The first photo this week is not actually a great picture, but I absolutely love it:

Photo by André

Yes, that sign says it’s a MASTUR-BAR. But not just any mastur-bar! This one has ambiente familiar—in other words, a family environment.

I don’t know what kind of family goes to a mastur-bar together, but I support this concept and I’m glad it exists. Who among us hasn’t ever gone into a bar and just wished we could rub one out? Preferably with siblings and cousins in attendance? I literally made a U-turn when I saw this sign to make sure I got a picture.

The only explanation I can come up with is that this is a bit of Spanglish. Businesses in Mexico often use English words to seem hip, and they don’t always nail the spelling. Maybe this is supposed to the the Master-Bar, which sounds somewhat more appealing and a whole lot cleaner.

The best part is it’s just as bad in Spanish. The word for “to masturbate” is masturbarse. So this has to look just as ridiculous to every Mexican driving past as it does to me. That makes me wonder what kind of clientele they get, and how family-friendly it really is.

Okay, let’s clean it up guys. On to something a bit more spiritual:

Photo by André

That’s the view of one pyramid from on top of another pyramid at the Tula de Allende Archaeological Site. (Tula is the same town with the mastur-bar, by the way.) This is one of the more stunning pyramid sites in Mexico. It’s not as famous as the great pyramids of Chichén-Itzá, which I’ll bike past toward the end of my journey. But the two sites are very similar, so much so that archaeologists suspect the Toltecs from Tula influenced the Mayans who built Chichén-Itzá.

The most famous part of Tula’s pyramids is the Atlantes, however:

Photo by André

The Atlantes are giant warrior statues atop the more important of the two pyramids—the one I took the first picture from. This pyramid is believed to be dedicated to Quetzalcoatl, one of the most important Toltec deities who went on to be worshiped by the Aztecs (and the Mayans, under a different name).

You can see what the Atlantes look like without silhouette here.

Although most people come for the Atlantes, I was taken with a different part of the pyramid. The wall around it is decorated with carvings, and they’re pretty incredible:

Photo by André

In case you can’t tell, those are skeletons being devoured by rattlesnakes. There’s a similar motif on the walls at Chichén-Itzá, but they’re not nearly as well preserved. Besides being incredibly badass, the carvings represent the ritual of human sacrifice, which was a Big Deal to the Toltecs.

Fortunately, I’m not Toltec. I offered plain ol’ incense to Quetzalcoatl. As the smoke rose up to the heavens, the trill of a traditional flute pierced the air. The source? A peddler hoping to sell me a traditional flute.

Some things are the same the world over.