Week 2: Los Aztecas

Christina and Erin atop the Pyramid of the Sun at Teotihuacan:

Christina and Erin at the buffet lunch, en route to Teotihuacan.

(Note: This picture does in no way reflect Aztec culture, or any culture, outside of the culture of horrid tourist trap buffet restaurants.)

Ms. Korbakis arrives! And she wastes no time delving into Aztec culture...

The day after her arrival, we made our first visit to Teotihuacan, the 'Aztec' ruins more commonly known as the Avenue of the Dead. We traveled with a tour group full of friendly Costa Ricans (Pura Vida, baby!) about one hour outside the city. Along the way, we stopped to see the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe, a famous Mexican Roman Catholic Church where an image of Our Lady of Guadalupe is said to have simultaneously appeared on maguey cloth in around 1531. This image is now framed in gold and silver at the front of the church, which is the richest and most visited shrine in all of the Americas. This church serves as a pilgrimage for many devout Catholics; we witnessed multiple people walking on their knees (as a sign of reverence for Our Lady) for quite a ways up to the church.

After leaving this site, we arrived at La Plaza de Tres Culturas, a site that hosts some Aztec remains, a Spanish Mission style church, and a modern Mexican housing project all in one, thus representing the three cultures of modern Mexico.

Finally, we reached the city of ruins known as Teotihuacan, where we proceeded to climb up to the top of both the Sun and Moon temples. Several days later, our legs are still hurting from this hike! Hundreds of people are hiking up a thousand steps or more to get to the top of the temples. Amazingly, anyone (including several toddlers we spied) can do this without supervision and apparently without injuries or lawsuits. The view was amazing and totally worth it!

While here, we learned an incredible fact: this famous site, which is most often attributed to the Aztecs, was actually built by another indigenous group called the Olmecs. The descendants of the Olmecs were then conquered by the Aztecs, who took over this area for religious activities (such as human sacrifice!) It really opened our eyes to a new ancient culture (the Olmecs) as well as gave us insight into the bloody nature of Aztec history. One 'interesting' buffet lunch later, we are packing up to head to Mayan country!