Standing watch above the Oaxaca Valley is the ancient city of Monte Alban. Although the Zapotecs made it their principal city, the city itself predates them by millennia. Eventually, its population scattered and the city lay largely abandoned for two millennia until the first intensive archaeological excavation in 1902. One hundred and fourteen years later, Jordan and I make the fifteen minute drive from the outskirts of Oaxaca City to Monte Alban’s leveled and bepyramided top.
True to form, we get a late start and find the parking lot already full by the time we arrive. A traffic cop directs us to park along the side of the road, from where we hike up to the first set of structures downhill from the pyramids.
In front of the crumbling foundations of a large rectangular structure, we see a group of people dressed in traditional native garb in the beginning movements of a ceremony. Feet beat to the rhythm of a drum while feathers on heads ruffled in the wind like leaves. We approach a woman who appears to belong to the group, but stands slightly apart. I ask her what the occasion is and if it would be alright to take pictures. She explains that they are a group of zapotecs who live in the area and that they regularly gather here for religious and cultural ceremonies. She asks that we not take pictures, which we respect and after watching for a few minutes, we leave to wander around the structures, making our way up the mountainside to the main pyramids.
Although smaller than the pyramids of Teotihuacán, those of Monte Alban more than compensate with their commanding view of the Oaxaca Valley. Nor does being smaller make Monte Alban small. The size of the city is difficult to gage until one looks out over it from the top of a pyramid. From this vantage point, the city telescopes across the mountaintop until the mountain disappears and the valley and all its cities, towns and villages disperse towards the surrounding ridges, all in the ancient city’s wide ambit.
It is easy to imagine the open plazas below us having been once full of people, plazas now open to the sky once covered by the tents of market stalls and workshops. These plazas are now pasturelands for tourists like us. Informational plaques outside several of the buildings describe the windowless rooms and passages found within and I am gripped by a childish urge to sneak past the barred doors and explore the forbidden side of the pyramids.
Rectangular breaks in the stones forming stadium seats reveal spyholes for the ancient city’s elite. A roughly arrowhead-shaped building that once served as an astronomical observatory breaks the city’s otherwise rectilinear symmetry. Narrow alleys, now overgrown with weeds, appear suddenly, having been lost in the folded blocks of stone until we come directly abreast of them. One is closed to the public with a grated iron door through which a passage into the stone can be seen. In the middle of a field, we walk past a subterranean tunnel entrance. This city is a maze, an abandoned nest, only the skin of which we are permitted to touch.
Several hours later, having wandered every corner of the mountaintop open to us, we make our way back to the car and back into Oaxaca.
One final surprise awaits us on the way home. Hungry, we stop to order tlayudas, a typical Oaxacan food that has been described to us vaguely as Oaxaca’s taco and sort of like a pizza. Now in our sixth month in Mexico, we have grown accustomed to tacos being small affairs, barely a mouthful, that one orders until satiated. With this in mind, we each order a tlayuda. The biceps of the petite woman who delivered our order flexed under the weight of the tlayuda-laden plates like an overburdened Oktoberfest beermaid. We were so surprised at our unexpected afternoon snack of a half pound of meat and equal portion of cheese, wrapped in a thick, fried tortilla still dripping with its cooking oil, that we forget to take pictures of it. Halfway into the ordeal, I’m breathing heavily, almost hyperventilating before each bite like a freediver getting ready to slip beneath the waves. I’m so stuffed by the time I choke the last of mine down that pressure tears are nearly bursting out from under my eyes. Across the table, Jordan is smiling at me.
You didn’t have to finish it, she says.
I was too far in by the time I decided that I didn’t want the whole thing.
Well, you’ll have to finish my second half.
…box it. I’ll cook that for lunch tomorrow.
To the establishment’s credit, their tlayudas were delicious. I might, however, suggest that they come with a disclaimer concerning their weight.
