CORDOBA SURPRISE

Cordoba is a city near Fortin de las Flores. Today we had a tour which was sponsored by the City of Cordoba and free to us. We were extremly surprised and delighted to have a tour of an archeological site that we had not known about. TOXPAN!! This site has only the road excavated so far but we climbed one hill which was obviously a pyramid. There are twenty pyramids and one ball court. The site is Olmec and dated back 2400 years. They are planning to excavate only a few of the buildings but the going is difficult because of red tape really. The federal government owned it until recently when the gave it to the university and the university doesn't have the money or the interest.

The Olmecs came because of the obsidian which is found nearby at Orizaba mountain. Orizaba peak is over 18000 feet high and is the highest mountain in Mexico.

Cordoba was founded in 1618. It is famous for sugar, coffee and many other products. The zocolo is large and beautiful. There are several churches, of course, but the one in the town square is blue. We skipped the tour of the church. We did go to visit a cancel making factory which has been in business in the same building for 90 years.

There are people who live high in the mountains who sell handcrafts so of course I bought a pot. They still speak Nahuatl which was spoken by the Aztecs.

We were told about the town of Yanga which is near here too. It was founded in 1607 or 1608 by slaves or escaped slaves of African decent (known as cimarrones). Their leader was named Yanga which means king. It was the first free settlement in Mexico.

Cordoba is very proud if it's history and have records of almost everything that has happened in the past 300 years. We were privileged to see the archives.

It was a candle factory.