After spending several
hours at Teotihuacan, it was time to move on to our next and last destination
of the day, which was the Toltec site of Tula, located northwest of Mexico
City. Unfortunately, one of our group
members had gotten lost at Teotihuacan, and it took over an hour to track her
down and get her on the bus. We had over
an hour to drive, and there were concerns that Tula would be closed by the time
we got there. Fortunately, our Mexican
guide pulled some strings and got them to stay open late for us. By the time we got there, we were the only
tourists on the property, and it was nearing sundown. It was nice to have the place to ourselves!
Tula was a Toltec
stronghold that fell around 1150 AD. The
main feature of this site is the Pyramid of Quetzalcoatl with 4 huge Toltec
warrior statues and several equally large square carved pillars placed prominently
on its flat top. Surrounding this
pyramid were the remains of many ceremonial buildings.
The pyramid sits very high up and can be seen
from a great distance all around. There
was also a lot of water surrounding it in its day.
When we got up to
the top, it was easy to see why this place was selected to express and display
the power of the ruling elite here. Luckily
for us, since we were the last tourists of the day, the guard stayed down
below, probably not wanting to make the climb up to the top one last time. The statues were roped off, but some of us
decided to go beyond the ropes to get up closer since the guard could not see
what we were doing!
I always like to
track by putting my hands on the stones at the area in question, so I went to
the back side of one of the giant Toltec warriors and did just that. One of my roommates, Maxine, did that,
too. Since these statues were so very
tall, we found ourselves with our hands on each side of its rear end. A very laughable situation!
Immediately, a
strong testosterone driven male energy came though. This site was all about who the ruler was,
who was in charge, who owned everything, and who had all of the power. It was almost overpowering and very
aggressive, too. The phrase “absolute power rules absolutely”
came to mind.
This was reinforced
on the way back to the bus when we passed friezes featuring skulls and then
jaguars, all with teeth barred.
What
magic, though, to be in a location like this as the sun was going down at the
end of the day with no one else around.
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