Day Six


Today we are going to visit a church with beautiful murals and visit another pyramid before heading back to Mexico.

We are coming to the last full day of our trip and we still have exciting things to see and do. We started our day by visiting a church that was started by the mendicants of the Augustinian order. These friars came to Mexico in the 1500's to convert the people to catholicism. One way they did this was to build elaborate and ornate churches. They employed some of the native people to paint beautiful murals on the walls. When there was a change in relations between the church and the Spanish government the murals were white-washed over 20 times! One day an electrician uncovered the murals when he was replacing an outlet. They are being restored and are known as the Paradise Garden murals. The church is in the center of the town.

In the second photo you can see some of the detail in the murals.

After breakfast we hiked up to the Aztec ceremonial temple. This area was originally settled and controlled by the Matlaztincas. They were conquered by the Aztecs who built the temples we visited at the top of a mountain. Young Aztec warriors were initiated here into the Order of the Jaguar and Eagle. The ceremony involved giving blood. There is also a temple where warriors who died in battle were brought. When the Spanish came to exert their power over the area they destroyed some of the temples which have been rebuilt. They actually rolled some of the stones and large boulders down the side of the mountain.

The second photo shows what it looked like inside the main temple.


Here I'm standing in front of a section that has been rebuilt.

After lunch we headed back to Mexico City. After we arrived at our hotel we crossed the Zocalo to see the Diego Revera murals and we visited the large church on the Zocalo.


We headed to the Zona Rosa which is a large indoor shopping area. There was lots of jewelry, pottery, weaving, etc. For our farewell dinner we went to La Gondola Restaurant. We then took a subway ride back to the hotel. It was exciting!

The plaza looks quite different at night. Here's a picture of the National Cathedral.

We went back to our hotel and said our goodbyes. Here's a picture of the group that I was traveling with. We really had a fantastic trip and we really had a good time together!

Posted: Fri - March 11, 2005 at 01:08 AM          

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