Xochicalco Pyramids, Day 5

Tuesday, October 21



As we were driving down the road we realized that there was an ambulance behind us. So we let him pass. Later we caught up with the ambulance. He was behind a line of cars. None of the cars let him pass. Later at a toll booth the ambulance had to pay to get through. But after the toll booth he got past all the cars and got to go faster.
I think it is cool how the houses are built on the hill and hidden in the trees.
There are vines all over. It’s very pretty. This is such a green and beautiful place. There are vines with beautiful blue flowers on them.
We just passed a place where there were a lot of rocks in the other lane.
- Elena

We went to Xochicalco. It was some cool ruins. I saw two iguanas. One was big and fat and the gray. The other was long and skinny and green and had a spiky back. Wow, jungle life! After wandering around for awhile we had a guide telling us about the stuff we saw. There was a cistern there that caught all the rain that fell into the city’s drainage. When the cistern got full they could unplug and let it go down to a different cistern. And at the top of the hill, by the temple and acropolis there was a room where all the big water pots were. The guide said he had done that excavating himself, so he knows. The room was no longer existent – just a couple of short walls. There was a river down at the bottom of the mountain in case it didn’t rain for a long time. And there was a sauna!! The guide described how it worked. Yup, just like a sauna minus the whisks you get beat with. The rocks, with a fire underneath, and they put water on to make it steamy. The ball players did it before and after a game, and sometimes the warriors or rich who could afford it. And women who had given birth, to help them. Some women still do that.
- Angela



Xochicalco. Imagine a shining white city-state of 30,000 inhabitants perched atop 3 green mountains. The city was 200 years in the building, by escaped or cast-out residents of Teotihuacan, but within 50 years of its completion it collapsed, felled by a dissatisfied lower class. We were fortunate that the guard who chastised the children for climbing on the ruins like monkeys took an interest in us and guided us through the maze, explaining as we went. We saw the temples and pyramids at the very top level. We saw the levels of plazas and workshops and living quarters, descending from the region of the priests and astronomers through the warriors and down to the artisans and farmers. We saw the remnants of the white plaster walls and floor, which must have awed the conquered peoples for miles around. Our guide, who lives below the mountain, said the ruins are visible to villages half an hour away.



We walked between the high walls of the ball court while our guide explained the game. There were 3 ball courts found, in three cardinal directions from the center. This one, to the north, was played only in times of drought or flood, to mitigate those effects. A large stone ring, like a basketball hoop, was affixed high up on one wall. The object of the game was to get the 3 kilogram ball, made of rubber and hide, through the hoop. Once through the hoop, the game was over. If it took one hour, or three days, the game was played until someone won. Players couldn’t use hands, but only three body parts: elbows, hips, or sides of the knee. These body parts were protected, as modern football players are protected. The teams each had a few players, but the team captain was the most important. The captain who lost was cast out from the city, losing his family, his belongings, and his status. But the captain who won had the honor of being sacrificed to the gods, to bring the rain (in drought) or stop it (in floods).
We walked through several underground corridors to the observatory – a five story tower which narrows to about a foot across at the top. We could see other tunnels extending off here and there, cordoned off. Our guide explained that the pyramid builders didn’t do surface mining, as modern-day Mexicans, but rather tunneled to obtain the stone to build their pyramids and other structures. In the observatory the astronomers could watch the image of the sun in a bowl of water, and determine when to begin planting, and when the season was ended. Our guide showed us what he explained was one of the mysteries of the place, a special effect of this particular mystic ruin: He held his arm out, and told us to look closely at its shadow. We did. Then he quickly removed his arm, and, sure enough, we saw a ghostly white image of the shadow lingering at the same spot, just for a moment. We oohed and ahhed for him, and didn’t point out the similarity between staring at a spot of color on a white paper, and then, when it is removed, seeing the color opposite. He told a good story.

Up through the Observatory

We saw the Temple of Quetzacoatl at the very top – the only structure with eight nearly complete feathered serpents circling its walls. Our guide explained the story chronicled by the glyphs: This place, Xochicalco, was a great astronomy center. But at one time, because of a solar eclipse, they became aware that their calendar was not correct - it did not match the calendar of the even greater Mayan astronomers to the south. So they invited the Maya to come and correct their calendar. The Maya priests came, and all the priests in the region, for a great convention, and the calendar was corrected of its one day error.
- Naomi

Temple of Feathered Serpent

Today the kids went to a different pyramid but the steep climb and the exercise from yesterday inclined me to loaf. I did laundry at 13.5 pesos for three loads, slightly more than doing it in the US. The laundry was not self serve, the attendant did all the work, not trusting me with the machine, and with good reason. The machines were 15 years old, having lasted longer than they would have in the US.




