World Scenic Flights by HeliGraphix

Contrary to common belief, Mexico – or the United States of Mexico, to be more exact – is a North American country; only its very southern parts belong to Central America. It consists of 31 states and one Federal District which is more or less identical with Mexico City, the state capital. Total population is 110 million; this makes Mexico by far the largest Spanish-speaking country in the world.
The Spanish conquerors first arrived in 1519, defeated the original inhabitants and set up a colonial rule lasting as long as 300 years. What used to be the Spanish Empire's largest colony finally got back its independence in 1821. And now the interesting question: What was before the Spanish invasion?!

Today as much as in former times people are fascinated with the ancient cultures of the Mayas and the Aztecs. Partly this may be due to the practice of human sacrifice as featured in many Hollywood film productions. The reality is much more complex; fact is that human presence in this area could be proven to exist as long as 40,000 years! At this stage of the Paleolithic Age and for the next 30,000 years to come people were of course hunter-gatherers. Some 9,000 years ago corn was domesticated in this area, leading to an agricultural revolution; the consequence was the same as in other parts of the world: People began to settle and formed civilizations.

A wide variety of civilizations and tribes used to be present in Mesoamerica in the past 3,000 years. Best-known are the Olmecs, Mayas and Aztecs. The Mayas were the first to develop a comprehensive written language, they had a phenomenal understanding of mathematics and astronomy, and also they are known for quite monumental architecture. Their heyday began around 300 AD and continued more or less until the arrival of the Spanish. And now comes the most striking: The Mayas still do exist today! Much of the rural population of the Yucatan peninsula, in Guatemala and in Belize are Maya by descent; a variety of the different Mayan languages are still spoken there as primary language and are at least in Mexico protected by law.

The Aztecs came a lot later than the Mayas. A good definition of who or what actually were Aztecs is quite difficult; commonly the term refers to certain ethnic groups of central Mexico who spoke a language called Nahuatl. They came from the North (maybe even from today's Southwestern USA) and achieved military and thus political dominance over significant parts of Mesoamerica. Like the Mayas they, too, were a very advanced civilization and most active from the 14th throughout the 16th century. Their rule was abruptly ended by the Spanish invasion.



The above shot shows some authentic Aztec dancers – quite cool and they may have been more impressed by the helicopter than vice vesa. :-) BTW, the chief of the troupe (standing to my left) is Nahui-Martin Chavez – that's the exact same guy who with his team represented Mexico during the 2006 FIFA Football World Cup in Germany!
On this occasion they also demonstrated the Aztec version of an ancient ball game (the Mayas had called it "pok-ta-pok"). Two teams played against each other; the aim was to shoot a rubber ball through a small ring fixed to one of the side walls of the field in a certain height. Since in this version of the game it was only allowed to touch the ball with one's elbows and the ring's inner diameter was not much larger than the ball, it took a whole while until one of the teams succeeded. Sounds like a cool game? Not really. The captain of the losing team was beheaded right after the end of the contest (some people considered this a great honour at that time).

At the time of this writing we are still talking to Mexican authorities. We hope to get clearance and come up with a post regarding our flying action at Teotihuacan very soon.