Letters from Mexico: Monte Alban and around Oaxaca

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Monte Alban

As we went by car, we drove around Oaxaca in the next two days. Our first destination was of course, Monte Alban - another place we were learning in high school`s history class!
Monte Alban is just outside the city, on the top of a hill - about 10 minutes by car. We had some flashbacks of Teotihuacan as straw hats were sold in the entrance for cents - just as in Teotihuacan. And similarly, everyone wore one inside the ruins. And as it turned out, it was good to buy a hat (and to bring water with us), as it was steaming hot that day (over 30 degrees)!
Anyway, after a long queue for the tickets, we entered this amazing ruin! As everywhere, next to the ticket office was a museum with the dug up objects from the ruin, and outside was the nicely renovated ruin itself.
What Monte Alban was different of Teotihuacan: first of all, it is smaller, so easier to walk around. (Teotihuacan takes a day to see corner to corner, while you can walk around in Monte Alban in 2 hours.) It is also covered with lawn and there are benches which makes the sightseeing more comfortable. And although there are no such huge pyramids as in Teotihuacan, it is still quite remarkable! The most amazing thing is that the city was built on the top of the hill - however, the top of the hill was completely scalped to be flat in order to build the 500 meters long city!
It might not be appropriate to compare Teotihuacan and Monte Alban, as the two ruins are far away both in time and space - Teotihuacan was founded around 200 B.C by the Teotihuacan people, followed by the Aztec, while Monte Alban was founded around 500 B.C by the Zapotec people followed by the Mixtec. However, Monte Alban and Teotihuacan`s history is connected, as the economical and religious importance of Monte Alban started to decline around 800 A.C as Teotihuacan`s became more powerful.

A pyramid of Monte Alban

After Teotihuacan we went to a little shopping - San Bartolo Coyotepec, the most famous place of the black pottery. You can find these pottery everywhere in Mexico - even in the markets of Mexico City, but surely they were the cheapest and with most variety in San Bartolo Coyotepec. This type of pottery (usually the vase) is famous of having round bottoms and cut out ornaments. After long hesitation we bought a round bottomed vase, a cut out vase and two little candle holders. (All this was 500 pesos!)

The next day we headed to the Tlacolula Valley - this 50kms long valley is populated over 2500 years by the Olmec, Zapotec, Mixtec and Aztec people. It is very convenient by car as there is one road going all the way and the historical cities, villages are on the side of this road.
We started with the furthest, Hierve de Agua - this is not a city but a natural spa. The road was amazing and dangerous - it took 13 kilometers on a narrow, bumpy dirt road going up and down the mountains. We made a mistake not bringing swimming suits, as you can swim in that spa. On the top of a huge rock, warm water is coming up and gathers in small, round pools. I guess the main pool (where you can swim) was created by the help of manpower, but it is still amazing. The side of the rock looks like petrified waterfall - the sight was really worth of the one hour bumpy ride! Not to mention that we got to see really small villages on the road; it seems that in that area people use cactus as fence!

Hierve de Agua

Descending from the mountains from Hierve de Agua, our next stop was Mitla. Mitla is again, famous of its ruins: this city of 10 thousand (Monte Alban`s population was 25000) became the area`s economical center after the decline of Monte Alban. It was ruled by the Zapotec and Mixtec people, who added the spectacular geometric ornaments to their architecture. Most part of the city was destroyed by the Spanish and the Iglesia de San Pablo church was built by its stones, but some part of the city can still be seen and visited.

Mitla`s geometric ornaments

After Mitla, we went to see another ruin in Yagul. Similarly to Mitla, this city was founded by the Zapotec and later ruled by the Mixtec people. Here the most interesting thing for me was the labyrinth (maybe wasn`t labyrinth originally, but definitely it seemed so). Also, with a little walk on the hillside, there is a viewpoint to the ruin and the surroundings which gave a spectacular view.

The ruins of Yagul

Our last stop in Talcolula Valley was Tule - here we went to see a tree. But not only a tree, one of the world`s largest tree! It is a type of cypress and although its over 2000 years of age doesn`t make it an old tree (the Japanese cypress in Yakushima is thought to be over 3000 years old), but with its 60 meter of thickness, it definitely makes it one of the largest trees in the world! The tree stands in the garden of a church, although more people were around the tree than inside the church. It was really amazing to see such an old and huge living creature, but it was more amazing to see how it give other lives - the tree`s foliage was full with hundreds, thousands of birds, it was like a metropolis for birds! This tree reminded me of the movie Avatar...

Tule`s cypress

All tree, tree, tree in the panoramic photo

Driving around in Oaxaca, we saw many mescla maker (alcohol made of agave, like tequila): crashing the agave leaves with horse pulled millstones. I regret that I didn`t take any pictures of it... Also, we encountered with many many interesting plants, that I have never seen in my life! Here is just a few of them: