Day 14

Wednesday November 12

It’s been decided by Richard that today is to be the special day. Of a whole three weeks or so of special days. We’re off to see the ancient pyramid city of Teotihuacán. When we first arrived, my one personal tourist thing was wanting to see the pyramids of Mexico City. I thought we’d seen them the day we went to the ancient city centre and saw the ruins of pyramids there. I had no idea that a little way outside the city was this whole ancient cityscape type thing containing enormous unruined pyramids. I’ve never seen such a thing before so this really is something to get quite worked up about.

We’re on the fringes of the final strait now with two gigs a day on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, a party Sunday night – at the home of a Mexican celebrity apparently – and then flying home on Monday. So if we’re going to do this thing it has to be today. And Richard, once more, really is going far above and beyond as host in taking on the drive for today’s wonderfulness.

First, the story of how the pyramids of Teotihuacán and their surroundings came to be used and settled, or at least that part we know of it, is just mad. If you know it, please skip and ignore this and the next paragraph. They’re not for you and I’ve quite possibly misunderstood the whole thing so you won’t particularly enjoy them anyway. This is just my take on it based on dedication and meticulous research spanning minutes and a few words from Richard while we were there. 

The bottom and undisputed line is that no-one knows who built all this or when. At all. They were first settled around, as far as is known I believe, about 150BC. At that time, a group of people just happened to come across them and claim them for themselves, seeing that no-one else appeared to be around to do so, least of all the builders, who at some point seemed to have popped out for milk or something and never come back. I’m assuming they also took the roofers with them. That’s right. The earliest known people who lived around these pyramids just came across them and that was it. They were just standing there, fully formed. Can you imagine? John – probably not his real name – stumbling back to his family clearing from the jungle and breathlessly saying some version of, ‘You’ll never guess what I’ve just found.’ It must drive historians crazy to not be able to know how such a thing came to be but they probably accepted it a while ago, it’s just all new to me. I think I’m getting it more or less right. Apart from that bit about John.

Maja:

I totally believe you got the part about John right. 

Mark:

As we’re leaving for the excursion, Richard tells us we’re going to have a guest come and join us. A girl called Lesley who is a friend of Los Ekis. She speaks no English at all, so with the two of us in the back of the car and Maja and Richard in the front, that will be me having to do the Spanish thing, although her and Maja get along fantastically. This really is some kind of special skill of Maja’s – being able to strike up friendships and hang out with people with whom she shares no common language at all.

Lesley lives right out in the barrios of Mexico city so it’s something of an excursion just going out there to pick her up as we see more urban aspects of this place. Just the smaller, old wild west looking type streets which are among the endless houses we saw from the air when coming in all that time ago.


That done and we’re on our way with this roadtrip being every bit a part of the experience as the pyramids themselves. Just riding out and seeing the open sandy barren countryside outside the city which we haven’t seen before. This is where even a toilet break turns into an adventure as we discover places where people with large, single storey houses let out their toilets for a few pesos for travelers caught short. A nice little cottage industry, quite literally.

Then there’s a breathtaking moment as we rise over the crest of a hill, with both sides of the road a seemingly neverending sandy vista. But suddenly ahead is a sight that must have inspired awe even a thousand or more years ago, and probably even much more than it does in us today. Right there in the distance we get our first glimpse of an enormous pyramid and we can just about make out that there are other structures around it. If it wasn’t so ancient I’d be tempted to call it futuristic. It certainly feels more like some sci fi moment than first look at a historic superconstruction. And the fact that they rise out of so much open nothingness around them, and after we’ve travelled for well over half an hour with little visual stimulation just adds to the strikingness of it all. Having never seen pyramids of this stature before, in this sudden unexpected moment, I now have.

On arrival, the car is parked out of sight of anything of antiquity and we walk across a dusty surface shaded by trees and bushes. Then we come to a turning in the path and there it all is. I’ve never seen anything like this. We’re now standing among the ruins of buildings, but also looking down a vast sandy avenue. Down there to the right is a sight to make you just stop, stare, and wonder when you’re going to be able to start moving again. This is the enormous pyramid we saw from the distance. It’s almost too much to even try to think what the discoverers of this thing must have thought and felt. All I can really attempt to do is conjure up is those immortal words: ‘Hey, John. Go get your dad. Tell him we live here now.’

Along the right hand side of the avenue we can see much smaller but still kind of large half pyramid type structures which clearly used to have something built on their flat platforms, and across the way from them, similar buildings but much smaller again. Then, right down the far end of all this, is another pyramid. Majestic itself, but just a tad smaller than that huge thing which we learn is the Sun Pyramid. This slightly smaller but still hugely imposing structure is the Moon Pyramid.

