Templo Mayor

Hola!

 

We were up this morning around 6, and ready for breakfast about 7:30-ish.  The card that came with our keycard indicated that breakfast was in the lobby, but when we inquired, turns out it is back up in the Terraza restaurant on the 4^th floor.  And while we very much enjoyed our table by the edge, it was a bit cooler than expected.  Note:  Tomorrow, take jacket upstairs!  The thing that was absolutely jaw-dropping though was the buffet for breakfast!  There wasn’t an egg anywhere in sight!  In fact, there was a long row of covered dishes, none of them (at least to our way of thinking) having anything at all to do with breakfast foods!  (There were breakfast cereals on the buffet, but there were also wonderful cookies and desserts – and I was finally able to try a “cake pop” covered in decorating dots, which I loved – and much to my surprise, the base cake was red velvet, which was great!). 

 

Beautiful corner in our lovely hotel!

Terraza for breakfast; Cathedral in background

R's breakfast

My breakfast; note cake pop!!

To start, there was orange juice as well as Mimosas … R choosing the former, and me choosing the later.  For some reason, it seems that much of the orange juice we have had here in Mexico is really a bit bitter for me – but R loves it!  So I’ll drink the champagne and O.J. and R can be the purist!  The buffet line included just about everything – there was fish, and chicken, and beef barbacoa, as well as pork carnitas.   There were two kinds of chilaquiles, red and green, as well as rice, beans, and three kinds of soup!  It was amazing – and all before 8 am in the morning?!  At any rate, we both enjoyed it thoroughly, and were back in the room by 8:30 am.

Our room is second from left, third floor up!

Side entrance into Cathedral

Now that's a headdress!

 

My plan for today was to tour the Cathedral, which is on one side of the Zocalo, as well as go to the Templo Mayor (the former Aztec capital, where Cortes dispatched the King (Montezuma II, although now spelled completely differently!) when he and his men conquered the Aztecs, which is directly behind the Cathedral.  Turns out that when Cortes landed in Mexico, he promptly aligned himself with three different Indian tribes who were all sworn enemies of the Aztecs.  I have to admit that the Aztecs, when they were going about trying to conquer all the people of the Valley of Mexico and then beyond, were pretty brutal and cruel about things, and certainly didn’t gain themselves any friends along the way.  So, while Cortes did have the advantage of weapons (firearms and cannons) as well as horses, the Spanish numbered only about 450 men but they had as allies several thousands of very highly motivated Indians as well.

 

The Templo Mayor was the location where the Aztecs built their capital after several centuries of wandering through the desert.  They had been told to look for the location where an Eagle, with a snake in its talons, was resting on a cactus.  And, they finally found it!  “It” however, was actually in the center of a swamp.  But the adjacent small island proved to be a good place to build, and then huge causeways were built leading to the two major temples where the most sacred rituals were practiced: Templo Mayor.  Unfortunately for the Aztecs, this spot was where most ritual human sacrifices were carried out, (and according to the records, on a fairly frequent basis) and the Spaniards had (understandably on their part) a truly difficult time dealing with what they were seeing.  (Can’t say I blame them there!). [With the Inquisition in Spain at this time, I find it hard to believe that Cortes and his men were deeply shocked by the Aztec practices. – R]

 

Love this statue!  Has to do with water!

Snake heads coming out from excavated temple

Built in seven different levels

Original wall of South temple

Snakes...

Statue of rabbit god

Amazing sculptures and original colors!

As Robert says ... steps ... always more steps!

