Tulum is the name of an ancient Mayan city located on a cliff
overlooking the Caribbean Sea on the east coast of Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula.
It is about 130km south along the coast from Cancún, and about 60km south of
Playa del Carmen in the state of Quintana Roo. Tulum was one of the last cities
built by the Mayan civilization, and now its ruins are considered one of the
best-preserved of coastal Mayan sites.
Aside from the archeological site, Tulum is also where many
cenotes, or partially exposed caves that are part of an underground system, can
be found. This interconnected cave system is usually filled with brackish water
(mixture of fresh groundwater and salty seawater) and is made out of limestone
bedrock. When the limestone bedrock collapses due to weaknesses in the cave’s
structure, it forms a sinkhole, thus exposing the cave to the atmosphere and
creating a cenote. The freshwater that enters cenotes comes from filtered
rainwater, which has very few suspended particles. This leads to great visibility and is part of the
reason why cenotes are such popular dive destinations.
If diving in cenotes is not for you, the many dive shops and
dive resorts in the Tulum area offer shore diving and boat trips out to wreck-
and drift-dive sites. Divers can expect to see different types of sea turtles,
tropical fish, and sharks (in the winter) at these Caribbean Sea dive sites.
Due to Tulum’s proximity to great inland and offshore dive sites, liveaboard
dive boats are not common. Diving with the experts at local dive shops and
resorts is definitely the way to make the most of your dive trip to Tulum!
Just
south of Tulum is the Sian Ka’an Biosphere Reserve, which is an area of
protected land and ocean (including Mayan ruins and part of the Mesoamerican
Barrier Reef) and is considered a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The main
objective of this reserve is to carry out conservation projects and monitor the
health of the various ecosystems contained in it. While most of the ocean
component of the reserve is inaccessible to tourists, some local dive shops
have permits to dive in this protected section of the barrier reef.
