‘The Tulum ruins are that way.’ said the young woman at the front desk of Zahra. She pointed in its general direction and continued, ‘At the end of the road. You can take a taxi, or rent a bike … ‘ I interrupted her by saying, ‘No, I’d like to walk.’

She scrunched her eyebrows and said, ‘Are you sure? (But in retrospect I’m sure she meant ‘Are you crazy?’ :) It’s far for walking. It’s hot and it will get hotter, take water with you …’ She made sure that she got out all of the warnings before I waved good-bye for the day and took off down the road.

Well, at least she knew where I went in case I didn’t make it back – collapsed by the side of the road from heat exhaustion or from getting bitten by a deranged iguana along the way :)

I walked. And walked. It is four kilometers from the hotel to the ruins on the cliff, and it was hot. The walk was slow going in the heat. The road going in that direction was fairly flat and smooth. My walk was partly shaded on one side by the not so tall thick forest of trees that lived in the coastal jungle and lined both sides of the road. Passing by all of the hotels and cabanas along the way, I looked to see if any were better than mine. I was happy. Along the road I saw a sign to La Playa, I found myself on what was considered to be the public beach in Tulum – the cleanest, whitest, most beautiful public beach I had ever walked on.

At some point, I think it must have been about an hour and a half later, I found myself walking on a path through an umbrella of thinned out jungle and reaching an arched doorway in a wall. I took a breathe, bent my head, and walked twenty feet out into the sunlight of the walled city. The spectacular setting of this city, on the edge of the bluest sea imaginable, is what makes it a joy to visit.

Originally Tulum was named Zamá, which means Dawn, and named so because the ancient city’s location allows for a full view of the sunrise, everyday of the year. Although that also means it could have been named that because the site was an important Maya astronomical observation center.

Tulum, which means The Walled City was the name given to it by later researchers of the area. The wall itself is an unusual feature of the city, being only one of two walled cities found so far on The Yucatan peninsula. Heavily fortified on three sides by a twenty-foot thick by thirteen-foot high wall with the fourth side dropping off of a spectacular cliff into the Caribbean Sea, the only way to enter the ancient city was through one of the five arched and guarded doorways in the wall, or to stand on the beach and wait for permission to enter. In any case, Tulum was not an easy city to just walk into. It was known for its strong fortifications and its location as an ancient watch point, guarding the trade routes from both sea and land and even serving as an important center of commerce for the region.

Trading from the ships took place on the beach, theoretically outside the city. A small cove that was easily entered by boats on one side, and the merchants and traders from the city on the other, was, and still is, easily gotten to because the cliff was (and still is) nonexistent here.

The oldest buildings in Tulum date from the time that the rest of the Maya civilization was in decline, around 900 AD, and life was still going strong here when the Spanish arrived in the 16th century. Much of the architecture was of the Puuc style – bases with sloped, tiered steps, columns, decoration based on carved stone mosaic with most of the decoration being done on the friezes… Only a few sculptures, and faint memories of the a few of the murals on the walls, remain. It is said that when the Spanish explorers found the city, the buildings were stuccoed and painted (as were most of the archaeological sites in their heyday), The Castle being painted a wonderful blue and lit by an eternal flame.

Viewing Tulum, more so than the other archaeological sites that I visited, I had to use my imagination to reconstruct the buildings, repaint the murals and imagine the city full of life. Damaged by the centuries of neglect, jungle growth, and salty sea air, Tulum is probably one of the most decayed of the Maya sites. And because of the sheer number of visitors it receives on a daily basis, it isn’t possible to walk into the buildings for fear they will further damage the structures. The only inhabitants of the city, the ubiquitous iguanas, are the only creatures to have free reign here, to hide in the shade of the walls or sun themselves on the rocks.

Besides the wall, The Castle is the main and largest building on the site, although compared to other Maya cities, this castle is small. Its impressiveness comes from its placement within the city, the back of the structure almost lines up with cliff edge, leaving room only for a path to walk on. The cliff next to the path drops down to the beach and into the turquoise blue sea.

Other buildings to visit would be the Temple of the Frescoes where you can see faint remnants of the paintings as well as handprints, the many shrines on the site, the House of Columns, Temple of the Descending God, Temple of the Wind, The Bay and to walk along the inside of the wall to feel the scope of the site. One great surprise of visiting this site is having sunbathing and swimming access on the beach below ruins.

Visiting the Ruins

The best time to visit the Tulum ruins, as in all the archaeological sites, is early in the morning. Around noon the tour buses from the cruiseships docked near Cancun start arriving in droves at this most visited archaeological site on the peninsula. When they are there your photographs will be filled with smiling tourists wearing funny hats and you will have a hard time exploring on your own. In the morning Tulum is quiet and peaceful, and above all, cooler.

ShareThis

Similar posts that you might like:

• >> Survey 3: Favorite Archaeological Site In The Yucatan?
• >> Cobá: Water Stirred By The Wind
• >> Ek Balam: The Black Jaguar
• >> Photo Of The Day: Painting In The Temple Of The Frescoes
• >> Chichen-Itza: Mouth of the Well of the Itzas