After a good night's rest, I took a van up to Monte Albán. Monte Albán is one of the most visited sites near the city as it's on top of a mountain overlooking the entire Oaxaca valley. It's one of the more important sites in Oaxaca as well since it was an important socio-political and economic center of Mesoamerica for almost a thousand years. I won't lie. It was impressive. And big. I got up to the ruins early and I think I spent about three to four hours there and I still felt like I was missing things.
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| View of Oaxaca Valley |
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| Monte Albán |
They had a nice museum and the site was just enormous. Definitely getting to the top of the stairs on the north and south platforms was hard work but the view made it worth it. It had good markings and I enjoyed reading up on the history. It was so close to Oaxaca that really there is no reason not to go if you're in Oaxaca. However, I'm glad I chose to do this one on my own and in the morning. Later on in the day all the tours come and the sun really starts to beat down on you. I was basically leaving when the tour companies got there. So, all in all... a good visit to the ruins.
I got back to Oaxaca and went to a ton of museums. Probably too many actually, but I enjoyed a lot of them though my back did start to ache towards the end of it. I also went to the main cathedral. I've been in a lot of cathedrals, but this one blew me away. It was completely covered in gold and it was intensely detailed artwork. The pictures don't even do it justice. Just know that if you ever make it to Oaxaca, you must absolutely go to the main cathedral.
Afterwards I headed to the bus station and got my ticket back to Mexico City. This was my view for the first few hours of the bus ride. It was hard to look away. I got back fairly late to Mexico City... around 10pm, but it was pretty easy to get a taxi from the terminal and head to my hotel. I have to say, I was pretty happy to see a bed that night.
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