Teotihuacan

I am not even sure how to start this day. It was awesome.  Because we are strange foreigners we were assigned a tour guide who taught us things like if you clap your hands in front of certain platforms you can hear the sound of the Quetzal bird. 

 This is some carved figures from the temple of Quetzalcoatl. He is the God of duality. It is thought that this temple may have been intentionally buried in the past. Of all the temples it is in the best condition and contains quite a bit of paint. There is a platform in front of this temple. And from that platform if you raise your voice it can be heard throughout the whole plaza bellow which is the size of several large football fields.

We really wanted to climb the pyramids of the Sun and Moon though supposedly the pyramid of the Sun probably isn't the pyramid of the Sun, but the pyramid of a God named Tlaloc the rain god.

This is that pyramid. I should have worn a hat. Despite it being a cloudy day and the application of sun screen. I still burned my scalp line (it is now pealing) and the tips of my ears.

The steep stairs.

I jogged around the third highest level. If I remember right it was approximately 42 jogging steps on all sides.

We all made it to the top even Prof. Turley who had knee surgery last semester. Guess who is taking the picture...the missionaries :). There is a small fleet of butterflies that hover at the top of the pyramid silently mocking the ever climbing stream of people and their difficulties with gravity.

Here I am on the pyramid of the sun? with the pyramid of the moon behind me.

Group shot

 We then visited the Museum close by.

I like this figure an acorn or a face?

These bones are pink. According to the sign large quantities of cinnabar were put over the shroud of the dead when everything decomposed and only the bones were left the cinnabar was absorbed into the bones turning them pink.

This guy here taught us all about the strange cactus plant behind him that the indigenous used to make string and paper. He also showed us sparkly rocks and artwork.

Afterwards we drifted around a gift shop.

We then ate lunch while seranaded by a man with a guitar and our tourguide. 

This is what I ate. The green thing is cactus. The cactus was used in all sorts of ways. It is super slimy and was also used in the limestone mortar on the temples.

 We were running out of time, so we quickly climbed what was accessible on the temple of the moon. Here I am on top. Part of the temple is currently not accesible as a tunnel has been recently discovered underneath it.

Here we all are together after we went up the pyramid.