Traveling to major tourist destinations: Expectations vs Reality

A little background...

Over the past Christmas holidays, my girlfriend and I were overjoyed to have the opportunity to take a short 1 week holiday to Cancun, Mexico. While the time we spent in Mexico was incredible, I was not prepared to contend with the sheer number of tourists all visiting the same area!

This phenomena became apparent why we visited an ancient Mayan settlement near the town of Tulum, Mexico. When we searched for the location online, we were greeted by beautiful and colorful pictures of Mayan temples sitting on top of cliffs next to the crystal clear ocean (or in other words, the picture I took below and to the left).

 

Yet, as the photo above and to the right shows, to enjoy the surreal location, we also had to endure the thousands of North American tourists pilling through the gates of the pre-colonial site all day.

Soooo, for this blog, I thought I would share my photos of both the beautiful mystical experience of these Mayan ruins, and my photos showcasing the absurd number of tourists you might encouter if you were to travel to this location during the peak tourism time of the year.

But first, a little history...

The ruins at Tulum were believed to be some of the last inhabited Mayan settlements in the Yucatan peninsula. The settlement itself was a walled city situated above a large cliff face down to the ocean. Sadly, even though people lived in this settlement more than 50 years after Spanish colonialization began, it is believed that the majority of Tulum's population was eventually killed by foreign deseases which decimated local population all around South America during this period of imperialist expansion.

Our Experience...

Regardless of the number of tourist with whom we shared our experience here, a huge shoutout should be given to Tourism Mexico, who were incredibly organized and efficient in how they handled the tourists and looked after the site.

As you should be able to see from the above pictures, the sites were kept in pristine condition and the paths around the site were very well organized. There was also a huge amount of effort put into the signs and information boards around the site which helped us get a better understanding of the history and archeological importance of this area.

While it was hard to not be taken out of the experience by the amount of people we were sharing it with, it was also refreshing to see just how many people were actually interested in visiting the site and learning more about it's history even though the place was packed and it was almost 35 degrees that day!

Part of the uniqueness of the site, and one of the major reasons I wanted to visit it was the idea of this mystical temple positioned next to the sea and above a pristine beach which one could have imagined looked the same when the settlement was actually inhabited by the Mayans.

Final thoughts...

Like I said in my introduction to this post, my time in Mexico and even this day in Tulum was an incredible experience. However, the reason why I titled this post Expectations vs Reality was that I wanted to convey to all of you who seek adventure, that sometimes, our expectations of travel do not always correlate with the reality that we experience. This reality being the fact that we will often have to endure sharing our experiences with thousands of other people, just like with other historical sites around the world such as Machu Pichu, The Taj Mahal and the Pyramids at Giza to name a few.

Yet, having said that, this reality is also a great thing! Through these thousands of tourists, more local people can be employed, tourist departments receive more funds to continue looking after these kinds of sites, and finally, the thousands of people who visit leave more educated and informed on the past histories of incredible civilizations such as the Mayans.

And, if there hadnt been so many tourists, my partner Danielle and I might not have been able to find a kind stranger to take this lovely photo of us together which I am sure we will, like this experience at Tulum, cherish forever!

Thank you for reading all this way down the blog post! If you have any comments, ideas or criticisms, I would love to hear about them in the comments below...

Until next time,

Tristan

Want to see the most beautiful photo I have ever taken? Check it out here:
https://steemit.com/photography/@tristanoliff/20180207t150454129z-post

Would you like to read a little more about my story? Check out my introduce yourself post here:
https://steemit.com/introduceyourself/@tristanoliff/this-is-me-and-this-is-what-i-m-going-to-do-introducing-tristan