weekend hunt for pyramids

THOUGHT:  'WHEN YOU DEMONSTRATE YOUR WILLINGNESS TO OBEY -
                        THE SPIRIT WILL SEND YOU MORE IMPRESSIONS OF WHAT
                         GOD WOULD HAVE YOU DO"     PRES. EYRING

Sat 28 Nov

We have friends in Germany who get to visit beautiful castles on their weekends.  We are blessed to live in a country where there are an estimated 40,000 pyramids, 10,000 identified and only about 400 excavated.  We left early Saturday morning to drive a couple of hours into the state of Mexico south of Toluca to a small city called Tenango del Valle to see some ruins called Teotenango.  They were built about 900 AD by some of the inhabitants of Teotehuacan and were prominent when the Spanish arrived in 1519.  The drive was beautiful through pine forests and crop land.  When we got to the pyramids there was about a 1/2 to 3/4 mile hike up a cobblestone path to reach them.  At 7500 feet that was a little exhausting.  The pyramids were smaller than Teotehuacan but beautifully done with an intact ball court, one feathered servant and a jaguar.  We came home a different way through the Marquesa - beautiful wooded area with small lakes.  We must have been in carrot country because we saw lots of big trucks loaded with carrots for market.  There were lakes with paddle boats, ATV rental places and horses to rent.  We had lunch in Santa Fe (the new rich area in Mexico City with the largest mall I have ever seen and lots of skyscrapers that are cooperate headquarters for lots of multinational companies.  We went to the mall and found a TGIF and had a late lunch-early dinner.  We made it back to catch the last quarter of the BYU/USU game.  

Here are pics from our outing to the Teotenango pyramids!

This is a steep hill we got to hike up to the ruins
This pic doesn't quite show you how steep it is!

I turned around and took a pic looking down from where we had come!

We finally made it to the top!

Some big rock hole.
We thought it maybe was a baptismal font
but it is too deep for that!
There are a few holes around here like this!
Who knows!  Maybe hot tubs!

Steep stairs up to the main pyramid

Pics of the whole city

Another hole with this shape carved out of the rock!

Waiting on the steps for Greg to finish a medical call!!

These steps we are going down are so steep!
Even my shadow is skinny!

Tired!

Over on the side of all of these pyramids is this trail
coming up the other side of the mountain to a shrine
up on top!

Here is the shrine!  Bigger than most!

The inside of the shrine!
I don't know what goes on in here!

I do like the door!

Just a big cross next to the shrine

People living all over this country!!!

The town below!

We told the Hackings to wait there while
we hiked down the trail a ways to take this pic

We were way down this steep hill!
Good zoom lens got us!

Arrows they fought with
These are at least 8 inches long

This is a hole in this rock that is used for a ballgame
they played here.  Below is the rock ball that they would pass
and shoot from their hip to get through the hole in this rock.

This doesn't look like a very soft ball!

Monkey people with big lips!
Who knows!

A tea set for a tea party!

Greg's twin!

Pics around town next to the pyramids

Now this guy has a lot of merchandise on his cart
out in the street!

This lady is begging with her fancy cowboy hat in her left hand!

They eat this stuff that looks like bird seed.  They have
shaped it into crazy shapes.

I like this girl putting on makeup while sitting at
her stand.  She is selling fruit.

The old church in the town

Different colored sausages!  Yum!

We were driving out of town and we came upon
this bull out in the road.  This kid is having a hard time
handling him.  He has somewhere to go!
It's hard to see the look on the bulls face, but I don't
want to be close to him!

Lots of shepherds with sheep along the road.
Greg takes great pics with the mirror doesn't he????

Sun Nov 29.  

This was a usual Sunday.  In church Elder Salinas (local area 70) spoke about praying for closeness to the Lord and received trials to bring him closer - he got Chikungunya on a trip to southern Mexico and was deathly ill for a week - careful what you pray for.  He did report that he felt closer to the Lord for bringing him through this trial.  Chikungunya is a mosquito-born viral illness like Dengue that makes all of your muscles ache, fever and fatigue for a week or so - lots of our missionaries suffer from this and I was finally able to find some Permethrin which is used to spray on clothing to repel mosquitos.  I have sent it to the 14 missions that have reported this disease as well as Dengue Fever (aptly called breakbone fever.)  We had a quiet dinner and a quiet evening.