Now to get in and explore this place. Which means walking down the foreboding and epic Avenue of the Dead and taking in both sides, with frequent stops for photographs. This avenue stretches for three miles, which means this is a six mile excursion at the very least. Along the considerable way, Maja buys a giant straw sunhat from one of the walking vendors parading up and down all this and wears it proudly all day. Also as we make our way down, and more prominently now in this ostentatious hat which just sits on her perfectly, she all but skips from side to side calling us for more and more photographs with each new changing sight we see. And then a quite spectacular set of pictures of us in the centre of the avenue with the road stretching into the distance and the Moon Pyramid there at the end. 

The main plan, and which almost everyone has to do, at least on their first visit here, is to go up the Sun Pyramid. But as we get closer to it, we see that it’s closed for some kind of archaeological research. Must go on here all the time and all over the place. This research is going on high high up, so that we can barely even make out the researchers.  We see a person or two scrambling around the steep steps, while others are crouched and studying and discovering I can’t begin to imagine what. OK, so not going up that today. On to the Moon Pyramid.

We get there and ascend the steep and ancient steps to the platform below the main structure. It’s not as disappointing as I would have thought that for some reason we can’t go further than this; no going up that pyramid either. It’s really enough just to be able to see it so close, and almost even better, to be on this raised stone platform looking out over the whole pyramidical valley and then the mountains in the distance which give them a kind of supporting backdrop to visually stand against. What an incredibly privileged thing this is to be doing today.

So here, in the glorious sun, we sit and marvel and chat and photograph. And Richard has an amazing photography idea up his sleeve. A kind of party piece reserved for this spot alone. He really has been so selfless today, not only driving but also being self designated photographer with an actual real camera. But I also make sure to get a few photographs of him with us and the girls around here because you know how it can be sometimes. The photographer never gets in any photographs.

Richard’s idea produces some of the best photographs I’ve ever been a part of. Lying on his back gives him an angle towards the sky. Now the subject stands with back to the camera and facing the Sun Pyramid which dominates the vista. One-two-three and jump, preferably with legs apart. It can take a few tries as there are quite a few elements which have to all come together at precisely the same time for this to work. But when it does, the results are beyond spectacular. It’s as though you’re flying, jumping into space, right over the great pyramid with nothing below you but void. There’s also an extra illusional magic trick of the floor we’re standing and jumping from kind of morphing into appearing to be part of the floor far below, only adding to the illusion of flying. Get it right and all you’ve got is that endless stone floor and the Sun Pyramid perfectly framed by the distant mountains. 

We happily luxuriate in these surroundings for what amount of time I have no idea. And I think I can also speak for Maja when I say that I’m glad we couldn’t get up the Sun Pyramid and had to come here instead. I really believe I’m preferring the view of it to being on it. I’m sure it all has its own incredible views and I’m sure it would be amazing to experience it so close, but just to be here and be able to look down and along over the whole thing is every bit enough as to completely remove any sense that you might be missing out.

After I have no idea of how long hanging out here and just taking it all in, we declare it’s time to make our way back, but even that means this is adventure is far from over. That’s a long walk back through the kind of pyramidical valley and there’s so much more to take in and see that we might have missed last time. Such as more photo opportunities in little ancient grottoes. And also this time we stop a little and take some time to see what some of the people are selling round here. Most notable is Maja’s encounter with the screaming sound we’ve been hearing all afternoon. Now we see what it is. A guy is selling all kinds of colourful clay type models. Among them what I think is a small child’s fist size cougar’s head. The mouth is open and the eyes are bright, and the idea is that you blow into a hole on the head in a certain way, and out of the mouth comes a fearsome animalistic scream. A real horror movie creature about to attack scream. Brilliant, and very loud, and really, you do not want to be too close when someone is about to do it. As I discover and the vendor really is quite apologetic. All in a day’s fun. Maja simply has to have it. That and a small, equally colourful clay eagle which double as some kind of pan pipe thing. Couldn’t be further away from the primal aggression of the cougar model. She’s also quite taken by some of the spectacularly colourful clothes such as shawls and scarves that are being sold but decides that the cougar head, bird and straw hat is a perfectly good haul for such an adventure. 

All that’s left as we reach the end of this remarkable corridor is to use this incredible location to film a little promo piece for our show at Capitan Gallo tomorrow. With that, we leave this strait and enter the home one. Two shows a day for Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Only three days, but it really does feel a long way still to go. But hey, we had that fantastic road trip out here, now we get to do it all again for the way back.