Monte Alban & Mitla

Today we ate a quick breakfast and then headed up the mountains to Monte Alban, which was the capital of the Zapotecs for at least 1200 years between 500 B.C. and 750 A.D.! The Zapotecs were the dominant force in this area between the Teotihuacan in the Valley of Mexico (which we had visited while staying in Mexico City) and the Maya kingdom of the southeast. The first picture here to the left shows Sam, Rory and Maggie at the entrance to Monte Alban, high above the clouds in the background over the city of Oaxaca. We got there early in the morning, so the air was still a little cool and very clean. It was almost a mystical feeling.

Of the ruins that we visited, this was the only one that had a ball court. Rory was looking forward to seeing that, so here's a photo of him standing above the main ball court.

Also, since we got to Monte Alban so early on a Sunday morning which also happened to be Father's Day, there were very few other people at the site. This made for a wonderful opportunity to get great pictures of the ruins. Usually, it's quite difficult to take a photo here that doesn't include other tourists. So, we took advantage of the opportunity and captured this sweeping view of the Main Plaza from the South Platform.

Our next stop was the small town of Santa Maria del Tule to see one of the oldest and largest trees on Earth. The tree measures over 160 feet at its base and is believed to be over 2,000 years old! It's so big, you can even see it using Google's satelite view of the tree! It was difficult to capture the grandeur of the tree with my camera. However, on the walk through the park to see the tree, we passed an interesting entrance to someone's home. I especially liked the garage door shown below.

Our next stop was the home/workshop of a family that makes wool rugs. On the way there, we passed a "campesino" with his two oxen. Here's a view as we approached them. And'd here's a view as we passed. We're obviously not in a big city!

Although the family we visited buys the wool they use at a local market, the rest of the process (cleaning, carding, spinning, cleaning (again), dying and weaving) is all done by the family. They gave us a wonderful demonstration of the entire process. Maggie even tried her hand at spinning the wool into thread. As you can see below, she did a pretty good job of it!


The family got up early that day to prepare for our visit. The mother even made enough homemade potato quesadillas to feed an entire busload of American teenaged tourists and their adult leaders! It was the first time I ever had potato quesadillas, and they were DELICIOUS! They were made with a flour tortilla folded in half over mashed potatoes and deep fried with a little bit of salsa verde and white, crumbled Mexican cheese on top. We also had Agua de Jamaica (Hybiscus Water), which was the first time I had it made from the real dried flowers of hybiscus instead of a powered drink mix. That was a nice treat as well.

From there, we headed on to the ruins of Mitla, which are about 30 miles from the city of Oaxaca. At its heyday (around 1350 A.D.), Mitla had a population of maybe 10,000! My favorite part of this site is the details of the designwork in its structures. As a matter of fact, if you look closely, you will see that the designs were carved in smaller pieces of stone that were then pieced together to make the buildings' intricate design work. That method also helped protect the structures from damage during earthquakes.

After Mitla, we headed back to town to eat relax and get to bed early. Tomorrow morning we're leaving for the beach!