Mexico #9

We got away from the city for a wonderfully long weekend in Malinalco. It was only a day and a half, but the time stretched the way it does when there's no TV and no internet. The town is in a little valley, and it is famous for a Mexica (Aztec) temple carved into the side of one of the surrounding mountains. The 90-minute bus ride there was striking, passing through a type of landscape that I have never seen before in Mexico: incredibly lush and green but not yet tropical--in contrast with the dry northern deserts I'm used to--and full of small farms, with their sheep, dogs, horses, donkeys.



We walked up to the temple and enjoyed not only the ruins but the beautiful views. Signs on the path were trilingual, in Spanish, English and Nahuatl (the indigenous Mexica language), but we didn't hear any of the latter during our stay. Left: A wall of a pyramid some 15 feet tall. Center: The town. Right: The mountains.