The Mayan Riviera

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11 DECEMBER 2003
Gorgeous beaches, stupendous historic sites and vibrant culture; like its fiery salsas and sexy celebrity exports from Salma Hayek to Thalia, Mexico is hot, hot, hot! Here are just a few reasons to head off to the country's newly-designated Mayan Riviera on your next getaway

Chichen Itza and Tulum: for Mayan marvels
Believed to have originated from Asia via the Bering Strait, some 700,000 Mayans still live in the Yucatan, descendants of the great civilisation that flourished between 300 and 900AD, then mysteriously crumbled.

The area is steeped in Mayan history, with more than 1,600 sites built in inconceivable conditions without the aid of the wheel or horses, in the heat and hostility of the jungle.

Top billing goes to Chichen Itza, its towering Kukulcan pyramid understandably one of the wonders of the world. Only the priestly caste, aristocrats and warriors lived within the city walls; they were flat headed and cross-eyed as both were considered signs of beauty. Parents strapped boards to their children's heads, dangled beads between their eyes and filed their teeth to fashionable points.

In the huge pok-ta pok ball court, crumbling carvings depict the Mayans' somewhat bloodthirsty sport - part game, part ritual it entailed the winning captain being sacrificed to the gods, something which was considered a privilege as it offered the chance of immortality.

If Chichen Itza is the most important Mayan city, Tulum, the only Mayan ruin by the sea, must be the most beautiful; a poem of a site with vivid frescoes in an unbelievable setting beside the Caribbean.

When Spaniard Juan de Grijalva and his fleet sailed past in 1518, it's debatable who would have been more astonished; the Mayans spotting the billowing sails of his four Spanish galleons, or the sailors at the sight of this wondrous red-walled city with its majestic towers soaring 40 feet above the sea.