Monte Alban

We weren't originally planning on visiting this site, but when we saw it was founded before Teotihuacan and outlasted it by a century we figured it had to be something pretty special.

We found a beautiful area to camp half an hour to the north of Oaxaca, and cruised down to Monte Alban early (for us!) in the morning. It's on much smaller scale than Teotihuacan, probably as it's built on a mountain top with tremendous 360 views over 3 valleys, but they have a lot crammed in. It's an incredible spot and apparently the earliest form of written language in meso-america and they had a solar calendar too. They had some really impressive engravings showing castrated and decapitated leaders of the tribes they had conquered, and even one of an Asian guy from before the time of Christ.

After a couple of hours we headed back towards camp, but with a diversion to a glorious swimming pool complex to while away the afternoon (oh yea, and apparently exercising my back!). We also visited an arts centre in an old warehouse which had some very modern sculpture & some beautiful water features.Read more