Mexico - The Pyramids Of Teotihuacan

Hello there!

After a short break and consolidating my first edition of my Travel Diaries, which included my travel posts to 14 different countries, here's kickstarting my second edition of Travel Diaries! For those who are keen to read my the first edition, you can find them here.

I am actually quite excited to start this new country and new series of posts, because it's something that I wanted to do for quite some time, but I needed some time to tidy up my photos and organise my storytelling and places. And this new country is Mexico!

Back in 2009, I had the opportunity to go for a summer exchange programme to spend 7 weeks studying in an university in Queretaro, a small city in Mexico and that was one of my more memorable parts of my life! Going halfway across the globe from Asia, I didn't know much about Mexico so I went there with my eyes wide open, and ready to embrace the different cultures and experiences.

A few months before the actual trip, if you are old enough to recall, there was the H1N1 virus which was quite prevalent in the world, including Mexico, and the trip was almost cancelled. Eventually, the programme was postponed, and the situation got better and travel restrictions were lifted. Even so, many participants of the programme decided not to go ahead for personal reasons. Because this trip was such a rare opportunity, I made the decision to go ahead.

So let the adventures begin!

Here's the series of Mexico posts so far:
Mexico - Flying Halfway Across The Globe
Mexico - A Journey Beneath The Vineyard
Mexico - Where Peña de Bernal Comes Alive
Mexico - A Leap Of Faith At Las Pozas
Mexico - A Garden Of Wild Wonders

During my summer exchange, one of the trips organised by the university was to visit one of the great tourist attractions of Mexico, which is Teotihuacan.

Teotihuacan is an UNESCO World Heritage Site and features ancient ruins, the name Teotihuacan itself means "the place where the gods were created".

We first arrived with the visitors centre and this was our guide, explaining the area of this entire compound, which by the way was very huge. And because there was no shelter, we were actually under the scorching summer sun for the entire visit, which can be quite intense.

For starters, we first visited some ruins for temples and palaces and I thought it was interesting to see all these ancient ruins because it's something that one will never be able to see in modern cities and society. These stuff were probably done up hundreds of years ago.

And we finally emerged from our temporary sheltered palace and temple ruins, into a massive courtyard. And there were many of these small platforms that were called The Citadel.

As we walked out (now you would realise what I mean by there is literally no shelter to hide from the sun), the first of two major pyramids came into the view. This was the smaller one, called Pyramid of the Moon. It was really a WOW moment when I looked at this. When it comes to pyramids, I think most people would think of the ones in Egypt, which I personally have not seen in real life, but this one at Teotihuacan was just amazing. How did the people build this back in those days?

Since we were there, we had to climb the stairs up!

And finally we reached the top! Or rather close to the top. There was a barricade at some point to prevent visitors from going up further, probably due to safety issue given that this structure has been around for so long.

Time to enjoy the scenery! Below us was the stretch of road which they called Avenue of the Dead. What a name.

And you probably there is another pyramid as well! And that's why I zoomed in! That's actually the Pyramid of the Sun, and is actually even bigger and taller in size!

Once we got our rest, took our photos, we made our way down to the Avenue of the Dead, and made our way towards the Pyramid of the Sun! And that's another adventure for the next post!

So that's it for the Part 1 of the Teotihuacan adventure! Really an amazing visit to this historic site and it definitely is one of the wonders of the world in my view. I mean, where else in the world can you find such grand sites with pyramids and ruins. Also, not sure if you would have realised, the backdrop of this attraction also looked amazing with all the mountains into the distance.

And that's all I have today! Have you been to Teotihuacan or Mexico? Let me know in the comments below!

Finally, thanks for reading my post in the community under World Map Pin!