Paquime, Chihuahua, Mexico - Oct 2004
Paquime is a very interesting place, made more interesting by how remote it is. This was my second visit to the Mexican state of Chihuahua and it involved just as much driving as the first.
Paquime at one time supported an estimated 10,000 inhabitents living between rammed mud walls. It's a pretty impressive place, but rather than me making a botch of the history I recommend reading about it at desertusa.com. An excellent article explaining almost everything known about Paquime.
Paquime is still a very active archeological site. The walls seen here go far deeper below the ground.It's very difficult to really imagine how things were as all that can be seen is the tops of the walls of the buildings that were once inhabited here.
Big Chihuahua sky on the road between Marta Ortiz and Paquime.
This picture shows the building material of Paquime. It is delicate and I guess it doesn't rain often here because you definitely get the feeling that one downpour and it would all wash away.
Distant hills that I guess must have been the water supply for this desert city. This is some of the work by archeologists working on the site at the time of our visit. This is a reconstruction of the adobe walls.
Little is understood about why the inhabitants of Paquime and surrounding colonies used T shaped doorways like this.
We spent a good 3 hours wandering around the Paquime site. There is a great sense of mystery here and this is definitely one of those sites where you get lost in the imagination of how things once were.
The maze like site of mud walls extends for quite a long way.
Mata Ortiz and the end of the highway.
