Teotihuacan Pyramids


Today we drove about 1.5 hours to visit Teotihuacan. Teotihuacan is an ancient Mesoamerican city that is the site of many of the most significant Mesoamerican pyramids built in the pre-Colombian Americas. At its zenith (1 AD to 500 AD), Teotihuacan was the largest city in the pre-Columbia’s Americas making it the 6th largest city in the world at its height. 


Teotihuacan is also known for, in addition to its pyramids, its complex, multi-family residential compounds, the Avenue of the Dead, and its murals. Construction is thought to have begun around 100 BC and continued until about 250 AD. The city may have lasted until sometime between the 7th and 8th centuries, but its major monuments were burned around 550 AD. Exactly what was the cause of the fires is unknown, but it might have related to extreme weather events linked to the volcanic winter of 536. Several massive eruptions forced massive amounts of sulfate aerosols into the atmosphere which reduced the sun’s radiation and cooled the atmosphere for several years. 


We did lots of climbing steep staircases today in the hot sun. 


Mariana’s undergraduate degree was in history, so she had lots of interesting information to tell us. Almost like having our own tour guide. 😀 






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After our time at the pyramids, we drove back and had a late lunch in Roma, another one of the neighborhoods of Mexico City. 


The cold beers tasted really good!



After that, we walked around for a short time and explored. One thing that we’ve noticed is that even though Mexico City is a very modern city, the power lines are going all over the place creating a jumble of power lines and transformers all along the streets. 


The other interesting observation is that almost everybody in Mexico City wears a mask even outside. In talking to Mariana about Covid, it also seems that a high percentage of people are fully vaccinated. It appears that neither mask-wearing or vaccination ever became political in Mexico, and the behavior of the citizens is noticeably different than in the USA where mask wearing, in particular, seems to signal a political stance. 

Comments

  1. Marilouise GalikApril 12, 2022 at 6:37 PM

    Looks like another amazing adventure! You do such a great job of documenting your trips and activities! You create a very descriptive experience so we can share in it!

    ReplyDelete

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