Tehuacalco, Mexico: Where Yope Giants Once Walked

Today I went to Tehuacalco. If you ever go to Acapulco, Guerrero, make sure to go to Tierra Colorada, a picturesque town nearby. There are tours there. Tehuacalco is an old town, thousands of years old, from 1000, to 1519. Governor Zeferino Torreblanca Galindo inaugurated the archaeological site in 2008. There is a Juego de Pelota there, popular all over Mesoamerica before 1492. In fact that is how they found the place recently. During construction of a nearby highway to Acapulco they spotted the Juego de Pelota buildings. The land was bought from the owners and the Government started to work to make this paradisaical resort place. This time of year is beautiful. There are rivers where people were swimming! There are not many of those these days in Mexico, I'm sorry to say.

There is a little museum with maps of the region, and most importantly artifacts found at the site. You can see the actual stones that the Yope Indians carved in artistic ways. The orientation of the Juego de Pelota is crucial. Solstices are at the extremes of the structure, when looked at in specific places. Four big mountains surround the place in the four directions, North, South, West and East. The worry of these farmers was to lose the Sun every solstice, so they made sure to keep the needed Sun around, with ceremonies during solstices. 

Human sacrifices with the players, and war prisoners were an important part of these games. There are over two thousand of these sites in the State of Guerrero, which have not been developed yet. The reason there are so many archaeological sites, is that corn (maize) was domesticated in the State of Guerrero, along the Balsas River. These people are self sustained, they grow corn, squash, beans, chili peppers, and so many other foods, that it is hard to keep count. If all modern civilized life were to end today. These people could still feed themselves another 9000 years as they have done so far. This is a sacred place on Earth. I am glad that more and more Mexicans and foreigners understand this and come to worship the Sun still.

Long live the people of Tehuacalco!

We had a beautiful 15 year old girl from a town nearby as a guide. What a treat!