(Post 18 of 189. Thanks again to those who participated in the Fundrazr!)

For Saturday, I had booked a tour with Lani Tours. It’s a good thing I didn’t read any reviews ahead of time because I don’t have a single negative comment to make about my experience. $200 pesos for transport and a guide to four sites (plus lunch) was a bargain and the guide was excellent! This was a tour for Mexicans, not foreigners. We did have some foreigners, but they were with a Mexican host family. The guide did have enough English for them, but I had a much easier time following him in Spanish.

I had to be at the tour office at 9:50, so I decided to have breakfast on the Zócalo as not much was open at 8:30ish on a Saturday morning. I was impressed by what I got for my 126 pesos in a prime location, although I could have done without the touts.

My second favourite Mexican food, mole negro!

I thought that my meal was just going to be the coffee and main, so when I was offered fruit or juice as well as really good bolillos (rolls), the meal stopped feeling expensive. I knew I was going to have a really active morning and that it would be quite some time to lunch, so took my time and got through most of the food.

I had a little time to kill after, so I went off in search of earrings as I’d forgotten to put some on that morning. Such a task is easy in Mexico and I found these hand-painted earrings for 25 pesos. They are of the traditional embroidery pattern, and I believe they are half of a palm seed.

I signed in with the tour, followed the guide to my mini bus, and set off on my day of adventure. I was delighted to learn that the bus was secure, so we could leave our belongings on it. I had packed a big heavy bag with water, another pair of shoes, and plenty of space for souvenirs, but also my new little purse. So I was able to just have that on me while I was out exploring.

The drive to our first stop, the ruins of Monte Albán reminded me of driving through parts of Sonora and Sinaloa — very dry, very run down, and very graffiti-ridden, with little evidence of pride of community, very surprising for a community on a tourist route.

We made it to Monte Albán in about 30 minutes, where we had to pay 80 pesos to enter. This is a large pre-Columbian archaeological site that was the pre-eminent Zapotec socio-political and economic centre for about one thousand years. Learn all about Monte Albán on Wikipedia if you’re curious. 🙂

The site is very near Oaxaca, up in the mountains. The views were spectacular.

I accidentally perfectly coordinated, which is easy when you have a palette. 🙂

I couldn’t believe it — pinecones!

Only a very small part of the site has been excavated.

This is where they played a ball game, similar to what we see in Yucatán. But this was purely ceremonial.

This is Oaxaca City. You can see the tent-like roof of the sports stadium on the west side of the city. From there, it’s quite easy to orientate yourself.

This was a funerary urn. I was a little cross that statues like these and beautiful jaguar heads were passed around as items meant to be purchased by guests without that being said upfront.

Cistern, where they collected water during the rainy season. It would then be distributed to dwellings. Yup, indoor plumbing — it’s not just the Romans who had it!

The guide was really good at laying out the context for the ruins. He explained that they used to be covered with a red “paint” made from mercury (!). I wish I could remember everything he told us, but, alas, the memories are already fading.

We got a whole hour on our own to explore the ruins and visit the little museum. It was plenty of time considering the sun beating down on us (but a breeze made it quite comfortable for my Yucatecan-self!).

These represent figures with deformities. The guide mentioned something caused deformities and that the resultant “mutants” were not marginalised at all.

Time to head up! There were very few places where you could to that.

Going down was “fun.”

Mont Albán was incredible! There are several other such sites in Mexico I need to visit, including Palenque and, of course, Chichen Itza. I still cannot believe my schooling that told me that there was no “civilisation” in North America worth mentioning pre-Columbus.

There were, of course, lots of vendors in the parking lot. I spotted a turquoise necklace that would match “turquoise” earrings I bought in Mérida a while back. I also really liked an amethyst necklace the girl was saying. “They’re 35 pesos each,” she said. “But if you can’t decide, you can have both for 50 pesos.” Clever girl. 🙂 I think these are amazing — the turquoise one especially looks so much more expensive than it was.

Full of the sights and tales of Monte Albán, my rag-tag band of fellow adventurers and I piled back into our mini van and set off on a dusty, windy journey to our next destination.