Activities & Spas

Tulum by Night

By Jane Ammeson

Ancient Tulum is plenty impressive by day. But by night — set against a black-velvet sky pinpricked with stars — the limestone remains of this 13th-century Maya city reveal a new face, one bathed in soft hues of purple, red, blue and green light. Tulum by Night is a new tour established by the National Institute of Anthropology and History, leading visitors around this abandoned port city after the sun has set and the crowds have retired.

With a magnificent stairway leading up to its massive temple, the Castillo is the most famous building at Tulum — the iconic image on half the postcards from Riviera Maya — and is surrounded by many smaller buildings. With the new colored lighting highlighting their empty doorways and glassless windows, they seem even more imposing in the utter stillness of the dark.



One sees wispy traces of blue-green frescoes both inside and outside of the aptly named Temple of the Frescoes. At the Temple of the Descending Gods, a carving over one door shows the swooping figure of a winged deity associated with nightfall.

Around here, the rivers flow beneath the surface, carving out a vast subterranean network of waterways, caves and sinkholes called cenotes. The new night tour leads to the House of the Cenote on the outskirts of Tulum. Less developed than the center, the buildings here stand in various stages of excavation. Peer into the darkness of the cenotes, once used to collect fresh water and gain access to the underworld. In this darkness, with nothing but the dim glow of eerie purple light, it is easy to believe that the cenotes at Tulum could indeed connect you to another world.