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7Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico, 1 July
2014
128 kilometres separate the big resort town of Cancun at the northern tip of the Yucatan peninsula from Tulum near the south-east border of Mexico. The stretch of road connecting the two is the Yucatan drive – a spectacular experience with the azure Caribbean to the east, uninterrupted tropical forest lowlands to the west. The journey is interspersed with quaint villages and townships, each boasting a peculiar mix of modern and traditional, catering heavily to tourism.
The Maya, an advanced Mesoamerican civilization, thrived in great cities in the Yucatan for millennia, before the Conquistadors declared them ‘conquered’. Under the direction of the Bishop Diego de Landa Calderón, the Spaniards coerced Christianity upon the Maya: A Bible and cruc
