Monte Albán

Sunday 13th December 1987

We were up early for a hot shower and joined Mary for an excellent breakfast of huevos rancheros in spicy tomato sauce in a café just around the corner. We then went to the Hotel Meson del Angel and were first in the queue when tickets went on sale at 09:00 hrs. for a trip to visit Monte Albán.

The cost for a return visit to the site, which is approximately 9 km (6 miles) east of Oaxaca City, was 1,400 Mexican Pesos, bringing us back at noon. Monte Albán is an ancient Zapotec Indian ruin which thrived from 500 B.C. to 750 A.D. The top of a mountain was artificially flattened to create a plaza 200 metres by 300 metres and this is surrounded by flat-topped square pyramid-shaped buildings with stepped sides.

The view around, of the surrounding mountains was superb. We wandered around and sat on the steps chatting and taking photographs. Besides being one of the earliest cities of Mesoamerica, Monte Albán was important for nearly one thousand years as the pre-eminent Zapotec socio-political and economic centre. Many other groups had guides to explain the nature of the various buildings, including the central observatory, but we remained happy in our ignorance, cheerfully imagining uses for the various utilities.

We returned to Oaxaca City via a steep winding road with more “Curvas Peligrosas!” and we stopped to watch a brass band in the zocalo. An overly romanticised scene was being shot for a film or a commercial and we watched for as long as we could stand. Model women smiling dreamily and being handed flowers by strange men.

We went to a pizza place for lunch as the local, cheaper places were closed for fiesta. The afternoon started with a visit to the rugged church and former monastery of Santo Domingo de Guzmán (Spanish: Templo de Santo Domingo de Guzmán) which is a Baroque ecclesiastical building complex in Oaxaca. The complex includes a substantial sanctuary and an extensive system of courtyards, cloisters and rooms that formerly constituted the monastery. It was expected to double as a fortress when it was built in 1575.

It was a huge, impressive church but was unfortunately closed until 16:30 hrs. so we went back to our hotel to wait for it to open. At 16:20 hrs. we met Mary Trigger at her usual table in the zocalo and joined her drinking coffee surrounded by the pedlar children. They had made us a Christmas card out of a serviette.

We walked to the church which was now open to the public and went into it’s dim interior, much of which was gilded in gold. The ceilings were highly decorated with paintings and religious carvings. Horribly graphic statues of Christ in torment dotted the walls, spattered with blood and gore on his way to the cross.

The whole altar end was a gaudy mass of gold reaching up to the ceiling. Declan sobbed with terror as I walked across in front of the altar without crossing myself, getting flashbacks to his education by the Christian Brothers in Ireland.

We mucked about trying to get decent photographs in the semi-darkness, as flash photography was forbidden, and then returned to the zocalo for some chicken tacos and a few beers. We chatted about music as the local Indians tried to sell shawls, musical instruments and Chiclets from table to table.

At 20:30 hrs. Mary called for an American friend and we returned to the square with this lively New York girl who was an “Outward Bound” instructor over here on a volcano climbing course. The Outward Bound Trust was founded in 1941. Since then they have helped over 1.2 million young people to unlock their full potential through their unique approach to learning and adventure in the wild.

We sat at another corner of the zocalo by some amateur clowns who were performing in the walkway. We had a coffee and then wandered around the city but more or less everything was closed. We went back to bed at 22:30 hrs., seemingly the last few people in town still awake at this time on a Sunday night.