Tulum - El Castillo

El Castillo - June, 2010

The Tulum ruins are located on the Yucatan Peninsula, not far from several vacation spots in Mexico. We were on vacation this year with wonderful friends and were fortunate enough to book this adventure through Adventuras Mayas - Tulum Xtreme. It was a great day of zip-lining, rappelling, swimming in a cenote and finally visiting the Tulum Ruins. I recommend this tour company to anyone going to Cancun.

Tulum was built around 1250 AD during the decline of the Mayan civilization. El Castillo sits on the edge of a cliff overlooking the sea and was used both as a watchtower and a temple. Similar in structure, although considerably smaller than the pyramid at Chichen Itza, El Castillo is the product of several phases of construction. Its height and positioning gave it good visibility over both the land to the west and the sea to the east.

I found it interesting and somewhat funny that the three openings at the front of El Castillo were backed by screen doors. You can see them if you enlarge my photo some.

It was a pretty hot day, and after the tour guide gave us the history of the site, we had about 45 minutes to hoof it around the area and get as many pictures as possible. This made it a bit impossible to really take in the site, but I can relive it through my photos - I took 138 ph0tos while I was there.

Fun!