nectar, fibres for clothing, and even a paper-like substance from the leaves. He also showed off a gift shop full of stone carvings made from obsidian, the sharp stone in the area.

Oh, and most importantly, he gave us all some shots of the local tequila and mescal. Yes, this was still before lunch. But hey, this is Mexico.

I’ll have the cactus, please.

We had lunch at a home of a local family in town before heading out. It was a large meal including tortilla soup, pasta, agave water, and a pork-based meat dish for most folks. But Carolina and I opted for the vegetarian dish, which was — yep — cactus. Sauteed cactus and cheese, to be exact. I don’t know exactly how it was prepared, but it was delicious. And before you ask, no, there were no prickly bits.

After lunch, we hung around the grounds a bit, just relaxing. Most of the tour had gone out last night to a reggae bar and a club, and they were all tired and hung over this morning. Even those of us who’d gone to sleep earlier were feeling a little tired from the day’s activities. We said goodbye to Luis, got back on the van, and everyone dozed or slept on the journey to Puebla.