Landscape

Tulum is the site of a Pre-Columbian Maya walled city serving as a major port. The ruins are located on 39 foot cliffs along the east coast of the Yucutan Peninsula on the Carribean Sea. It is one of the best preserved coastal maya sites.

I got the chance to go on a cruise with my parents a couple of years ago, and one of our excursions off of the ship was taking a tour through the ruins of Tulum, Mexico. It was one of my favorite parts of the whole trip, and really stuck out in my head as a beautiful landscape. What made it so beautiful was that it was built so many years ago, and you could still feel presence of the people there. It felt lived it. It almost felt like a ritual walking through the site, and I had no common knowledge of any of the people. It butted up to a cliff over the ocean, which protected it on one side. Closest to the edge of the cliff, was a building that once held the alter. The building had two small windows, and on a certain day of the year, (it might be equinox) as the sun is rising, it shines directly through the two windows across the entire site. They say that it is a magnificent phenomenon.

The landscape was most definitely a ruin, in that no one lives there anymore, and it's extremely old. you can also tell that it is, or was a manufactured landscape, because of the precision in the design of the s

ite plan, and still shines through today. An early classic stella was found at the site with the date inscribed AD 564 that was most likely brought in from a nearby town to be reused. Its age gives it so much importance in my opinion, because it has lasted this long, so its meant to last, and meant to have a special purpose for a long time. It is also a sustaining and maintaining landscape because it's getting the attention it needs from tourists that are insterested in it, but it is being preserved.