Museo Maya and San Miguelito - Ruins Among the Towers

Photo: Oleg Yunakov, CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped)

A stop on Cancun: Downtown and the Hotel Zone, a free self-guided tour.

In the middle of the resort strip, behind a screen of jungle, stands the Museo Maya de Cancun. Mexico's national institute of anthropology and history, INAH, opened it on November 2, 2012, in a modern building of white walls and glass designed by architect Alberto Garcia Lascurain. Its halls trace people on this peninsula from the earliest settlers, known from ancient remains found in flooded caves near Tulum, to the Maya cities of Quintana Roo.

A path from the museum leads into San Miguelito, a Maya settlement hidden in the forest. Its main buildings date mostly from about 1200 to 1350. Look for a pyramid about 8 meters tall whose stairway faces south toward El Rey, and a C-shaped palace whose columns once held up a flat roof. The modern name comes from a coconut farm that worked this land between 1950 and 1970.

Check current hours before you go; the museum has closed on Mondays.

Getting here: Continue south on the R1 or R2 bus or by taxi to km 16.5 of Boulevard Kukulcan. The museum entrance is on the lagoon side.

Did you know?: Cancun's earlier archaeology museum, at the convention center, was damaged by hurricanes beginning with Gilbert in 1988 and closed for good in 2004, which is why this new one was built.

Photo op: On the San Miguelito trail, frame the pyramid through the trees, with the green canopy hiding the hotel towers just beyond.

More on Wikipedia: Mayan Museum of Cancun · Instituto Nacional de Antropologia e Historia · Maya civilization

Museo Maya and San Miguelito - Ruins Among the Towers

Stops on this tour