Vale la pena

Close to Cuernavaca there is a town called Tepoztlan. It’s a small town with lots of character and surrounded my mountains. One of the mountains close to the center of town has an Aztec temple that was built at the top to worship the god Tepoztecatl, a god of the alcoholic drink pulque. So of course we took a trip to Tepoztlan and climbed to the top to see the temple. The climb was incredibly steep and difficult, as we are at a high altitude anyway. It took about 45 minutes and 2 bottles of water to make it to the top.

But “vale la pena” as we say in Mexico, it was worth it. The view was amazing, with the other rocky mountains close by covered in trees and flowers. And although the temple was small it was very spiritual and peaceful. Apparently a “scientist” came a few years ago and studied the temple….he claimed that there are 3 doors in the world that lead to other dimensions….and one of them is at the temple of tepotslan. I didn’t find it.

We sat on top of the pyramid for a while and around the edges on the steps….I ate an orange (best one I’ve ever had). It’s hard to imagine how they build that temple…and why. The Aztecs didn’t live at the top of the mountain, so they would have had to make the climb to the top every time they wanted to go. And speaking of the climb, how did they get all the stones to the top? If you’d seen the mountain you’d understand how this is so baffling….

After the long climb to the temple we were all pretty hungry, so we took a trip to the market in the center of Tepoztlan. In the market we found a stand selling cricket tacos. We all tried the tacos and tried not to be too grossed out by the tiny legs sticking out of eachothers mouths. Im not really sure what crickets taste like, but they were definately salty...