Banditas Blog: MEXICO DAY #4 Leaving Cuernavaca...finally! On to XOCHICALCO!

Many people speak of having a ..."sigh of relief" after a stressful event is over, or a danger is averted... Well, besides a sigh of relief, this is what a 'SCENE OF RELIEF looks like! Finally after hours lost in Spanish babble, wild hand gesturings from the insurance auditor, and grim disgust written all over Julies face..... we headed out of Cuernavaca, and onto the wide open spaces in search of XOCHICALCO.
Pronounced [SO-CHEE-CAL-CO] for the unitiated of the Nahuatl language.

Funny thing, as you go deeper and deeper south, the words take on a REALLY foreign looking sight, and sound.... most of the towns and words become lost in some Indian language, foreign to Spanish..... as for the towns or villages we were heading for, they were mostly derived from the Nahuatl language, of the Aztecan dialect.

So, we are heading down MEX 95.... GPS plugged in and us laughing at how horrible the speaker on the GPS pronounces the directions.... IPOD tuned in, and windows down. Willy Nelson blaring: "On the Road Again!" and we are off. We had about 25 miles to go, until we reached the little (tiny) almost non-existent town of Alpuyeca....it was the turn off point to head up to the hills to find the ruins of Xochicalco. We would wind back up to about 5003 feet above the village below before we would reach the ruin. Not much is known about this ruin, and in our little history lesson we got off the internet, we learned that this particular ruin was built sometime around 500 B.C.! No one knows which civilization built it, but it did end up being inhabitated by Aztecans. The Nahuatl name means: "In the house of the flowers".

Well, once we were on the road a bit, I turned back into the obnoxious backseat driver, AFTER I spied loose cattle coming at us in the middle of the road! After that, I had my eyes on the side of the road, just sure that a cow or donkey or something that shouldnt be there was going to jump in the road, and give us our second accident for the day................... So with every cow, or shadow, I did my now infamous..."JULIE!!!! WATCH OUT!!!.... (how that girl survived me is beyond me!) But, I settled down when we decided to have lunch, Chuy style.
Chuy style is this.... 1) You find a tortillia (tortilla factory). You stop and buy about 30 corn tortillas for about 30 pesos. 2) You find nice ripe avacados 3) You buy Quesos cheese.
You cut up the avacadoes, cut up the cheese, wrap them up in warm tortillas and EAT and EAT and EAT. It is so good, and filling...... you dont get hungry the rest of the day!
So, Julie had fun watching the tortillas being made on their little machine..... and Chuy was left to deal with the jealous store girl. If you look at the girl in the background of the picture, and notice the NON-smile on her face, you will understand the Blah looks we encounter from the Mexican women. We havent figured out why, yet....... but, inevitably, we see this emotion quite frequently from the Mexican women......... OH well, we brush it off. NO big deal....right!
After lunch, we again drove the little road, past all the farm dangers, and pretty little village Pinata stores..... and finally found our turn off to the Temple ruins.
It was magnificent to see it from the village below, sitting high up on the mountain top....and later, to see the village below from the top of the ruins.
What a day! We ran all over the ruins..... took alot of pictures.... sat a bit and contemplated what it must have been like back in 500BC..... and how they built such long lasting monuments....
Chuy rested in a sleeping quater of the ruins, and blew his ceramic song whistle....it was pretty and attracted some nearby flying vultures overhead......I attempted to get a picture of a lone flower growing, but the contrast between the shadows and the sun was just too much....but, I put it on here anyway, for the temples namesake!
We had a great time...spent about 2-3 hours, and then Julie announced it was time to go! Our commandante had given the orders.....so, we drove off for the next destination..............
GRUTAS DE CACAHUAMILPA (and if you dont think we had a good laugh at the GPS woman trying to pronounce that one!)............ We were cramming ALOT into this day............

In the foreground, the road sign for the ruins.......

Pinatas for sale...... and pottery.
CHEAP...but, we had no room to be in a buying spree.

Last road sign.... VEER RIGHT JULIE!....DID YOU GET THAT>?
VEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEER RIGHT!!!!

"I KNOW MOM!!!!"

OK...... this is unacceptable. COWS? LOOSE ON THE ROAD?

"JULIE WATCH OUT>>>!!!!

(Poor Julie! As if she didn't see them too!) She gets a Blue ribbon for enduring me!

I swear I thought this one was gonna turn right and plow right into us any minute! Why in the World do they let their animals just run loose like this...?

ITs CRAZY!

Time for lunch..... Chuy style!

Take a good look at the woman's face in the background..... I think she either hates Chuy for bringing these crazy American women to her quiet little village, or she is mad that she cant overcharge us, cause he is handling all the interpretation over the cost of the tortilla's...

your guess is as good as mine?

(And no, his hair isn't blue, its just the photo)

Look way up on top of the mountain in the background. This is the first sight of the Temple ruins... you still have to drive about 5 miles up the winding road to get to it. The road ends up being fairly steep!

Chuy at the TOP! Thinking about how his ancestors used to live, and what they did at this ruin etc etc.

The Temple ruin.

XOCHICALCO "In the house of the flowers"

Blowing his ceramic whistle...

Indian in RAYBANS...whatever!

My photo. IT probably wont win any prizes...but, I like it. A little flower and awesome ancient stones.....

Top of the ruins, the village and a lake far below.......

If you look closely, you can see Julie way up towards the top, sitting on a ledge. This gives you a bit of the scale of this thing..... and to think it was far bigger in 500BC.