In the province of Oaxaca, Monte Alban is a pre-Columbian city ruin dating to 500 BC. 30,000 people lived here, high on a mountain top
I’ve got a ton of great photos, and the story of Monte Alban is a good one, but blogs are boring so I’ll go (almost) straight to the punch line.
The city is extensive. Buildings rise off the high plain like tombs. Words are tough to come up with for this. It’s impressive.
There’s one depression in the landscape. You see it coming
Then you’re on top of it. It’s not large. Small compared to everything else
This is a game court. The game they played was apparently like handball. And here’s the thing: The game is played only once every 52 years. On this day, everything in the city is ‘renewed’. The fires are all put out, food is destroyed, everything starts from scratch, once in a lifetime.
The arena only sits a few hundred people, so only the elite get to watch the final match.The tension after a 52 year wait must be toxic. You can imagine the fury the finalists must play with. And then, in an act of renewal that’s close to perfection, they kill the winner.