Several ruins are less than an hour from Oaxaca City, so we decided to visit a few of them. After a visit to a large market in a neighboring village, we stopped by the Yagul ruins. Yagul was built over 2000 years ago, and was part of the Zapotec civilization of Mesoamerica. It's been fun to see and learn about other ancient people besides the well-known Aztecs and Mayans - we didn't realize there were so many other groups!
Yagul is built up the mountain side a little ways, and a path next to it continued up the mountain, offering beautiful views from the tops. It was a hot and humid day, and the kids complained a little about seeing another ruin, but they enjoyed playing a little hide-and-seek in the maze-like structures.
Monte Alban is listed as a must-see site when visiting Oaxaca, and it lived up to it's reputation! One of my favorite ruins so far! Situated on the top of a mountain, Monte Alban was built around 500 BC and was the Zapotec social and economic center for almost 1000 years! The ancient Zapotec name for the city is unknown, but the name "Monte Alban" supposedly comes from a Spanish soldier who thought the city looked similar to the Alban Hills of Italy. The views from the top were definitely spectacular!
We were able to climb up most of these pyramids, which is always fun to do!
We like to get to these sites right when they open, so we have the place to ourselves for a little while before the tour buses come. An added bonus is that we don't usually have huge crowds in our pictures. :)
Here we are on the South Platform (one of the tallest pyramids here), overlooking the Main Plaza.
Alec is a trooper, and climbs up almost all of the pyramids we visit. To help motivate him, we like to count how many steps we climb, and then have a snack at the top. Finding a good stick also makes him happy.
The observatory, an important building in many ancient civilizations, is located on the right side of the picture below.
"Mom, Alec looks like Indiana Jones!"
The ruins has a nice museum near the entrance where we saw some of the artifacts that were found during excavation.
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