Day 12
Quiahuiztlán, Cempoala and the landing of Cortés
Morning
Quiahuiztlán
A Totonac site clinging to the flank of the Cerro de los Metates, facing the sea. Its necropolis has more than seventy tombs shaped like miniature temples, lined up on the slope. It was here that Cortés sealed his alliance with the Totonacs against the Mexica, and the view explains the choice of the place better than any text.
Afternoon
Cempoala
The first great city Cortés came upon, and his first ally. The local chief, whom the chroniclers nicknamed the Fat Cacique, welcomed the Spanish there in 1519. The circular enclosures and the temples rendered in white stucco are well preserved, in the middle of a flat, shaded site.
La Antigua
A village on the bank of the río Huitzilapan, with ruins of sixteenth-century buildings overrun by the roots of strangler figs, among them the one tradition calls the house of Cortés. One of the first European settlements on the continent.
Good to know
Quiahuiztlán and Cempoala are INAH sites, closed on Mondays, entry in cash. Access to Quiahuiztlán is by a road climbing from federal highway 180, then a walk of about fifteen minutes to the necropolis, with no shade. La Antigua is a freely accessible village, the ruins can be visited freely.