Online Store | Business Directory | Real Estate Directory | Service Request | Site Search | Classified Ads | Forums | Events | Blogs | Member Search | News Feeds | Weather | Contact Us
The Zapotecs named this place Lyobaa; the Mixtecs called it Nuu Ndiyo and the Mexicas came closest to its present-day name with Mictlan. In all cases their names meant the same thing: "A place of rest". Now, San Pablo Villa de Mitla, is one of the nation's most important, and visited, archaelogical sites boasting a history that goes back to 800 B.C.
Located 40 km outside of Oaxaca City, Mitla has become world famous for its distinctive pre-Columbian Mesoamerican buildings. This small town is lined with incredible frescos and murals boasting an array of colors such as sepias, blood reds, blues and blacks. In his book "Una Vision del Mexico Prehispanico" (A Vision of Prehispanic Mexico) Román Piña Chan has explained how these colors were a product of polverized floral leaves from the Zonpantle tree.
About four kilometers east of the town's center, near the Xaag or Xaaga hamlet, are the remains of a large hacienda that in its heyday was a lavish building until it fell to ruin around the 19th century, and, according to folklore, buried below lies an ancient Zapotec palace.
Examining the subsoil, one can actually see stone panels with elaborate geometrical designs similar to the ones on the pre-Columbian buildings found in Mitla that seem to prove the palace's existence. Shining light on the panels reveal the distinctive colors that are indicative of the Mixtec-Zapotec period and have been perfectly preserved due to the soil's protection.
Travelling two kilometers north east of Xaag and you'll find some of the best examples of cave paintings in Mexico that are more than 40 centuries old. The caves are located near a rocky hill which also boasts a series of Zapotec engravings.
Alexander von Humboldt
Mitla itself has a small museum in the town's center that documents its history before and after the Spanish conquest. A number of Spanish writers of the colonial era remark on the well built pre-Hispanic buildings here. The famous explorer Alexander von Humboldt published a description of the site in 1810. Some excavations and repair of buildings was done under the direction of Leopoldo Batres in 1901. The Mexican government made further excavations of the site in the mid 1930s and the early 1960s.
Mitla also hosts a large outdoor market which offers an array of delicious cuisine and artisanal products.
Apart from Mitla's historical significance, it is also a "palenque" meaning it is a producer of mezcal where they produce the drink by hand from the heart of the agave plant and five kilometeres from Mitla is a small town called Matatlán, which, due to the number of palenques, is called the "mezcal capital of the world".
The idea behind Sectur’s (Mexican Ministry of Tourism) project is to show that Mexico is much more than just sun and beach. Converting quaint, culturally rich towns into visitor-friendly destinations, the government wants to make sure they retain their authentic Mexican charm, which is ultimately what sets them apart from other destinations.
{mosimage} Travel Mexico and discover ancient civilizations inside one of Natures most wonderful gifts.Tulum in the state of Quintana Roo, Mexico (just 45 minutes driving from Cancun) is the perfect place where you can combine total relaxation and never-ending adventure. This quiet town along the Caribbean coast of Quintana Roo in Mexico is home to one of today’s best preserved Maya sites and the finest hotels facing the Caribbean Sea. When in Tulum, tourists can opt to stay in luxury beachfront boutique hotels that line the Tulum Hotels Zone, a section of the coastline where around 60 Maya-designed hotels provide accommodation.
{mosimage}Travel Mexico and its magnificent archelogical sites. Teotihuacan arose as a new religious center in the Mexican highland, around the time of Christ. Although its incipient period (the first two centuries B.C.) is poorly understood, archaeological data show that the next two centuries (A.D. 1-200) were characterized by monumental construction, during which Teotihuacan quickly became the largest and most populous urban center in the New World. By this time, the city already appears to have expanded to approximately 20 square km, with about 60,000 to 80,000 inhabitants.
Travel Mexico and travel in time. In Zacatecas nearly all of the city center buildings are nineteenth century or older; the topography and irregular street pattern (most streets are too steep and narrow for vehicles; many have steps in them) almost make one think of a medieval city like Toledo, Spain. The city, built on the site where silver was discovered in the 1530s, is crammed into a narrow canyon, with houses and churches perched on its nearly vertical walls.
About an hour’s drive east of Comitan is Lagunas de Montebello National Park (opened daily from 8:00 a.m. till sunset, entrance only US$1.75 per person), a striking array of lakes, lagoons, and small, medium and large ponds whose colors famously range from emerald green to pale blue, from deep purple to reddish black.
Taxco is a beautiful city built on a hill. It is rich with old and new silver mines, it has narrow streets and hundreds of silver shops. At the middle of the city there is a Colonial Plaza with a Basilica that it absolutely beautiful dating back to the 1700's.
Warning: mysql_fetch_array(): supplied argument is not a valid MySQL result resource in /home/emexpert/public_html/modules/mod_advertise.php on line 46
The Zapotecs named this place Lyobaa; the Mixtecs called it Nuu Ndiyo and the Mexicas came closest to its present-day name with Mictlan. In all cases their names meant the same thing: "A place of rest". Now, San Pablo Villa de Mitla, is one of the nation's most important, and visited, archaelogical sites boasting a history that goes back to 800 B.C.
