Driving through Mexico - Part 3

If you are a US citizen, all you need to drive through Mexico is a passport, car registration and title, a credit card, and some cash. If you'd like to continue further south, take some extra cash for bribes if going through Belize (where the police is more corrupt than anywhere in the Americas). Take also a bag to conceal your video camera, otherwise you'll have to pay "camera fees" in museums, caves and numerous ancient cities, built over centuries by many civilizations.

Piramide del Sol, Teotihucan.

Climbing Piramide del Sol.

Puma mural, Teotihuacan.

Piramide de la Luna, Teotihuacan.

The most impressive and mysterious of them all, Teotihuacan (appr. AD 1-700), is also the most accessible one: it is just outside Mexico City. Try to visit it early in the morning to avoid the heat and the crowds.

View from the top of Piramide de la Luna.

Templo de Quetzalcoatl, Teotihuacan.

Burial, Teotihuacan.

Detail of Templo de Quetzalcoatl.

El Castillo, Chichen Itza. There is an older pyramid inside it, accessible via a tunnel.

The same applies to major Mayan cities, particularly Chichen Itza (mostly AD 700-1400) on Yucatan Peninsula, which is usually overrun by countless busloads of tourists from the nearby resort megapolis, Cancun.

View of Templo de los Guerreros and Mil Columnas from the top of El Castillo.

Platforma de los Craneos, Chichen Itza.

Detail, Platforma de los Craneos.

Head of a giant snake, Chichen Itza.

Detail, Templo de los Guerreros.

Chichen Itza is full of fascinating things: pyramids serving as calendars, an ancient observatory, temples built on top of one another, sacred cenote (sinkhole lake) once used for human sacrifices, illusory snake visible on a side of El Castillo during equinox, a huge ball court, where ritual ball games ended with losers being sacrificed and partly eaten by winners, and so on.

Lego-style masks, Chichen Itza.

Ancient Mayan cities were once very colorful. These are restored frescoes and reliefs from Chichen Itza museum.

Templo de la Cruz (left) & El Palacio, Palenque.

Another outstandingly beautiful Mayan city is Palenque (100 BC-AD 900, but mostly AD 600-700) in Chiapas. Its highlights include a labyrynthine palace, numerous inscriptions, and a unique tower.

Grupo Norte, Palenque.

Historical inscription, Palenque.

Palace tower, Palenque.

Calendar inscription, Palenque.

Templo de las Inscripciones, Palenque.

Palenque also has a lot of interesting plants and animals in ajacent hill rainforest (walk upstream the creek, beyond "area closed" signs), and some bats in buildings (look in rooms marked "no entrance").

Flowers, Palenque.

Jaguar and harpy eagle, Palenque.

Cat, Palenque museum.

Portrait of rain god, Palenque.

Paca (Agouti paca), Hormiguero.

Small, remote ruins are best visited in moonlit nights, when they are deserted, the guards are absent or asleep, and the streets are full of wildlife. Of the places I've visited, Hormiguero in Campeche had the most interesting fauna, including a margay cat.

Kinkajou (Potos flavus), Hormiguero.

Ocellated turkey (Meleagris ocellata), Tikal.

Great curassow (Crax rubra), Tikal.

Ocellated turkey, Tikal.

Crested guan (Penelope purpurascens), unnamed Mayan site, Campeche.

Most ancient cities are also good for birdwatching. Tikal in Guatemala, for example, is the best place to see rare, shy species of large wildfowl that has been hunted almost to extinction in most other areas. Even Teotihuacan with its broad streets and little vegetation has some interesting wildlife: pocket gophers, ground and tree squirrels, and many birds, especially in the vicinity of the main museum.

Plain chachalaca (Ortalis vetula), Palenque, Chiapas.

Spider monkey (Ateles geoffroyi), Tolun, Quintana Roo.	Tetrix catydid, Teotihuacan.	Colonial walkingstick, Hormiguero	Colonial walkingsticks, Hormiguero

Collared peccaries (Tayassu tajacu), LVP.

Surprisingly, La Venta Park, an archaeological museum in the middle of a huge city called Villahermosa in Tabasco, also has lots of wild animals, from coatis, raccoons, agoutis, and squirrels to peccaries, armadillos, and howler monkeys (784 Kb Mpg. video).

Collared peccaries, La Venta Park.

Altar Triunfal, La Venta Park.

Snake god, La Venta Park.

Owls, La Venta Park..

Altar de los Ninos, La Venta Park.

La Venta (100-600 BC), the capital of Olmecs, the first Mesoamerican civilization, was mostly destroyed during the oil boom of the early 20th century, but its wonderful sculptures have been moved to the Park.

Children sacrifice, Altar de los Ninos.

"Olmec head" and a coati, La Venta Park.

Unfinished head, La Venta Park.

"Olmec head" and a camcoder case, La Venta Park.

El Guerrero, La Venta Park.

Most archaeologists say that Olmec sculptures such as the famous colossal "Olmec heads" are not a proof of some ancient African contact. Being usually a skeptic, I still find it very difficult to believe. Just look at them. They are strikingly different from all other depictions of human face in pre-Columbian art, aren't they?

El Mono, La Venta Park.

This is usually said to be a depiction of a dialogue, but I think it is "rock, paper, scissors" game.

La Abuela (Grandmother), La Venta Park.

Unidentified flowers, La Venta Park.

Monte Alban, Oaxaca.

Among other interesting ancient cities are Monte Alban (200 BC - AD 700), a Zapotec capital on a hilltop above Oaxaca City, and El Tajin (AD 200-1000), the capital of little-known Classic Veracruz civilization.

El Tajin, Veracruz.

View of Gran Plaza, Monte Alban.

Platforma Sur, Monte Alban.

Piramide de los Nichos & Estructura 4, El Tajin.

In addition to its unique architecture, El Tajin is a good place to see los voladores, an ancient Totonac ritual of inviting rain from the sky. Once very dangerous, it still requires some nerve.

Piramide de los Nichos, El Tajin, Veracruz.

The pole is 30 m/ 100' tall.	At first, the four voladores just spin around at the top of the pole.	The leader plays a sacred song, using a flute and a tiny drum.	Then, the four fall back, and hang heads- down on ropes, still spinning.

Originally, the ropes were made of vines, and people often died when they broke.	As the ropes slowly unwind, each voladore makes 18 circles in the air.	18x4=52, a sacred number in ancient Mesoamerican cultures.	Finally, the landing.

Massasauga (Sisturus catenatus), El Cielo Biosphere Reserve, Tamaulipas.

There is, of course, much more to see in Mexico than any website could tell. May be it's time to turn off your computer and drive there yourself, fellow American? It's very easy: just take any freeway south...

These are not fall colors - it's the dry season in the forests of Nayarit.

Mantled howler (Alouatta palliata), Villa Luz, Tabasco.

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