Our favorite Mesoamerican Ruins

I don’t like when travel Youtubers rank the attractions in their videos with “Top 10 things to do in _______”. After watching the video, I realize they have only been in the town a couple of days and those were the only 10 things that they did. So, I am careful with my blog title. We have been to a lot of Mayan ruins lately, but we certainly haven’t been to them all. I feel like we have been to enough of the big ones that we can have an opinion on what we like the best so I will rank what I have seen. It is not a top 10 list of the best… We have seen a lot of Roman, Greek and even some Inca and Asian ruins but I am only going to focus on the Mexican and Central American cultures.

1. Teotihuacan near Mexico City. If you are only have time to visit one attraction in Mexico City, then head to see these old pyramids. The Avenue of the Dead with the Temple of the Sun and one end and the Temple of the Moon at the other is really impressive. It is often thought to be Aztec but the Teotihuacan were centuries before the Aztecs and were among the first civilizations in the Americas. We really enjoyed our tour here.

2. Tulum The location overlooking the ocean on the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico makes this the most beautiful Mayan ruins. I’m not sure why there aren’t more beachfront Mayan sites still remaining. These are the perfect Instagram locations. We visited these on at trip in the early 90’s and there was barely a parking lot on the side of the road. We returned in 2012 and it is has turned into a huge attraction with a huge lot full of tour buses. I can understand why.

3. Tikal This place in Guatemala is absolutely worth the trip to get there. It is in the middle of the jungle and not the easiest place to get to. Some people drive here from Belize or a looong bus ride from Guatemala City but we flew to the small airport at Flores and stayed one night in the national park (ruins), and one night on Lake Flores. It was a great experience in the park, and we very much enjoyed our afternoon/night on the island in Lake Flores. Besides the huge ruins site with multiple large temples, we enjoyed seeing all the wildlife . We saw lots of coatis, monkeys and many different types of birds including toucans and great curassows.

4. Palenque Another jungle ruins site that really is comparable to Tikal. The temples and sites are a bit similar but Mexico doesn’t protect their ruins from the vendors like Guatemala does. There were several paths between temples with people trying to sell us souvenirs. We did hear some howler monkeys but there was too many people around for them to make an appearance. But, there really wasn’t that many visitors to the site. It isn’t a big tourist hub in Chiapas (Southern Mexico), even though there are some fantastic waterfalls not too far away. The new Mayan Train might eventually change that in a few years.

5. Monte Alban This is the very popular Zapateca ruins just a few miles from Oaxaca City in the middle of Southern Mexico. It is on the top of a huge plateau which gives some amazing views of the town of Oaxaca and surroundings. They found some really cool artifacts and masks that are in the must-see history museum back in town. We enjoyed comparing our pics to my parents trip here in 1967 and found that it didn’t change much.

6. Chichen Itza This is the most celebrated Mayan site and has been named as one of the 7 new wonders of the world. We understand that it is significant and important to understand the Mayan civilization but while we enjoyed our visit, we like other sites a bit more. Souvenir vendors were constantly cajoling us while we are trying to read the information signs in front of the temples caused quite a distraction. We were focused on not making eye contact with any of the vendors so we wouldn’t get caught up in their selling tactics. It is another huge site with some very impressive temples and a big ball court but when I remember Chicken Itza, all I think of was the multitudes of pesky salespeople and throngs of tourists from the huge fleets of tour buses. We did go early in the morning, so it was calm and quiet when we got there, and got progressively busier with vendors and tourists – so go early if you go.

7. Uxmal These are some of the best preserved and most significant Mayan buildings. They are also fairly popular with tourists but not near as crazy busy as Chichen Itza. We also felt there was some different architecture here – building more horizontal in addition to the more iconic pyramid shapes. We took public transportation here from Merida which was a bit of an adventure. I mostly remember the heat and humidity of this day trip.

8. Coba Another jungle ruins on the Yucatan peninsula. When we visited this site in the early 90’s we felt like we were the only ones there. I remember being amazed that the the guide book said it had 60 square miles in the site but only a few buildings have been restored. That seems to be the case with all the other Mayan sites we have seen since. So much to restore that it will never be done. We returned here in 2012 and it was a bit busier but we were still able to climb the pyramids and it still felt a bit isolated and we had it mostly to ourselves. I don’t think that is the case anymore after the recent tourism developments going on in Tulum and Playa Del Carmen. This site is also pretty easy to access from Vallodolid, which was our launching point for Chichen Itza as well. 7

9. Cholula This one near Puebla, Mexico is a bit different than some of the others on this list. It hasn’t really been restored and it has even been extensively modified by the early Spanish missionaries building a church on the top of the pyramid. But it is huge and very significant. It is the largest pyramid by volume in the world (shorter than Egypt’s Giza pyramid, but much wider). At it’s peak, Cholula is estimated to have 100,000 people living nearby. Now, it mostly just looks like a big hill with a church on it but we enjoyed our time here imagining what it used to be.

10. Templo Mayor Some of the most important Mesoamerican sites were destroyed by the Spanish as they colonized in the 16th and 17th century. The Templo Mayor was one of those that removed to make room for the new Spanish cities and churches. It wasn’t until the 20th century that archeologists were able to investigate the remains of this pyramid build by the Mexicas right in the middle of Mexico City. The museum is fantastic even though there really isn’t enough of the ruins left where you can really see what it looked like in Aztec times. Easy to visit location, next to the Mexico City Zocalo and main cathedral.

11. Mitla This is another Zapateca construction about 40 km from the town of Oaxaca. Very small site with only a couple of buildings but they are still worth visiting. The designs on the buildings are pretty impressive and have lasted for many years. The temples still have roofs so you can see how they were built to provide some shade from the hot Mexican sun.

Honorable Mention- Olmec statues at Parque Museo La Venta in Villahermosa, Tabasco. The Olmecs were thought to be the first real civilization in the Americas. It is so old that it really isn’t a very good archeological site but it has some really significant finds. Many of the gigantic Olmec stone head sculptures are on the trails as you walk through the park. The stones were found nearby but this isn’t the same as most of the other archeological sites on this list.

So we have only really seen these Mesoamerica sites so far. Our list is paltry compared to what is still out there. There seems to be an endless list of Mayan sites. What is still on our list to visit? We skipped a couple on this latest trip that are supposed to be pretty cool. Edzna and Ek Balam were just a little bit out of the way and we didn’t make enough of an effort on this last trip. Calakmul in Mexico near the Belize border is also very important and is probably the biggest one we have missed in Mexico. Copan in Honduras is huge and very significant. Caracol, Altun Ha and several others in Belize but we haven’t seen any ruins in Belize yet. There are always more things to see in the world and we may get there eventually.

This list makes it look like we are huge ancient civilization/archeology buffs. Not really…. we usually just happen to be in these places already and add it on to our itinerary. We love Mexico and Central America so I am guessing that we will see more.