Teotihuacan City

Visiting this site was a great experience, and made me wonder how on earth they had the technology to build such an amazing place. My trip to Teotihuacan was on a day tour. I thought this way would be better, and easier as I wouldn’t have to be preoccupied with transport.

On the way there, we stopped at a place where they made Tequila. I never knew that you could make it from cactus. In this place they also made beautiful stones carvings. There were precious stones turned to carefully made ornaments, beautiful.

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Apparently, the Pyramids of Teotihuacan were believed to predate the Toltec civilization. Aztecs named the two great temples after the sun and the moon. The origins are a mystery. Believe or it or not, it was made by hand more than a thousand year before the Aztecs arrived in central Mexico.

Teotihuacan was the largest city in the pre-Columbian Americas, with a population estimated at 125,000 or more, making it at least the sixth-largest city in the world during its epoch. After the collapse of Teotihuacan, central Mexico was dominated by the Toltecs of Tula until about 1150 CE.

The early history of Teotihuacan is quite mysterious and the origin of its founders is uncertain. Around 300 BCE, people of the central and southeastern area of Mesoamerica began to gather into larger settlements. Teotihuacan was the largest urban center of Mesoamerica before the Aztecs, almost 1000 years prior to their epoch. The city was already in ruins by the time of the Aztecs.

On my way back from Teotihuacan we stopped at a famous Cathedral, which was part of the tour. The Cathedral of the Virgin of Guadalupe is a famous, and one of the most visited Catholic pilgrimage sites in the world.

According to the legend, the Virgin appeared to Juan Diego around December in 1531. She asked him for a church to be built at that site in her honour. After many attempts to convince the clergy, nobody believed Juan. The Virgin asked him to collect the petals from a rose bush that had miraculously (roses were not indigenous to the region) sprung up. He collected them in a cloth which when unfurled before the clergy had an image of the Virgin surrounded by roses. This famous relic is housed in this amazing site.

I highly recommend doing a tour, but hiring a taxi for the day would be a good idea too. The sites are very exposed to the sun. You will need to have suncream, and cover up.