Uxmal
Zona ArqueolóGica (INAH) · Santa Elena, Yucatán
The finest building in the Maya world stands here, and almost nobody is looking at it. Uxmal is the great city of the Puuc hills south of Merida, built between roughly 700 and 1000 CE in a style of cut-stone mosaic facades unlike Chichen Itza or Palenque - geometric latticework, long horizontal friezes, and thousands of stacked masks of the rain god Chac, because this is dry country with no cenotes and the whole city depended on catching rain in cisterns. The Governor's Palace, on its great platform and aligned to the risings of Venus, is the building John Lloyd Stephens thought unmatched in the Americas, and many archaeologists still do. The site is UNESCO-listed, about 80 km and 1.25 hours from Merida, and receives a fraction of Chichen Itza's crowd, which is the best argument for coming. Allow a full day with the nearby Puuc Route sites of Kabah, Sayil and Labna. It is hot, shade is scarce, and the prices are higher than most guidebooks say.
Carretera Mérida-Campeche km 78, Santa Elena, Yucatán, 97840, Mexico
⚠ OPEN DAILY, roughly 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. with last admission about an hour before closing. ⚠ THERE ARE TWO SEPARATE TICKET WINDOWS - a federal INAH admission and a Yucatán state charge - and the total is materially higher than most guidebooks state. Bring pesos in cash. ⚠ ARRIVE AT OPENING OR MID-AFTERNOON; the Mérida coaches occupy the middle of the day, and the Puuc hills are brutally hot from March to September with almost no shade. ⚠ CLIMBING IS ALLOWED ON SOME STRUCTURES AND NOT OTHERS AND THE RULES CHANGE - ask at the gate. ⚠ AN EVENING SOUND-AND-LIGHT SHOW HAS RUN HISTORICALLY AND ITS STATUS VARIES - confirm before planning an evening around it. ⚠ HOURS AND FEES NOT VERIFIED FOR THIS FILE.