Two new friends, visitors to Mexico City from New Orleans, are seen above observing the remains of ancient structures belonging to the Cuicuilco ruins, behind fencing and barbwire, on the campus of the Villa Olímpica.
We wandered through the old 1968 Olympic village in the south of Mexico City with a feeling of ... flatness. Cuicuilco is the earliest known human settlement in the Valley of Mexico. The main site, with the rounded, circular pyramid, is across busy Insurgentes Sur, a relatively new boundary, as Cuicuilco was constructed about 2,000 years ago.
These fenced-off pre-Hispanic pyramids that now lie within Villa Olímpica look pretty sad -- unreachable, covered in weeds, and sitting inside a site that is itself sadly retro. 1968, the glossed-over glory days, is a long time ago now.