The Mighty Maya

The Mayan ruins at Tulum were without doubt one of the highlights of our trip. I was a little sad to miss out on seeing Chichen Itza, especially since it was named one of the new 7 Wonders of the World last year, but even though it’s hyped in all of the guidebooks covering the Cancun region, it’s not exactly located nearby, at 2.5 hours west into the jungle. The Yucatan peninsula is HUGE! Disappointed though I was, Tulum more than met my expectations. It was awesome and definitely ranks as one of the most impressive things I've ever seen.

Tulum holds distinction as the only walled city and also the only beachfront city ever built by the Maya. Most of the 60 structures still standing today (thought to be only about 10% of the original city) were built between about 1200-1450, although an inscription dated A.D. 564 has been recovered from the site!! It exists today as one of the best-preserved coastal Mayan sites, and is the third most visited archaeological site in Mexico, after Chichen Itza and Teotihuacan. It was an important site for worship of the Diving or Descending God.

We saw a lot of these guys running around. Sure, he looks cute here, but he will later steal a banana from another lizard. The jerk.

The beach and the view of it, especially from the main temple, is breathtaking! All of the postcard views that I pulled up online before the trip didn’t nearly do it justice, and neither do the photos we took ourselves. The water is the clearest cerulean and you can't help but stop in the middle of the tour to enjoy!


We read on one of the placards about how human sacrifice was performed, and how some of the evidence unearthed from a nearby mass grave suggests that men, women and children alike were…um, offered. Yikes, right? I find this ritual fascinating...for the Maya, it served the obviously important purpose of satisfying the gods, but that type of violence is unimaginable!! At this point, I might have been starting to suffer the early symptoms of heat stroke and/or dehydration, and tried to get Matt to laugh by making some off-color jokes about "severed heads". Somewhat unfortunately, they endured throughout the rest of the trip.
Here, Matt had asked me to pose for a nice photo in front of this ancient building, but I couldn’t resist giving it my own creepy twist. And don't worry, I promise I'm wearing shorts:

In all seriousness, it was surreal and a little eerie to be walking in the same sacred place where this people lived centuries ago. Overwhelming!

Once we’d taken in about as much ancient Mayan culture as we could for one day, we headed back to the resort for some afternoon R&R. However, we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to first try a local delicacy...milk straight out of a coconut!

They refrigerate the coconuts, then use a machete to hack off the tops (did I insert a severed head comment upon seeing this? You bet I did!):
Then, just add straws and voila!