A Date with the Warrior

What’s taller than the Leaning Tower of Pisa, taller and heavier than the Statue of Liberty, very red, and ready for battle?

I’ll give you a clue – he lives in Mexico City.

Give up? Ok, it’s the Guerrero Chimalli, or the Chimalli Warrior, in the municipality of Chimalhuacán, Mexico City (in Mexico State). At 60 metres high, it dwarfs the 46 metre Statue of Liberty (that’s the statue, without the base), and weighs in at 600 tonnes.

So Shari and I went on a date, and visited the warrior himself. You can ride an elevator up to a lookout – at about the height of the fellow’s shoulder. There’s a little museum inside, explaining the history of some of the indigenous cultures of the area.

But the highlight is probably the incredible views of the city. The statue was placed to overlook the core territory of the Aztecs, and looking out at sunset gave us some incredible views.

The Guerrero Chimalli was created by Sebastián, a Mexican sculptor with other famous works in the country. This is one of his newest works, just finished in 2014.

A “chimalli”, by the way, is a traditional shield, used sometimes for defence and sometimes just for decoration.

You can see his shield in front, and then another arm coming around to hold the torch. That’s where the lookout it, with windows going all the way around, except where the shield is.

Lots of amazing things to see in massive Mexico City!