Teotihuacan and more

Tuesday we went on the tour to the pyramids which was great. The first stop was to Tlatelolco , which was a 14th century Aztec site. It was an important place as there was a huge battle there when the Spanish invaded in the early 1500's and they destroyed most of the buildings around the city. Then we headed off to the Basilica of Guadalupe (virgin's shrine). This was where the worship of Guadalupe first started. The original temple is sinking (as many huge old buildings in the city due to the water based land) so they have built a circular one next to it for ceremonies to take place. The tour then continued to sample the local alcoholic produce from the maguey cactus - three drinks pulque, mezcal and tequila. This was all by 11 am on a empty stomach so we were all quite relaxed afterwards. Apparently where we are heading today is the original place where tequila was made form the blue agave cactus, but these days it is mainly made from maguey cactii. Not being an expert on tequila I doubt if I'll notice any difference!!!
The pyramids at Teotihuacan were amazing. This is a very important pre-Hispanic site. It was the biggest ancient city with 2 main pyramids - the sun and the moon. The sun pyramid has 248 steps (I ran up them then regretted it as I remembered I was already at 2300m high so the air is thinner!!!). The pyramid is 70m high and 222m wide and is the third largest in the world. They think construction started in 100A.D. - amazing that they managed that back then without the tools we have today. The Spanish didn't find these pyramid's as they were overgrown with plant matter and they thought they were mountains, so therefore they did not get destroyed with everything else.

Yesterday was spent at the anthropology museum where there were more than 5000 important artifacts from the Aztec and mayan past. it was going to read more about the history of Mexico and the links with other central and south American countries we hope to visit.
The zoo was opposite the museum so we popped in there to see the pandas. I don't usually visit zoo's as I much prefer to see animals in their natural habitat, but this is the only place outside china where pandans have been born in captivity apparently.

Heading off to Oaxaca on an hour on a 7 hour bus journey. I've got lots of sudoku to keep my occupied during the journey. Hoping the scenery will be spectacular.

By the way, for all of you who are thinking I've been basking in the sunshine since arriving, think again. Mexico city is experiences the effects of the recent hurricanes and is fairly cool and damp!! Gave me an excuse to try out my new waterproof at the top of the pyramids. The other thing we've had to do is buy a new camera as we lost our photo's from the first few days. So hopefully we will be able to shoot away with confidence and start uploading some pics.