epicwaves

Monte Alban means White Mountain, Why? because the mountain is covered with a small tree (shrub?) that when in bloom with it’s white flower turns the entire mountain side white in its glory.

The ruins of Monte Alban are not very far from the centre of Oaxaca city, maybe only 10 kilometers drive. However they are completely hidden from view due to the fact that they are situated on the top of a mountain 1948 metres above sea level out of site from lower ground, this is probably the reason why they were not discovered by Mexican archeologist Alfons Caso untill 1932.

… not discovered by Mexican archeologist Alfons Caso untill 1932 …

A very recent archeological find which has been compared to Howard Carterâs discovery of Tutankamun’s tomb in Egypt. Monte Alban the ancient capital of the Zapotecs, was believed to have been built by the Zapotecs as early as 500 B.C., and was one of the first cities in Mesoamerica. At its peak of civilization Monte Alban had approximately 40,000 people living on the site.

We arrived around 9:30am and purchased our tickets at the entry gate. We were greeted by an old man named Victor who spoke good english offering to be our guide for the morning. It sounded like the best idea and besides I wasn’t in the mood to spend the time deciphering the signage in spanish back into english. Old Victor certainly looked like the genuine article himself “an ancient Zapotec” relic. He explained alot of detail by drawing in the dirt with his walking stick.

Apparantly the Zapotec people (the main inhabitants of Monte Alban) were not a war like nation and lived peacefully not offering up human sacrifice’s at any of the temples at Monte Alban. There is however conflicting theories (as always), Monte Alban was believed to be inhabited by the Mixtec, Olmec, and Aztec cultures as well as the Zapotecs. The Aztec culture of course is well known for its depraved acts of violent human sacrifice and it’s war like warriors.

You can’t begin to describe the feeling of enormity that you get when you first trudge over the crest of the mountain and stare headlong down into inner workings of the white mountain. The ancient Zapotecs carved the mountain top flat with no instruments of metal doing so only with tools of wood and stone, also of course a huge labour force of raw human power. To make matters more difficult the Zapotecs considered the geometric circle shape to be sacred and representative of the sun. So henceforth it wasn’t used as a wheel in transportation. Did they even know about the wheel? Yes they did because little toys have been found with wheels on them.

The Zapotecs were very smart with numbers having a calender more accurate than any of its day. It had thirteen months and each month had twenty days in it. The written number systen was also quite ingenious using dots and lines to represent numerical combinations and values. In fact you can read about it on the second last page of one of the latest Awakes.

El Tule - The largest Living Biomass

Our next stop was El Tule to see the singular biggest living biomass of the planet. A tree estimated to be between 2000-3000 years old with a circumference of 58 metres and a height of 48 metres. It truly is one of the wonders of the natural world.

While in Tule we stopped at a Mezcal shop to sample the selection of flavors. All tasted great, flavors included were Coco, Coffee and Piña (Pineapple).

The circuit overseer gave his final public talk this afternoon at 6pm. The talk was entitled “Act Wisley in a Senseless World”. The information was fantastic with an enthusiastic delivery . He continued after the Watchtower study with the talk entitled “Jehovah Empowers the Tired Ones” a talk well recieved and especially needed for the times we live in.

… if you could survive on laughter and good association alone …

Afterward we went out to get some takeaway at the infamous “Gregorios”, a little road side taco stand run by brothers and sisters. We had to wait a while to get food because there already was a mass of brothers including the CO and his wife in the line up ahead of us. We went back to forrests house for dinner and ate our taco takeaways. If you could survive on laughter and good association alone I’d say I would have had a life times supply, because tonight was one of those nights.