Day trips from Cancún

Chichén Itzá

The pyramid of Kukulcán has ninety-one steps on each of its four faces plus a platform on top: ninety-one times four plus one is three hundred and sixty-five. Not coincidence, not modern numerology: a calendar built in stone.

At the equinoxes, the shadow of the stepped corners draws a serpent’s body descending the staircase to the carved head at the base. That day the place is a scrum.

The rest of the year it’s far better, and the real advice is to arrive at opening: by eleven the coaches land and shade disappears from the site.

Tulum

Tulum looks small next to Chichén Itzá and its value is different: it sits on a cliff above the Caribbean with its walls still standing. It was a late trading port, active when the Spanish reached this coast, moving salt, obsidian and jade along the coastal route. Two hours does it, and going early matters for two reasons: heat on shadeless stone, and the fact that it fills by mid-morning. Below there’s a beach you can climb down to from the site, which is the photo everyone knows.

The Ruta de los Cenotes

Yucatán has not one surface river. Rainwater goes straight through the limestone and runs underneath, in the largest underground river network on earth, and a cenote is simply a place where the roof collapsed and exposed that water. The Maya saw them as entrances to the underworld, and they were also the only drinking water.

The road running inland from Puerto Morelos passes dozens of them: open, semi-open and cavern. The water sits around twenty-five degrees year-round.

The rule every one of them asks: shower first and go in without sunscreen or repellent, because these are closed systems and whatever you’re wearing stays there.