As I was running in Chapultepec Park on a warm Sunday morning, my thoughts turned to the plans for the day. This was the only weekend that Maribeth and I would be in Mexico and we were planning to go out to Teotihuacan and see the famous pyramids there. Later, we had been invited to dinner with one of Maribeth's former psych professors. It was going to be a busy Sunday.
I had been struggling with my normal morning run at Mexico City's 7,000 ft. altitude, but I must have been getting acclimated because I thought it was a wee bit easier this morning. When I returned to the Intercontinental Hotel, even the final run up 34 flights of stairs to the 17th floor seemed not so daunting. I was still winded, but I didn't think I was going to die.
Maribeth was already up and dressed when I got back to our room. She had gotten in the habit of watching me from the huge window that overlooked the park, so my arrival was no surprise. "Nice run?" She wanted to know. I nodded and walked over to give her a morning kiss. She didn't embrace me as she had done the previous morning, but the kiss was delicious.
Maribeth was polishing her nails as I took my post run shower which featured a bout of hot water followed by a minute of cold. I could see Maribeth watching from her perch by the window since the bathroom was open, enclosed by glass rather than drywall. We had become quite unabashed about our pleasure in looking at each other's nude bodies and I was enjoying Maribeth's admiring glances.
I was very conscious that, as usual, after strenuous workouts that my manhood was full and prominently displayed. Maribeth's eyes and smile were registering her apparent approval and I liked the way that was making me feel. When we were alone, it had become common for us to be naked or nearly so. My only regret at the moment was the lady's charms were not on display.
After toweling off, I walked back into the bedroom heading for the dresser, when Maribeth called me to her. She wasted no time in leaning forward and cupped my balls in her warm hand. After a quick, but sensuous kiss on my lips, she slid forward and took my now freshly scrubbed penis in her mouth. She sort of rolled my shaft around using a circular motion with her lips and tongue that I hadn't experienced before.
Maribeth seemed pleased when she felt me throb, but if I thought she planned to suck me to completion, I would have been disappointed. I saw her look up at my face and then she removed me from her mouth, kissed the tip of my penis and said, "a quick preview of coming attractions....if you're a good boy." I nodded even though I thought that Maribeth's idea of a "good boy," might strike some people as quite naughty.
It only took me a few minutes to dress. The day promised to be warm with temps in the 80's and sunny, so I made do with khakis, a purple polo shirt and the pair of Reeboks I'd just used on the run.
Because of the dinner planned later in the day, we had decided to get an early start to view the ruins at Teotihuacan. Several days earlier I had mentioned to Manuel that we planned to visit and he told me that his brother -in-law often ran guided tours to the Pyramids, so I had hired him to drive us there. We grabbed a quick breakfast at the buffet in the Atrium Cafe and we're waiting outside when Carlos drove up in his Range Rover. After quick introductions, we were soon fighting our way through the city's early morning commuter traffic.
Teotihuacan is about 25 miles northeast of Mexico City, and these are some of the most accessible and incredible pyramids in North America. The ancient metropolis was a multi-ethnic melting pot, with evidence of Otomi, Mixtec, Nahua, and Zapotec peoples. I had visited it once before a couple of years previously and was looking forward to this return visit.
We found that Carlos has an excellent command of English, but as we weaved in and out of Mexico City traffic, Maribeth wanted to know all about him and his family, so most of our trip was consumed in that conversation. As I had noted with Manuel and Pepe, Maribeth was always interested in people; where they come from, what they did, what family life they had, and generally how they view their life and the people around them. I thought to myself that this interest probably was at the core of what made Maribeth such an accomplished psychologist.
One interesting tidbit we learned from Carlos was that a number of the public guided tours are essentially scams. They sell you an 8-9 hour tour, but fully four of the hours are spent at various gift shops along the way. It seemed that Mexicans were as entrepreneurial as the rest of the planet.
The site opened at 9 a.m. and we got there about thirty minutes later. I paid 85 pesos apiece for the three of us and I noted that Carlos waved to a number of other men who were standing around the entrance. He explained they were all private guides hoping to catch a gig with some tourists.
Inside the gates we battled through a cluster of park authorized gift and souvenir shops before we emerged at one end of the Avenue of the Dead, along which all of the major monuments were constructed. Immediately in front of us was the Temple of Quetzalcoatl, the feathered serpent, which according to Carlos was one of the many unsolved mysteries of Teotihuacan.
Over several minutes we learned that the three impressive pyramids on the site were all built around 200 A.D. but there's a great debate about who the original builders were. While most people associate the pyramids with the Aztecs, they were already in existence centuries before the ascendance of that civilization.
At its zenith, Teotihuacan was easily the largest city in North America with a population estimated to be around 150,000, but Interestingly evidence of a king or other authoritarian ruler is strikingly absent in Teotihuacan. Contemporaneous cities in the same region, including Mayan and Zapotec, as well as the earlier Olmec civilization, left ample evidence of dynastic authoritarian sovereignty in the form of royal palaces, ceremonial ball courts, and depictions of war, conquest, and humiliated captives. However, no such artifacts have been found in Teotihuacan.
In short, no one knows who to credit for building it, no one knows why it's located where it is, or how it could have supported so many inhabitants, who it's rulers were, nor why around 550 A.D. it was unceremoniously sacked and went into decline.
As we walked along the Avenue of the Dead, I found it impossible to get Carlo's words out of my mind. As a "history nut," I'm always amazed about how many open questions we have about our collective past, and Teotihuacan was adding to what was becoming a long list.
None of the pyramids had accessible interior structures, so the major attraction was to climb them to the top. I had done this in Egypt once at the Great Pyramid at Giza and the same situation was present when we arrived at the huge Pyramid of the Sun. The stones were uneven and what looked like normal stairs from a distance proved to be 2' high. To actually climb to the top was more of a scramble than a leisurely ascent.
For me 2' step is still a step, but not for Maribeth. Soon we developed a technique where I would grab her by the waist and swing her to each successive level.