30 miles due south of the Hill Vigía is a ruin site called Laguna de los Cerros. It is discussed in some earlier blog posts. It is one of the four most important known Olmec sites. The Olmec are the most ancient people known to have inhabited the western hemisphere. They date back to before 1500 B.C. and end about 400 B.C. They were apostate. All their artifacts indicate that they worshipped strange gods.

On the way to the south for zone conferences, we took a short detour to visit this site again. It is less than five minutes off the paved highway on a very good dirt road. It is surrounded by cattle farming and sugar cane fields. This time we opened a couple of gates and drove right into the pyramid complex. Before doing this, I wrongly supposed that the area where the van is parked was a court to play the ancient Mesoamerican ball game. This is the plaza. There is a pyramid on both ends with a long wall built up on each side. There are several other small pyramids withing the immediate area. This would have been a center of religous ritual. You will see why in the subsequent post.