Seeing the Mayan Ruins at Tulum in Mexico
The ruins of a Mayan structure stand the ancient city of Tulum on the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico.
This structure at Tulum is known as the House (or Palace) of the Halac Uinic, who was the ruler of the city. Sometimes referred to as a palace, this building sat next to the Grand Palace (which is actually behind the structure in this photo) where the rest of the royal court lived. Fascinating.
These days we think of palaces being huge dream homes with a movie theater with reclining seats, a bowling alley, indoor and outdoor pools, a train to take you from room to room, an elevator complete with that interesting elevator music, and weird colors of wall paint and carpet. Oh wait, that last one was just Graceland, but then I guess that is something like an American castle. But this palace at Tulum really wasn’t all that much larger than our house back home. And most people wouldn’t think of our house as a palace, although it is usually more than enough room for the three of us. Of course, compared to the huts that most of the common people lived in, this palace probably actually was a palace. It is all a matter of perspective, I suppose.
We enjoyed being able to see these old ruins at Tulum, even though the ruins almost leave more questions and theories than they leave answers. Many of the uses of the buildings are just guesses, although they are probably very good guesses. But either way, it was interesting to see something that was so old. (By the way, you can read more about our visit to Tulum in these posts or in the 2016 Cruise to Mexico trip report.)
It is interesting that for all of the technology that we now have, we still don’t have all the answers for what happened long ago. We know a lot, and we have some writings from ancient peoples, but there are still sometimes questions and unknowns that we don’t have answers for. And with all of the information that we have and are leaving behind us these days, I wonder if there will still be questions in 1,000 years or so about what we did and why we did it. Because sometimes, no matter how much you read about a subject, and no matter how many videos you watch about a subject, it still doesn’t compare with being there.
And besides that, things change over time, and over a lot of time a lot of things change, so that we aren’t as familiar with how things were way back when as we are now. Things that made perfect sense to people just a few hundred years ago seem so foreign to us now. And I’m sure that in a few hundred more years, much of what we are doing right now will seem foreign to people as well.
So enjoy what you have and what you do right now, because later on down the road it might not make sense to anyone.
What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. - Ecclesiastes 1:9
About the Photo
This was another of those photos that started off looking rather plain to me. The subject matter was interesting, but the photo itself didn’t do anything to pull you in. So I gave it a different look to change things up a bit and make it more appealing, using my usual tools of Photoshop and Nik Color Filters. The resulting image is much more interesting than the original in my eyes. Your eyes may not agree, but that’s up to you. Here is the before-and-after comparison to give your eyes a chance to decide.
Photo: A single Raw exposure, processed in Photoshop. Read more about photography tips, photo software, camera gear, and more at Steve’s Photography Tips.
Camera: Olympus OM-D E-M10
Lens: Olympus 14-42mm IIR
Date: July 18, 2016
Location: Tulum, Quintana Roo, Mexico
