Hola!!

Something a bit different  now - come with me on a trip round some of Central America's ancient sites.

This was a complete eye opener for me - Mexico and the Mexican people were very different from what I'd been expecting and I am looking forward very much to a return visit one day. It's long been an ambition to visit the old Mayan civilisation so where better to start than somewhere that is not Mayan at all.

Not even Aztec but claimed by the Totonac people, Teotihuacan ('the place where the Gods were created') is some 30 miles from Mexico City. It has been heavily reconstructed, particularly the royal palaces and the Temple of Quetzalcoatl but the pyramids are most impressive.

It was still early in the season so not very busy although visiting it late morning meant that it was very hot indeed. This was our first site so we were not quite sure what to expect.

The Temple of the Moon. This is the smaller of the two great structures but climbing it gave us a good idea that the next two weeks were going to be fairly physically demanding if we were planning on climbing many of these structures.



The steps are very steep and not very deep and my legs were complaining long before we reached the top.

The view though down the Avenue of the Dead towards the Temple of the Sun ( large structure on the right) was well worth the effort.







Originally it was believed that the smaller structures were tombs but it now believed that they were ceremonial buildings or temples.

Some of the artwork is still extremely well preserved including this wall painting of a Jaguar, sacred to many of the Central American peoples. The primary deity here is believed to be The Great Goddess and unique to this city.

The view from the top of the Temple of the Sun, looking down on to the Temple of the Moon.






This is a massive structure with  a 350 m² platform at the top, measuring  225 x 222 metres at the base, and at 75 meters high, has a total volume of 1 million m³!

And in another direction.