Whrrgreeoww!!
No amount of creative spelling can do this horrible sound justice. It’s supposed to be the sound of a jaguar roaring. If that jaguar is roaring in agony while choking on phlegm, then they’ve probably nailed it.
This is the sound you will hear if you go to the pre-Aztec ruins of Teotihuacán.
Wooden ‘whistles’ carved into the shape of a jaguar and sold by the site’s many souvenir sellers produce this sound. If I had an enemy and that enemy had a small child, I would buy that child one of these whistles.
The whistles from hell didn’t stop us from spending almost an entire day at Teotihuacán and this was a day well-spent. Teotihuacán is a marvel by any measure and well worth the visit. Thought to translate roughly to “the birthplace of the gods”, the city was continuously occupied for nearly a thousand years. During this time, it was a true metropolis of its era, with a population of over one hundred thousand, multi-family home complexes and a highly developed literature.
I have to admit, I love ruins. Just love them. I love walking through structures that were built so many generations ago that any intuitive sense of time fails me. I love the sense of being somehow connected to a greater history, even when that connection is tenuous. I love that sometimes the reality of a ruin will completely crush any preconceived notion I had about it, as happened when I visited Troy and realized just how small the legendary Trojan horse would have to have been to fit through those tiny gates (the Greeks probably did not sneak a whole army in there). In that sense, Teotihuacán was the opposite of Troy. I knew that it was big, but reading about it just doesn’t compare to walking through. The sense of former grandeur about the place weighed as much as its pyramids as we wandered the city’s avenues.
We strolled the length of the Calzada de los Muertos (The Avenue of the Dead) that served as the ancient city’s main thoroughfare. Only a 3.2km-long stretch of the avenue remains today, although archaeologists have found evidence that it was once much longer. For reference, 3.2km is the same length as 42nd Street in NYC. We may never find ourselves here again, so we determined to make every stop possible along the Clazada.
Our first stop was the Temple of Quetzalcoatl. Less visible than the pyramids, the main body of the temple sits slightly obscured behind its squat pyramid entrance. From the top of the entrance pyramid, steep, high steps lead down to a narrow alley. On the other side of the alley, more steps, lined by the heads of gods carved into massive stone blocks, rise to the top of the main pyramid. Jaguars, quetzalcoatls and monkeys stared silently at us while the shutters in our cameras snapped.
From the Temple of Quetzalcoatl, we strolled down the Calzada and meandered through the small Teotihuacán Museum. From there we continued our walk to the Pyramid of the Sun, the largest of the Teotihuacán pyramids and one of the largest structures ever built in the Americas before modern times. The walk up the pyramid is a bit of a hike, owing to the summer heat and the height of its steps. For relatively short people, the pyramid’s builders seemed fond of very high steps. The view from the top provided us with a full panoramic vista of the surrounding area. Amidst chatter from other tourists, we surveyed what remained of the ancient city’s layout. Houses and market stalls still inform the grid pattern of the old city, with the less permanent houses of modern Mexico spreading out in the distance. Amidst the laughter of camera-happy tourists arose the all-too-frequent “Whrrgreeoww!!” from the trinket sellers below. There was truly no escape.
Our final destination in Teotihuacán came at the end of the great Calzada: the Plaza of the Moon, at the feet of the Pyramid of the Moon. Likely to have been the cultural and religious center of the city, the plaza is bordered by the pyramid, a palace, market spaces and what may have been homes for the elite. A crowd of thousands could fit there just as easily as I can imagine them all gazing up the steps of the pyramid towards the ceremonies (and sacrifices) that are thought to have occurred there. We wandered the steps of the pyramid, meandered throughout the stone folds of the structures bordering the plaza and thought wistfully of buying all the jaguar whistles. And then smashing them.
With that, the day was almost over and it was time for us to make our way back to Mexico City. But not before one final cultural encounter.
One of the fundamental tenets of salesmanship in Mexico is that the trick to convincing anyone of buying anything is to annoy them as much as possible, from as close as possible. This is, of course, not true, but no salesman worth his salt (or plastic flag, or statue made of shells, …) dares to adopt a different strategy.
We had worked up a small appetite while exploring the ruins and decided to look for something to tide us over before dinner. We spied a street across the road from the entrance to the archaeological area lined with restaurants. Thanks to our innate good luck and constant awareness, we picked the moment when literally none of the hawkers charged with ushering people to their restaurants had anybody else to work on, so we bore the full brunt of a pent up urge to make a sale.
My friend, this way to the best restaurant!
What do you want to eat? We have it!
Two free shots of tequila at my restaurant!
I love the sort of tequila that can be given away for free as much as the next person, but I was getting far too distracted by being close enough to each of the hawkers to make out their complete dental history.
Do you have human flesh? I asked, in a feeble attempt to return the man’s annoyance. I want to eat human flesh.
Three free shots of tequila!!
Jordan had the look in her eyes that I’ve learned to interpret as “act now or I walk and we don’t eat” and literally my least favorite thing in the world is not eating.
This one looks as good as any, I said, gesturing towards the closest restaurant at hand. We ducked in for a quick and unmemorable bite before making it to the bus stop not quite before the rain started.
Being a weekday, it was also technically a work day. The term “workday” has some flexibility when you work while traveling, but when the boss calls, you’re still expected to pick up the phone. As we boarded the bus for our return to Mexico City, Jordan’s phone rang. The conversation went something a lot like this:
Are you by your computer?
No.
Where are you?
The Birthplace of the Gods.
…Ok, I just need you to listen to this. …
At least it was Friday.