Mexico City Day 6 – Teotihuacán
I’m behind on my blogging so I’m going to have to skip a few days.
I am currently in a coffee shop on day 8 of my trip and heard the news of the horrific school shooting in Uvalde. My heart breaks for the families of the children and I can not begin to imagine the devastation brought by the continuing horror of gun violence. I can’t believe this is the world we live in.
I have met many expats in the last week and all universally acknowledge that the US is a sinking ship. Not that Mexico doesn’t have a problem with gun violence and violence against women. But the frequency of shootings of children in publicly funded schools could not be a clearer indication of a society in fast decline.
Speaking of civilizations that became extinct, I had the privilege to visit Teotihuacán on Monday. Teotihuacán is a city of pyramids and the remains of residential housing from 400 B.C. located an hour from Mexico City. Nobody knows what happened to the original inhabitants of the city. Infighting? Plague? War? Uprising? We’ll never know. It sat empty for some centuries, until the Aztecs eventually found it and deemed it such a sacred place that they turned it into their place of worship. After the Spanish demolished the Aztecs, it was regarded as a bunch of junk until the 70s. The workers hired to clean out the overgrowth pulled off the stucco and some of the art, throwing away history and potential answers to so many questions. A lot of tunnels and ruins exist underneath the city but to dig would likely destabilize the pyramids, so they are working with engineers to find a solution. (Note: Do not trust this brain dump of a historical summary. I would defer to my good friend Wikipedia.) The point is that the city is a site of mystery, mysticism and lots of references to “Raiders of the Lost Ark.”
I spent the night before the tour trapped in a room with a mosquito and no bug repellant. I don’t know why this isn’t a low budget form of torture, as mosquitos are evil geniuses who know the exact moment that you will lose consciousness. I tried to kill it, but I finally succumbed to being bit at 3:00 am and woke up at 6:00 to get coffee before my pick-up. I arrived at Teotihuacán exhausted, my legs covered in mosquito bites and with next to zero interest in being on a guided tour.
However, had I known I would be guided by Indiana Jane I would have been more excited. I have never met a more passionate guide.
Indiana Jane scaled the side of the Pyramid of the Sun as a little kid because taking the stairs was considered lame by her friends. Now an archeologist passionate about preserving the city for research. (The mayor of Teotihuacán wanted to add an amusement park…which is very Mexico). We started the tour at the Temple of the Feathered Serpent, where she explained that in the 90s a large tunnel was discovered that was filled with Pyrite, like a hall of mirrors. It led to a room with a model of the city and four statues. Indiana Jane has been inside it three times and felt “amazing energy. Then we visited the Temple of the Sun which is rock solid and, according to her, has “no energy.”
Afterwards, we drove to what looked like the middle of the desert and walked into a cave that led to…a restaurant! Talk about a hole in the wall! More like a hole in the ground. The restaurant included a small theater for music…a real underground scene. (Ok, I’ll stop). We did a mezcal shot, because tequila is like the Chardonnay of CDMX. You have to be careful, though, as I had a strong Mezcal drink for dinner one night, and I have to say that the hangover was existential.
After lunch, I got back int the van and drove to another cave. Before we entered the cave, Indiana Jane had us put on hardhats, put our hands on a part of the cave and ask the underworld for permission to enter. I put my hand on a rock and thought about my mother and grandmother who would surely welcome me to the underworld. Afterwards a member of the tour had to go back to the van, a sure sign according to Indiana Jane that the Underworld said “no.” In the cave, we turned off the lights and sat in the dark. What did I feel in the underworld? Really, just very chill. Americans don’t think about death very much. We certainly don’t name streets “Avenue of the Dead.” But my experience with the underworld was pretty relaxing.
I came home and ate at the local restaurant where they give you an “agua fresca,” dinner, coffee and desert for about $6. I went back to the B&B and saw that the manager left me a Raid mosquito killer plug. I covered myself with “Off” and went to bed.