Monday, October 4, 2010 Teotihuacan ruins

I woke up and took a shower. When I got out, you freaking guessed it. Hector was waiting for me and followed me to my locker to change and pounced on me again. I forcefully had to push him away and jerk my arm out of his grasp. He was like¨You know you like me, why do you push me away?¨ Umm, maybe because you´re clearly fucking nuts. I was actually sincerely worried he would steal something or somehow sabotage me, and I´m pretty sure he stole my keys to my SF apartment (why, I don´t know...) Yeah, definitely NOT going to Facebook you. Luckily he was checking out today. I got picked up for my Teotihuacan tour and the first stop was an ancient Aztec site, which was later turned into a Catholic Spanish cathedral using all the stones of the Aztec buildings, and then later was the site of the nonviolent student protest in 1968 where President Ordaz ordered snipers to kill all the students in the square. 2 days ago was the anniversary and there was a big memorial. The next stop was the Church of the Virgin Guadalupe, situated in an enormous bustling plaza in the northern suburbs where Catholics from all over Mexico come to worship their holiest figure, the Virgin, wholse picture is everywhere in Mexico (and thus the SW USA). Her figure is a Virgin with a starred cloak with sun rays, and standing on a moon (which are all elemental Aztec symbols because in Mexico, Catholicism has melded with many other indigeneous traditions). The reason she´s so ubiquitous is that Mexicans make fun of many things, but they would never dare disgrace this figure, so if there is a crime-ridden area, people just put up a Virgin of Guadalupe altars, which takes care of the problem. The church was an ugly 1970´s building with the Virgin´s image and a Mexican flag. Across the plaza was the Catholic Cathedral, which was a typical beautiful colonial cathedral. But when you got inside, it was completely sloped, like the Leaning Tower of Pisa. It was literally like walking uphill to the altar. That´s what you get for building a city on a muddy lakebed. Perched atop a hill away from the plaza was the tiny chapel that where the indigeneous people were relegated to pray because God forbid they were allowed to worship with the Spaniards. Oh, and by the way, the way the Spaniards justified colonization of the Americas (and extermination of 80% of the indigeneous population) and holding the inquisition to expel all Muslims and Jews, was for the good of Catholicism. And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why organized religion blows. I walked up the hill and was winded, for one of three reasons. a) I´m out of shape, b) Mexico City is at a very high altitude, c) Mexico City has for decades consistently ranked in the top 10 most polluted cities until China started to burn coal for energy and now they monopolize like 6 of 10 spots. After that, the van took us out of Mexico City basin, and all you could see was the same ugly gray cubical concrete houses reaching far into every nook and cranny in the city. It´s like LA but 8x the scale. And if LA, New York, Washington DC, and Chicago were all combined into one urban area. We made the requisite souvenir workshop stop at a place right outside the park gates, where the lady showed us how they make basically everything out of the maguey cactus plant that grows to like 10 feet tall, until it flowers (when it dies), so the Aztecs always killed the flower. From the plant, they got fiber to make clothes, sewing needles, waxy paper, alcohol (mezcal), and a sweet nectar. Pretty cool and resourceful. Then we saw all the different types of volcanic obsidian found in this region, which was used to make really beautiful statues and masks. Thank God there was a buffet lunch, which was really quite good and had an amazing variety. I made friends with some Spaniards. Don´t get me wrong, I love Spanish people and am dying to go to Spain. I just am curious as to why Spaniards come to Latin America (outside maybe Argentina, where everyone is European). Like hi, what did our ancestors do to this place? Well, they came on boats and introduced diseases that killed the majority of your population and those who survived were subjected to our rule where you weren´t even allowed to be in the same place in order to worship the same god, but we´ll still outlaw your heathenistic religious practices and make you convert and learn our language, oh and take all your land except the worst pieces, we´ll institutionalize racism so that none of you will hold positions of power or wealth in your own homeland, we´ll rape mane of your women and kill your beloved leaders after promising to set them free after unfathomable ransoms, make you pay taxes to fund our war effort in Europe again Napoleon. I´m sorry but if I were Mexican, I don´t really think I´d be eager to make any Spanish friends. I guess the US did take upper California (which is a pretty awesome piece of land) and Texas (which is well...bigger I guess? I got nothing) from you, which sucks. But those areas are almost 40% Mexican now, anyways. Ok so enough with my ranting. The park itself was awesome. There were several Aztec temples before the big daddy, the Temple of the Sun, followed by the small daddy, Temple of the Moon. These structures are actually incredibly impressive. Not only are they huge and rise out of the land like alien pyramids, they were built by the Mesoamericans (who didn´t have either wheels or work animals) in a highly seismic area without notable restoration efforts. Want to make a lot of money? Start a chiropractic practice back in the day right outside the temple complex. The pyramids and city is shrouded in mystery, and during the Spanish conquest Teotihuacan was deserted, which is (Thank God) why it was not destroyed. I climbed all of them sideways like asnake, really fast, and took tons of pictures (Christmas Card!) It was awesome contemplating the history of this rich land. On the path out, there was a clay dildo (probably circa 800AD) lying on the road, as a sweet farewell. Back in DF, I had a Corona forty o the patio and made friends with a girl from Brazil who was pretty cool and since she was from Brazil, obviously beautiful.