Zempoala

  Zempoala, Mexico
Wednesday, November 7, 2007

November 6, 2007 and we left the hotel campsite en-route for the little village of Villa Ricca. This place is so small it is not even shown on our map. We managed to get their quite easily, it is only 3 kms down a dirt road. On arrival we parked on the outskirts and Mike walked to the front to make sure we could get through. On his return we drove onto the sand at the seas edge. It is a volcanic region so the sand is black in colour but it is nice and soft. This town was the first ever settlement by the Spanish in Mexico and the remains of the fort are supposed to be here. Look as we might we could not find them and so after lunch we carried on

the Totanic ruins of Quiahuiztlan

to the Totanic ruins of Quiahuiztlan. Again these ruins are about 3 kms of the road but this time at the top of a hill overlooking the coast and with a sharks fin outcrop of rock behind it. The scenery was quite spectacular. The ruins themselves consisted of a couple of pyramids, but more importantly it has some 70 tombs, each resembling a 3 foot high temple.

These are tombs on the site

There were also supposed to be some carved monuments there, but we only saw one, it appears the others have been moved to the museum at Zempoala. As this was our next stop we made our way there. At the time of Cortes this was a huge town with some 30,000 people settled behind defensive walls and with underground water and drainage pipes. The town befriended Cortes and he lived at the site of the ruins for a while. Unfortunately he bought disease and by the 17th century there were only 8 families left and the town was abandoned. The new town was built around the ruins in 1832. The site itself is a bright splash of green with palm trees and the mountains behind. The buildings are mainly smooth, rounded riverbed stones originally plastered over. The main feature here is the battlement-like teeth. The main temple is 11 metre high with 13 platforms and the wide staircase leading to the three room shrine on top.

Las Chimenas

Next to it is a pyramid called "Las Chimenas", it is this area where Cortes and his men lived. There are two other main structures to the west; one is the Temple of the Sun with its two staircases and three platforms. The other is the temple of the moon with a rectangular

Inside the museum

structure in front and a rounded structure at the rear.

and again

The museum here has some very interesting clay figures, polychrome plates and bowls as well as some photographs of the structures. One photo they showed was off the remains of Cortes fort in Villa Ricca, we had been told that it was now overrun by undergrowth and could not be seen. We are now parked up at a garage for the night.