Monte Alban

Monte Alban sits just 6km above the city of Oaxaca. It is the site of the very first city in the whole American continent and, not coincidentially, the place where written language was first developed in the Americas. Unlike Chichen Itza (just a couple of hours drive from Cancun), Monte Alban is peaceful and it is easy to imagine the city in its former glory. The big bonus was that each sign on each building is in English and Spanish. We climbed all over the place for hours and really soaked it in. Tony and I went there on public transport (as opposed to an organised tour) and were delighted to find that most of the tourists who were there were Mexican.

The trip up the hill on the bus took us around the houses of the city, then concrete cube houses on the hillside, then what we would describe as chicken coops, but are actually houses, then up to the top of the hill where we could look back down on the town. The houses all have big water tanks, not for the collection of rainwater, but for the storage of water. There is no running water, so it has to be delivered by truck and stored in tanks. The power lines run along the main road, but at a certain point don´t go up to the houses. This means many of the buildings on the road are businesses. If you have a fridge, open a drink shop; if you have an electric light, open a clothes store; if you have a sattelite, open an internet cafe (true,I swear it). Talk about combined and uneven development!

Things we have seen
1. Women so small that when Tony stood next to them they did not even come up to his shoulders, and so old they looked almost like mummies. Of course they were carrying great baskets of whatever they were selling.
2. Young boys with the blackest, thickest, slickest hair ever.
3. Women with two long plaits tied at the back of their heads, wound around with yellow or red ribbon then tied together to make a semi-cirle loop and the back.
4. Barbequed pigs intestines. (Yes I did try them, just a bit mind you, but Tony liked them and finished the plate.)
5. Families who just sit in the main town square on Sunday afternoon, for no particular reason, except to be out.
6. Groups of siblings walking around the town square ranging in age from about 9 down to 6, each one selling a different toy, the littlest one last selling the littlest wooden toys.