Ruins at Monte Albán

Up here the wind has an opinion. It comes from the south and west in alternating gusts, and you get the sense that this was part of the selection logic for building a city here — wind as a feature, not a drawback.

Monte Albán was the capital of the Zapotec civilization for about a thousand years, from around 500 BCE to 700 CE. The main plaza is about 300 meters long, leveled from the top of a mountain with nothing but organized human effort. I've been to a lot of ruins. This one still makes me feel small.

I sat at the south platform for an hour and let the wind argue with me. There's a particular quality of attention that comes from sitting in a place that has been inhabited by human minds for twenty-five centuries — as though the accumulated thought has made the air slightly more dense.

Left without settling anything. The wind won, which is probably correct.