Tula

I spend the second Sunday in May taking a day-trip with some friends. We went to a town/archaeological site called Tula, which is about 1 hour and 45 minutes away from Mexico City.  As a town, Tula isn't really so impressive--it's small and really quite plain. The archaeological site, however, was a really interesting trip. To get there, we took a short taxi ride from the bus station. As it turns out, Mr. Scumbag Taxi Driver took us to the wrong gate, the one only open on holidays. Since we weren't going to put up with being screwed over by a taxi driver, we decided to get out there anyways. After literally pushing ourselves through a hole in the wall (and getting free entrance!), we arrived in to the Tula archaeological park. A short hike up the hill led us to a nice view of the town.


The town of Tula, on an overcast day

 Turning our backs on the town and walking a few short steps led us to the main attraction of Tula: the ruins. There are two particularly well-preserved pyramids, but the biggest attraction is definitely Los Atlantes--the giant statues on top of Pyramid B, also known as The House of the Morning Star. Most likely, only kings and high priests were given access to enter this pyramid. It is thought that this pyramid was dedicated to the worship of royalty and war--both very important in the Toltec culture. The figures at the top are representative of Toltec warriors.


"Pyramid B," or House of the Morning Star, at the Tula ruins

Climbing up to the top of the pyramid is a short and easy task, and you can see the Atlantean figures up close. (Yes, they're really called Atlanteans in English!) Despite the day being overcast, the pictures still turned out fairly well, thank the lord!


2 of the 4 Atlantean figures.



Keeping in mind that these were made at least 1000 years ago, I find it amazing that there is
still some of the original paint on the statues and various decorations around the site.



Also, the sculpting is really quite impressive.




They even sculpted little butts!

  Looking down off the left side of the pyramid, you can see the Palacio Quemado, the Burned Palace. The name comes from when this building was destroyed by a fire towards the end of the city. This structure probably used to be a council room or meeting place of some sort.



Palacio Quemado

Another, more brutal aspect of Toltec society, was the ballgame that was played. The game was played on an I-shaped patio with stone markers set into the walls. The ball, made of raw rubber, was hit with the players hips, knees, and elbows. The goal was to hit the ball against the stone marker on the wall. The game itself doesn't sound too bad at all, but, what happened to the losing team was a little...unfortunate. The losing team was typically sacrificed by beheading. Their decapitated skulls were placed on the Tzompantli, or skull-wall, in front of the court, for all to see. And I thought football was violent...

The ball court. Yeesh, it was difficult to think of what happened, standing right in that spot.

After visiting the ball court, we headed off to the museum, but not before passing some crazy cacti along the path!



Crazy cacti

The museum displayed some of the best-preserved pieces found in the ruin site. Some of the old figurines included sculptures of warrior heads, jaguars, eagles, and serpents.



Jaguar sculpture



A part of a column to hold up the roof that used to be over the meeting area



There were lots of these figures around the House of the Rising Sun, but none of them actually still had the head...

  After leaving the Tula archaeological site, we explored for a bit around the town of Tula. We first stopped for lunch, because we were starving. Inside a small market, we found a Mexican food "restaurant" that was actually more of a shack. The quesadillas were amazing! I tried my first quesadilla de flor de calabaza, which is a zucchini-flower quesadilla, which was super delicious. We grabbed dessert at La Michoacana, a chain ice cream shop with out-of-this-world ice cream, and headed off to explore the town.

The most notable thing about the town was perhaps the church. Not that the church was particularly impressive compared to some that I've seen, but what was interesting was that the church and church plaza was completely surrounded by a tall, thick, concrete wall. It seemed more like a fortress than a church!



The Church in the Tula Centro

After visiting the church, we stopped in the only green area of Tula to sit and rest for a bit. It was a nice place to talk and people-watch.

Our group: Myself, Bronwyn, and Miguel



As you can maybe see in the top right corner of this picture, the rains were coming!

We finished our day by walking back to the bus station, but not before getting completely drenched in a sudden downpour! It was the loudest thunderstorm I've ever been in, but we made it to our bus station safe and sound. At the station, all the electricity was out, so we received handwritten tickets. We also grabbed the cheap, bus-station coffee/cappucchinos, and they were the best cheap, nasty coffee drinks we ever had. (Anything warm seems 200 times better after getting stuck in the cold rain!)


Waiting in line for our bus...under a roof, nicely enough :)

Exhausted, I think we all fell asleep on the way home. It was definitely an early-to-bed night! The day trip was definitely more than worth it, though, and great for some cool history. More day trips are being planned, which I'm really excited for! (Only on Sundays, though, as they're my only day off right now.)