Day 4 - Tour to Monte Alban

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Woke up craving some still water and wondered why Ian had taken a picture of me posing in my tight red boxers. Got down for breakfast just in time to prevent him picking up a pan of scolding coffee and attempt to pour it in his cup. I handed him a ladle.

Today we were biking to Monte Alban, the Zapotec ruins at the top of a very big hill. After hiring a bike for a dollar a day in Vietnam, prices here were pretty painful at around £10 / day, so to save £3.50 I asked for the only cheap bike available. The lady told us, “It’s smaller than the others, the breaks aren’t very good and the gears are quite stiff.” Sold. Fifteen minutes later we were back. I don’t know what bike the breaks were supposed to be slowing down, but it wasn’t mine. More significantly, my back wheel was a jungle of twisted spokes and chains after only three gear changes.

Now upgraded to the adult bike it was just a simple matter of following the map and instructions. It turned out the instructions weren’t in any way related to our map so we asked about a hundred people, in perfect Spanish, which way to Monte Alban. Some awful signage and one fairy god mother later, we were at the bottom of the hill with 6km of uphill mental battle to go. We give it a good go for 4km before stopping for taco y queso at a shack owned by a family who still speak Zapotec. Apparently “Bido” means child. I purposely didn’t get too excited about learning a new word for ‘child’, but I can now add conversational Zapotec to my CV.

Refreshed and energised for the next 2km, I lasted another 10m uphill before the burn hit me. Ian reckons I’m too heavy. We had a little Lance Armstrong – Jan Ulllrich Tour de France moment where he looked back at me as if to say, “You’ve got nothing Moje. Have you? Nothing.” I didn’t see him for another ten minutes. When I got to the top, Ian was celebrating at the top like he’d just completed the tour.

The burn was worth it though: two thousand year old ruins returned to near pristine condition. This was the centre of the ancient Zapotec capital, Monte Alban – a city home to 20,000 at its peak. Complete with a sports stadium (known as the ‘ball court’ or juego de pelota), government offices and numerous altars, the Zapotecs had a great little set up. We were straight over to the I-shaped ball court where the Mayans played a game similar to racketball. They use their hips and forearm to keep a solid, 4kg, rubber ball in play. Obviously, the ruins were not found as we see them now. A lot of gardening and restoring has been done to make them look this good, but I couldn’t help feel like were standing in some ancient Anfield. The other highlights were: walking up the huge stairs of the south platform to look back out on the ruins and buying Ian’s new hat that made him look like some shit archaeologist.

On the way back there was no need to peddle. I would have reached some incredible speeds if I still had the other bike. For the upcoming fourteen hour bus journey, we picked up a crate of sleeping pills (Melatonin) and then bought the only non-translated book in the book-shop, Atame; it was a Spanish-English dictionary. Easily made our 5pm bus. Smashed Oaxaca.

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