May 02

Mexico City: Teotihuacan and others

Travel

30-45 mintues drive northeast from Mexico City is Teotihuacan, an ancient cities that was build around 200 AD. It was abandoned until the Aztecs empire took over in 14th century and then fallened at Spanish's conquest. I've always been fasinated by ancient ruins and pyramids so it was my first priority to visit here. I was definitely not disappointed. The scale of it was overwhelming. The steps on the pyramids are high and quite hard to climb, you're supposed to climb the steps in zig-zag direction. There are two pyramids in the enormous site: the huge Pyramid of the Sun (see pix) and smaller but equal height Pyramid of the moon (2nd and 3rd pix). I climbed moon first and boy was it tiring! I felt like my strength were used up. Though it's also because I don't work out regularly. ^^;;

So I felt exhausted already after Moon. I wanted to challenge myself to go all the way up to Sun after seeing how spectacular it is. I noticed a nursing trailer nearby. ^^;; So about halfway up to the pyramid I knew that I absolutely cannot continue on. My legs were strengthless and I started having hard time breathing. I felt immense sickness to my stomach that I vomited out my breakfast. At that point I realized not only that I was over exhausted and overheat (it was a hot hot day), the high latitude is also affecting my body. The more I rested the more I couldn't breath, my vision got blurry and head felt dizzy. Eventually I collapsed onto the ground and fainted for couple seconds. Many tourists noticed and helped me. They poured water on my pulses and the back of the neck, raised my legs up on a step so blood would flow back to my head. Someone even got the nurse and guard to come. They lift me back down and I rested in the trailer for awhile.

I had a big fatty lunch and dinner (the duck I had at the french place) for the rest of the day.

Another must-go destination of Mexico City is the National Museum of Anthropology. The museum's architecture is interesting by itself. I can't figure how a huge concrete canopy is solely support by a pillar. It's got an amazing collection of archeaological finds from Mexico City. All the Teotihuacan finds were collected here, as well as other civilizations like Maya, Olmecs, toltecs, Oaxaca...etc. There's the famous Sun Stone (the Aztec Calender). I''ve always see this in picture now I'm glad to see the real thing. It's much larger than I expected. You can see more pictures on my Flickr.

This concluded my Mexico City trip report. I also checked out Basilica de Guadalupe and its "miracle poncho", the Bull fighting Stadium and UNAM. There're still many other fasinating things I didn't see or experience due to the lack of time, such as hanging out at the cool Condessa neighbourhood, boat ride at Xochimilco, ancient ruins of Tulu, the crazy churriqueresque "ultra-barqoue" churches at Taxco and the beautiful colonial Puebla town. Hopefully there's next time. OK back to LA dining~

Joan | May 2, 2007 06:09 AM