We drove into the town of Tula and there were police everywhere!  Six police cars in a cluster here, eight in a cluster there….what the heck?  Almost as thick as monarch butterflies!  Was there something “going down”, or is Tula such a bad place that it needs such a police presence?

We decided to continue on and arrived late in the afternoon at the archaeological site on the other side of town.  We entered the gates and asked a security guard if we could camp in the parking lot for the night, but he said no and directed us to a parking space just outside of the gates.  I told him that I had seen mucha policia and asked if there was a problemo but couldn’t really understand his response.  I asked if it was safe to camp outside the gates and he seemed to indicate that he thought it was, and we had read on iOverlander that others had stayed there without incident, so we set up for the evening.

When we urban camp, we like to be low key and respectful, but after the entrance gates were closed at 5pm, very few people were around so we set up our camp chairs on the sidewalk and enjoyed the rest of the daylight.

After an uneventful evening, we packed up in the morning and entered the site gates again, this time to see the Pyramid of Quetzalcoatl, which is topped by four metre high basalt columns carved in the shape of Toltec warriors.

Stairs to the top of the pyramid.

You can see the smog from Mexico City on the horizon.

The people of Tula live next to this ancient site.

Another shot, with Derek next to one of the statues to give some perspective.

Around the base of the pyramid you can still see some of the bas relief carvings which once covered the pyramid.

Some original colour can still be seen.

Here’s some more info about the site:

We ended up timing our visit perfectly.  Two buses full of school kids had been waiting for the gates to open in the morning, but we were able to visit the pyramids while they went through the museum, so we had the ruins almost all to ourselves.

Colourful little bird, click on the photo to see a larger version.