On our first morning, we drove south from Puerto Morales to Tulum. Tulum is a unique Mayan site for several reasons - it is built on the sea coast instead of inland, it has surrounding defensive walls, and it is remarkably well preserved.

Tulum is the Mayan word for wall, it is probably not the name the original inhabitants had for this small city. Possibly it was called Zama, which means City of the Dawn, because Tulum is the eastern most of the Mayan sites.

We spent a few hours at Tulum. The guidebooks warned that Tulum would be overrun by tourists due to its proximity to Cancun, plus its beautiful location on the shore, but, perhaps because I anticipated hordes of people, I felt Tulum was not at all crowded. You can see from my photographs that there were not huge numbers of visitors on the day we were there.

Because it was built on the sea coast, Tulum was a trading center. Artifacts from all over Central America and Mexico were discovered at the sight. Tulum traded in obsidian, jade, gold, copper, salt and textiles. They used 40 foot long canoes, but could only sail them close to shore because they lacked stablilizing keels.

Tulum was still occupied when the Spanish arrived, but it was abandoned soon afterwards, perhaps because its inhabitants had fallen prey to Old World diseases. Because it was constructed relatively late copmpared to other Maya sites, in the 13th to 15th century, the buildings of Tulum are well preserved.

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Tulum videos

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