Yesterday we took an excursion to Xochicalco, ruins about 1.5 hours drive from Cocoyoc.
Xochicalco was a religious and political center roughly around 1000 AD. They were precursors to the Aztecs, though I think the exact relation to the Aztecs is unlcear. At least it is to me.
Keep in mind there were many cultures that rose and fell in Mexico between roughly 700 BC and the arrival of Cortes. Even today there are around 150 surviving languages: Nahuatl is the best known and most famous, with multiple varieties, but there is Mixtec and other languages.
Xochicalco means "place of the house of flowers" (co = "place of", as in Co-coyoc, "place of the coyote or coyoc), although this may be a misunderstanding of some of the sculptures, which were perhaps actually of starfish. Despite the significant distance from the ocena, there was abundant trade and people living here were aware of the sea, although probably few went to it for holidays.
The Xochicaltecs shared with the Aztecs and other mesoamerican cultures a ball game, whereby one tries to hit the ball with one's arms or hips through a big stone hoop. Much harder than it sounds. Several of the arenas and the stone hoops had been excavated.
Also excavated was a solar observatory, basically an underground chamber with a narrow hole pointing up. Only during the fairly short agricultural season (which coincides with the rainy season, which is just begining), does the sun shine down the hole. Although we visited the observatory, we had to leave by bus back to Cocoyoc before the sun shone down the hole.
My favorite part however was a massive stone frieze of Quetzlcoatl, the Mesoamerican god represented by a feathered serpent. The SF writer in me can't help but note: we now know dinosaurs had feathers, probably originally to help kee them warm. What if a few species had survived into ancient Olmec times?
