Cantona, Mexico

Cantona, Mexico was my favorite part of the trip. It was wonderful! It was amazing! It was spectacular! It was surprising! It was beautiful and mesmerizing! It was refreshing change of scenery. It was  interesting, hot, dry.....I am so grateful I got a chance to visit this unique and unspoiled place. They are still uncovering this ancient city. It is very remote and so there aren't any tourists or vendors to get in your way. When we first arrived I thought I would see a pyramid and then go home for lunch, but as we walked through the ruins their secrets unfolded into a magnificent ancient city. They had cobbled stone streets with neighborhoods. They made obsidian artifacts and had 27 ball courts that served as a regional games destination. They have numerous temples and alters. 

The one restaurant at the ruins. It was good. I had chicken mole. 

Shannon's father-in-law Rohelio. He was such a nice man and really showed us a good time. 

This picture and the one below are of a ball court. They served three known purposes. One was to settle family disputes, another was just for the pleasure of playing, and the other was to bring honor to your community. The winner was killed. 

An alter. Human remains were found at the base of this alter. You can see the bones in the museum. Shannon and I sang "High on the Mountain Top" on the top of this pyramid. 

Workers excavating. 

These cactus's look like feet. They call them tuna and they eat them 

Can't you just picture some dinosaur's roaming around down there?

As Shannon and I were walking around we found this man on his way to his little work area. We stopped to ask him questions. One question we asked was why there were so many pyramids. He told us that archaeologists think that some of them had wooden houses on the top where important people like priests would have lived. Other pyramids would have had wooden structures at the top of them for ceremonially purposes. Shannon also asked if he was a member of the church. He was! We all hugged and then he showed us part of the ruin that was closed to tourists. He said that none of the stairs in Cantona are original. Around 500 AD there was an internal uprising and all the stairs were torn down from the pyramids and eventually rebuilt with different rock. He showed us a temple with the broken down stairs. He was so nice and he spent a lot of time answering questions. Shannon's in-laws (who didn't go trek through the miles of ruins like we did) put out a radio call for us. They were worried something had happened to us. Shannon heard the call through his radio and he laughed about the two 'lost' gringas' He walked us back to 'safety.' 

Okay, so I know this is gross, but if I didn't share this my telling of Mexico would not be complete. In public restrooms there is ONE roll of toilet paper. You grab as much as you need and then head for your stall. When you are finished your business you deposit your toilet paper in the waste basket next to the toilet. I hated doing that. It made Mexico smell like a sewer. Everywhere we went we had to do that. Even the Mexico City airport. This bathroom was the nicest bathroom I saw my entire time in Mexico. It's in that little pink restaurant in Cantona and that is not my mess in the toilet. It was there when I went to wash my hands before eating my dinner and I  just had to snap a photo of the 'bathroom situation' before someone came in. And that's all I'm going to say about it. 

Rohelio and his wife Maria Magdalena Concepcion Ramierez Gonzalez otherwise known as Conchita. I heard her speak her name a thousand times because she lost her wallet on this trip and she had to call the bank to cancel all her 'credito' and 'debito' cards. I learned that Mexican women do not take their husband's last name. You keep your maiden name. They bought these little cups for my girls and Rohelio was writing their names on them. Everywhere I went people asked about my family. They loved the name Thula because there is a place in Mexico by the same name. No one had ever heard the name Lela before though and they found it so strange. They also could not say my name, it always came out as "Ellen." I don't like that name, so I ended up telling everyone my name was Elena and that they could say just fine!