Another weekend field trip will find us exploring the Mayan ruins of Uxmal with our well-informed tour guide, Kumen Lira. We’ll travel with Kumen to Uxmal, which is about an hour’s ride from our neighborhood in Merida, in a comfortable van with a professional driver.

Kumen studied the sciences when he attended university and loves discussing the ecology and cultural history of the Yucatán Peninsula. He’s worked as a volunteer doing sea turtle rescue on the beaches of the Gulf of Mexico and grew up in the Yucatán. He has convinced his mother-in-law to teach all four of his kids Mayan in order to help them hold onto an important part of their family’s cultural identity.

Uxmal is a UNESCO World Heritage Site located in what archeologists call the Puuc Route on the Yucatán Peninsula, and is considered one of the most important Mayan ruins in the world. It was built during the late classical period and inhabited for a few hundred years by around 15,000 people! We’ll view the Pyramid of the Magician, climb the steps of the Governor’s Palace, walk through an ancient ball court, and peer into the House of the Turtles.

Don’t forget to take a photo from the platform on top of the Governer’s Palace for your travel writing blog! 🙂