Loafing around Tia Raquel’s house I found all sorts of ancient tools used in a horse centered agriculture, probably left over from her grandfather, her house and lot are a museum. The tools are all well worn, many dating from the 1800s with the original wooden handles all replaced with native wood. There are a number of animal harness items, hames, single and double trees, plows, and parts, all attesting to past hard work before chemicals and fuel lightened the load in the field. There were also a large number of canning jars (Ball of the company that founded Ball State, a practical University with a philosophy similar to Cornell, located in Indiana) which attest to frugality and planning.



The house is also a museum with an abundance of well used books and a blackboard which Tia Raquel’s father used for his kids to demonstrate academic achievement, and receive appropriate rewards. Her generation and later ones have benefited from that background to enter the middle class to help lift the nation from its stereotypical past as all or most members of her generation have occupations that demand ability and give appropriate reward. Prominent among the books are church books that gave direction and motivation. Also in the house are a number of sewing items, thread, cloth, needles, etc that spoke of a store once being operated from the non-used room that fronts the street.

Hallway at Tia Raquel's; blackboard on the left

In the garden are orange, mandarin, lime and papaya trees still producing. Orange trees produce one crop a year, probably in the spring, and the crop lasts a long time on the tree. There were also poinsettia in perfect bloom (because the day length in DF gives it that perfect bloom, in northern climes it takes a green house with adjusted day lengths to attain it), phlox, bougainvillea and other flowers. There was a lot of unused space in the back yard that once probably was planted.

Papaya tree in Tia Raquel's yard

The Zapata park is named for Emilio Zapata, one of the many revolutionists in Mexico who gave their lives to fight against the tendency of the ruling class in Mexico to accumulate huge tracts of land worked by virtual slaves. The indigenous people in Cuautla fought that fight against the Aztecs, some hero from Cuautla fought that fight against the Spanish and I think that Zapata fought that fight against the Diaz government, the government previous to the present one now installed in the early 1900s.
The park is well organized with lots of good toys and swings, slides, soccer fields, benches, trees, an artificial lake and a statue of Zapata on a horse with his guns talking to a peon. Well used, there were about 50 people there doing all sorts of things in the cool shade including two lovers lost in each other. There are signs saying ‘no dogs allowed’, ‘be a good citizen’ and ‘the police have an office on the corner’. Short and sweet.

Zapata Park


The Mercado is well stocked, clean and orderly. I bought some peanuts, avocados and bread for various use. They also have peaches and apples from US and grapes, probably from Chile plus all the stuff they have in their season including 7 kinds of chile, 8 kinds of mole, 60 kinds of candy, meat of all cuts, fast food unnamed and flowers, always flowers. I saw few flowers in Costa Rica and none in Nicaragua but here they are in every Mercado. You can buy anything you want from 2,4,D to ice cream. Stores are all small and specialized. Large stores exist but the small ones are the economy right now. Later we were to see Walmart and other super stores but they have not penetrated the barrios. There were dentists, doctors offices, internet cafes, taco stands, and shoe stores all within 50 steps. I saw no evidence of extreme poverty but lots of chubby people who looked happy and energetic. No baggy britches, nose rings, hunched shoulders and no BMWs.
The street had lots of traffic, about every minute a VW van converted to a bus passed by. They generally left the sliding door open and the other three sides had bench seats. About 4 of 10 vehicles were business related, 2 in 10 were private cars generally with more than one occupant. There are few stop or yield signs in the neighborhood, only on major roads but I have yet to see any problem. One pair of cars passed within inches of each other, perfectly choreographed. People use the street more thoroughly and politely than we do in the US. They depend upon common sense to guide them, not signs that may or may not be aware of the events transpiring. There are bottled gas trucks going around town that have a siren going to advertise their presence. The town does not have natural gas so people use bottles (actually pressurized steel containers) and have two or three chances a day to get a supply.
Internet cost between 5 and 10 pesos an hour, at 12 pesos to the dollar. When we first got here on Friday the dollar was 11 pesos, now it is 12.4. We hear the dollar is falling but something is happening that I do not understand. The peso has been very close to 11 to 1 for about 15 years and in a week it has fallen 9 percent. Times are unclear.
- Grandpa