So, when Cortes finally attacked, (and almost lost the battle in spite of all the Indian help they had!) much of the gold that the Spaniards had stolen/looted was lost, apparently, into the water along the causeways.  Additionally, the Spanish had no idea how to deal with the entire causeway/swamp area, and promptly destroyed the dams that had been built by the Aztecs to protect the water supply as well as the chinapas (areas that we traveled through in Xochimilco last Sunday this time) where the Indians raised all the food for the capital city.  Obviously, it wasn’t a very easy time for anybody, but Cortes had conquered “New Spain” to provide resources for “old” Spain, and he wasn’t about to retire just because they had no clean or potable water.  His monumental building program – tearing down the native temples, such as Templo Mayor, included then re-using the stones from the temples to build houses for the Spanish right on top!  In fact, Templo Mayor itself wasn’t re-discovered until 1978, if that can be believed!  (Although I do believe that Subway line 2 as well as an underground conduit, were run through the area earlier, just not recognized as being what it was!). So much for archaeology!  

 

We got to Templo Mayor not long after it opened at 9 a.m.  One first winds through the excavation itself, but it seems that this is now an active site, and much of what we were able to see the first time we were here several years ago, is now off limits!  Very disappointing, but at R points out, we did see it before, and it is good to know that work is still being done on the site.  

 

After this comes the new museum, which is very impressive and contains a fair about of explanation in English as well, which is nice.  There are many, many amazing finds from the site – almost all relating to offerings left in caches along with the sacrifices.  One of my favorites was a large urn-shaped vessel with a cover, that contained literally thousands of beads, and other artworks that are scattered all beneath the urn for an amazing presentation.  

 

Statuary guards found leaning on entrance to temple

Coyolxauhqui

Tlaltecuhtli

Tlaloc, the rain god

Mrs. Tlaloc urn

Beautiful jade piece found inside the shell inside the urn

The museum is built around two huge sculptures.  The first, around which the museum is built, is of the Earth goddess of the Mexicas, Tlaltecuhtli and lies in the very center of the museum on the ground floor, but you can see her from all the floors above.  She certainly makes a statement, that’s for sure; she is truly quite sensational.  This is a monolith weighing almost 12 tons and was originally placed at the foot of the Main Temple, and was discovered in 2006.  The second figure, of the goddess Coyolxauhqui (try saying that three times fast…) lies on the floor above.  Her sculpture, carved in trachyandesite, measures 3.25 meters in diameter and weighs almost 8 tons.  It was originally located at the foot of the stairway that led to the Huitzilopochtli temple (god of war) and represents the goddess attired as a warrior, decapitated and dismembered with blood flowing from her wounds.  As I say, the Aztec religion was definitely not for the faint of heart – (whoops … sorry…)  And, as a thought, instead of starting at the bottom and wending our way up, we took the elevator to the top and worked our way down through the displays – a Rick Steves trick I adapted from the Uffizi in Florence!

 

Once we exited from the Museum, we walked through an area where it looked like many Indians were dressed in native costume and headdresses, and dancing.  The last time we were here (Day of the Dead several years ago) there were people being wacked with tree branches and incense burning by the Indians; and all within shouting distance of the Cathedral!

 

This guy scares me!

By this time, it was noon, and we still wanted to walk through the Cathedral.  So, we tried.  However, as we noticed when we walked by the front entrance earlier in the morning, there is a large crew of men putting scaffolding together what looks to be all across the front.  There was still one large side chapel open, with various niches included, but it doesn’t look like it’s going to be possible to view the entire Cathedral again for quite a while.  Hopefully, continuing restoration will continue.

 

Another entrance to the Cathedral

Side Altar

From there, we headed back towards the hotel, stopping at McDonalds for a coke and a brief sit-down.  We had put in quite a few steps so far today, and wanted to take naps before Diana, our cooking/mercado instructor, arrives at 6:30 pm for dinner tonight.  I’m not sure how much we’ll be able to hear, as the concert is supposedly starting at 5 pm, but we’ll definitely have to play that by ear.  If worse comes to worse, I’m sure we can eat in our sitting room, as there is a comfy couch there and we can move a chair from the bedroom – and hopefully that would give us a bit of quieter space!  Greatly looking forward to seeing her!

 

More later!

m

xxx