Tulum--the prettiest City

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                                      Above is my favorite picture of this site. It is absolutely breathtaking.

Tulum is an East Coast city and therefore had much different architecture than we are used to seeing. East coast style is a very plain style possibly because much of the construction was done during the post classic when much of Mayan Civilization was declining. However, Tulum was FAR from being unimpressive. On the bus there Hugo (our tour guide) informed us that the archeologist who led the excavations of Tulum is also known as the gardener (or something along those lines). We had no idea what he meant until we entered the site. Tulum is a walled city so we entered through a vault in one of the walls and when we were immediately surrounded by waves crashing on the cliff edge and a beautiful landscape with structures which seemed to be strategically placed as to be the most aesthetically pleasing. I honestly could not believe this was an ancient Mayan site; it honestly just seemed too beautiful and too perfect. And while obviously most of the sites we have seen did not look like this, or anything near this actually it was still nice to see. I considered Tulum a very fake pretty site. Many of the sites I have considered in the past such as Uxmal have a much more natural looking beautifulness to them. Tulum was perfect, there was nothing wrong at all with it, but for some reason this made me dislike it. Tulum is event the home of one of those light shows which I think are absolutely ridiculous, although I understand as a very good way to make money.

below is an example of the top of a building usedto catch light, and also our entire group at Tulum.

Many of the buildings of Tulum seemed lopsided, that is there were no 90 degree angles. All of the buildings seemed to go out or in, but were never completely straight. Hugo said that this was to help prevent erosion from the high winds and water. In accordance with many Mayan sites Tulum also had structures set up to catch the light during solstices and other specific parts of the year. While I do understand that Tulum was a valid post-classic city, it is hard to imagine people living there. It has truly turned into a tourist site, not only aesthetically pleasing but also a small drive from Cancun. The crowds at Tulum were massive, much larger than we are used to but nowhere near Chichen. I suppose, the more attention a site gets, the less I like it.