I never thought I would get caught in such a crowd of tourists when I got on the bus for Tulum!
When all the Maya states had fallen to the Spanish,Tulum still persisted for another 75 years as an isolated islet protected by the impenetrable jungle.
The Temple of the Frescoes, constructed in several stages between 1400 and 1450 has elaborate decorations showing the three realms of the Maya universe, the dark underworld of the dead, the middle order of the living and the heavenly domain of the gods.
Structure 25 also known as the Great Palace had a fine stucco carving of a descending god.
Tulum was protected on three sides by a stone wall up to 7 metres thick and 5 metres high and by cliffs along the sea side except for this small beach overlooked by the 'Plataforma del Caracol' on top of the rocky hill.
Here is a closer view of the Plataforma de Caracol.
On the other side of the beach is the Castillo flanked by the Temple of the Descending God on this side and the Temple of the Initial Series on the other (so named because the first series of glyphs on a stella gives the date).
Here is the Castillo viewed from the other side.
An iguana passed by so why not take a picture...
By some magic the tourists cleared for an instant, like clouds sometimes open to let the sun through, and I got a chance to take this picture of the Castillo and its flanking temples.
My 2001 trip was over, I had seen what I wanted and taken more than a thousand photos. Now it was time to head back for home to digest all the impressions I had gathered. It would take months to make some sense out of what I had seen of Cuba, of the Caribbean, of modern Central America and of the marvellous world of the Maya.