Adventures & Misadventures Abroad: Grachimontones Ruins

Our first day out of the city of Guadalajara and into the country. We headed west from the city towards the town of Teuchitlan and sugar cane country.

A view of Guadalajara high rises from the car.

Heading into town.

This variety of agave has very wide leaves and is used to make Mezcal. The agave that is used for tequila has much thinner leaves. There is a photo of those at the end.

Need to buy some prehispanicas? Here's were to go.

And now to the ruins.

A view from the museum down to the town. The smoke is from a sugar cane factory.

Inside the museum. The two take-aways I got from this tour was that the peoples before the Aztecs liked to dance and that games were a means to solve quarrels to the death. The dancer below is attached to the pole via his navel. Ow!

This is the first I have heard of circular pyramids. There are three excavated here. They think there are more.

The middle group shows the dancer attached to the pole along with a small group of men dancing in a circle below him. This is done on top of the circular pyramid. In the basin below the circular pyramid groups of all men or all women dance in small groups all around the perimeter.

You can see the space allowed from the bottom of the lower circle to the steps to the houses. OUr guide kept saying these were the basements of the houses, but I think he really meant the foundations of the houses. Those closest to the pyramids would house the elite rulers. Everyone else would live further out.

Another of the circular pyramids - somewhat smaller.

A view down to the town of Teuchitlan. It was very hazy.

The largest one was about 10 levels high.

Carlos insisted that we could not miss the views from the top of the hill behind the excavated area. They think this hill is actually the largest circular pyramid. The view was pretty good.

You can see the town off in the distance. I don't really have a good picture of the ball playing area. It is a long rectangle with the ends slightly opened on each end where you can score a goal. If there was a disagreement between two different peoples it would be decided by a game of ball. Each group would send a team to play a game that might last all day. You could not touch the ball with your hands, only your hips. You would think that the purpose would be to win the game and those win the argument. But you would not be quite right. If your team won the game, the group would win the argument, but the team would forfeit their lives. Their group would gain from the game, but the team would lose their lives. The losing team would be sent off from their group in disgrace. And their group would lose whatever was in dispute. I would imagine that this would have been used only for very serious disputes.

Back in the town, we stopped to see the church - that is a different church off in the distance.

The plaque on the church said, "Como Un Homenaje a Neustros Martires Mexicanos.

This is the first church I have ever seen this in. When some one has prayed for a miracle and it happens. They pay for a picture to be painted an displayed in the church. If you look back at the photo of the inside of the church you can see those paintings along the outside walls.

We then drove to the plaza and got out to take a few photos.

On a side street I saw this dilapidated house and tried to capture the colors of the walls. It was still too much in the middle of the day - not good light. I walked around this big pickup truck to get a better angle and then had to pass it again. A gentleman spoke to me in Spanish. I stumbled - No Espanoul. He answered back in English with no accent. But said he had only little English. I am floored by this, how can you have no accent, and also no words? He did conveyed that a old women had lived there. He did not know what had happened, But it was sad to see it so run down.

Just outside of town, we stopped at a restaurant for lunch. I am amazed at how many seafood restaurants there are around Guadalajara and the area as we are no where near the ocean and they only seem to serve ocean seafood.

Here is our view. An egret looking at the same view.

Lots of water lilies on this lake - actually this lake is caused by a dam. Below a zen picture of water lilies.

Our meal. I don't remember what my meal was called. It was sort of a chicken stew in tomato sauce with cheese, cactus leaf and scallion. Most of which I should not eat! Mike and Carlos got "cocktails". Sort of like shrimp cocktail in the US, except there is a lot of fish sauce liquid in it.

As I mentioned, this is sugar cane farm area. The road here are not in good condition. On top of that add all the sugar can that has fallen off the trucks onto the road for added bumpiness.

We had tried to take photos of this famous fountain in the middle of a big traffic circle on our way out of Guadalajara, but the sun was in the wrong direction. The second photo shows the big traffic circle, Note - no lane lines. All the vehicles seem to just merge and find their way to their exit. There are traffic lights at several points which I have not seen before. It all seems to work.