While many think this is an Aztec city, it is actually much older. Founded around 400BC it peaked around 300AD. It had been mysteriously abandoned for centuries when Aztec people named it. It is unknown who lived in this city. It was massive, estimates vary from 20k to 200k inhabitants. They even had multilevel buildings containing many homes. Early apartments?
Leaving our lodgings at 7am meant we arrived before the tour groups.
Hot Tip (ha!): There is little shade ,an umbrella can help in the sun.
I went to Teotihuacan from my apartment hotel in Zona Rosa in downtown Mexico city. I took the Metro to the north bus station. Then I caught a bus to pyramids immediately. The bus station was new and clean with lots of food options. Tickets were cheap $5.50 USD Round Trip. The bus let off at gate 1 at the Teotihuacan (called Piramides locally) they come to gates 1&2 every 12 minutes evidently. I used maps.me and had marked the site so knew the gates and where to get off.
I used this blog post on The Whole World or Nothing to plan my bus trip to Teotihuacan.
This is an amazing step by step on the bus and bus station. There are even pictures of what the stand selling tickets to the Piramides looks like. I see no reason to repeat this information and am happy to have such a great reference to point people towards.
My visit started at the end of Avenue of the Dead ,a very long road down the center of the city. I rushed up to pyramid of the sun to beat the heat. The path is lined with buildings and you must go up and down stairs and around courtyards to keep going. The Pyramid of the Sun was not a bad climb. The main problem could be altitude as you are at 2300M/7500 feet. You may not have noticed the strain until taking all these stairs. There were lots of resting places and some shade along the way and spectacular views at the top. I then spent a couple of hours walking around and to plaza of the moon and its 12 altars. Pyramid of the moon was not as high but stairs were steeper with no resting spots. It is worth climbing this Pyramid too as it was our best view down the main street of the whole city.
The onsite museum was nice and concise. Highlights were some braziers with heads and ornamentation, some obsidian and examples of human sacrifices.
