This day we visited Cacaxtla, which was some Aztec ruins that still had murals and wall paintings still intact. the structure wasn't anything extraordinary, but the paintings were absolutely stunning. they were faded, chipped and unclear in some areas; but I knew what they were of thanks to my Mesoamerican art class :). The creativity and color of the images were beautiful! I couldn't believe i was seeing the images I had studied in my textbooks. One thing I thought was neat was at these ruins we saw the pens where they kept exotic parrots from South America. the Aztecs highly prized feathers, so they kept and traded birds for this reason. After this, we went over to Cacaxtla's neighbor, Xochialco. It was VERY windy there! It was simpler than Cacaxtla, but it had an interesting circular Aztec pyramid. On top of this pyramid was a large white cross. I was not sure whether this was an attempt for the Catholics to assimilate with the Aztecs, or a sign of dominance over the Aztec culture and beliefs. Ron had us meditate on this thought and write about it in our journals. It was truly a beautiful place to sit and admire the surroundings. We had a veiw of a valley with a grand mountain with snow and folding hills in the back.
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