Page 23 - SYTYGIB_Aztec

Now, Place of the Gods sounds dRaMaTiC, Place of the Flowers sounds pReTtY, Place of the Herons sounds, well, kind of weird. But Place of the Mosquitoes? That just sounds plain hOrRiBlE.
Place of the Endless Candyfloss: yes. Place of the Cool Trainers: most excellent. Place of the Kids Get To Tell Adults What To Do: bring it on! Place of the Mosquitoes: We’ll give it a miss, thanks.
Having said that, it’s perhaps not surprising there were buzzing beasties – the Aztecs built the city in a swampy lake called Lake Texcoco.
It definitely feels like there´s something missing . . .
Are we nearly there yet?
Instead of streets it mainly had canals, and people got from place to place in canoes made from hollowed-out logs. With a population of around 200,000 people, that’s a LoT of canoes! These were
the only form of transport. There were no horses (until the Spanish arrived) and no carts – mainly because the Aztecs didn’t use wheels, which are the main difference between a cart and a wooden board with stuff on it lying on the ground.
Oh, and they also used feet. That’s known as ‘walking’, just in case you weren’t familiar with the idea.
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FANCY THAT!
As Tenochtitlán was surrounded by a lake, farmers grew their crops on chinampas – small islands handmade from reeds and branches, weighed down by stones and covered in a thick layer of black mud. There were no cows to provide manure for the crops, so . . . that´s right, they used HUMAN POO collected from public toilets beside the canals instead!
ThE hOmE