A dune and small islands linked by a highway, this is Cancun, a real paradise in the American Way of life.
There are hundreds of hotels and palaces to enjoy. Each hotel is a waterfront property with giant salt and fresh water swimming pools. Lagoons are to be found on one side and the green, blue and purple horizon of the most beautiful ocean in the world is a must to see. The sand is made of reef dust that has accumulated over the centuries. Cancun is the largest tourist place in Mexico and the largest in the world because of its exponential growth in residential and hotel development. Mexican President Etcheverria laid the foundation stone in 1969, at a time when there was only a fishing village with 117 inhabitants who made a living from shark fishing (The sharks there are harmless).

There were almost six millions tourists in 2008, and this number increases every year! For obvious reasons, Year 2009 started well but numbers have seen a decrease in April 2009. However, since year 2011, the number of tourists increase again.

     Right picture : view on the hotel zone in Cancun

With water skiing, diving, sport fishing, tennis and above all, golf : Cancun is a paradise of luxurious offerings. From Cancun, you can visit the whole coast as well as the Pre-Hispanic inland of the state of Quintana Roo. This trading city with its long paseo could make you believe that you are in Nice, Miami or Acapulco : in Cancun you can find just about everything from everywhere in the world. For the record, this tourist destination has been known worldwide since the famous "Summit of Cancun" in 1982 and also because of the many cyclones which have devastated the coast during the past several dozen years. But, all year long, and especially in summer, it is the paradise of sunscreen oils. The temperature has an average fluctuating from 26°C to 35°C (78 to 95°F).

Cancun is divided into three parts : the sad and unsightly suburb with many of the workers living from the tourism, the old city, and the island of Cancun, a large sandy stripe between the ocean and the lagoons. The 22 kilometer long Kukulcán Boulevard, between the continent and the Island, services the hotel complexes. More than six hundred businesses, restaurants and cafés surround the main boulevards, such as Caracol and Kukulcán.

After six years or work, the Cancun Maya Museum has finally opened its doors (november 2012). Redesigned by the architect Alberto García Lascurain, this institution appears to be the newest space devoted to the Mayan civilisation, one of the most formidable Mesoamerican cultures. The Museum enables you plunge into the sophisticated ad mysterious cosmogony of this thousand year old culture. With three exhibition rooms (2 for permanent exhibitions and 1 for temporary exhibitions), the space extends over a 1,350m2 and houses a heritage of 3,500 pieces that have come from various archaeological sites within Quintana Roo, El Meco, El Rey,  Xelhá, Xcaret and Tulum. In these rooms, 350 archaeological pieces are presented, some of which were discovered during recent archaeological excavations and some others which have already been on exhibition in various other institutions, such as the Yucatán Regional Museum ‘Palacio Cantón’ and the Cancun archaeological museum which was closed in 2005 following hurricane Wilma. Thanks to its geographical location, the museum should become one of the most visited museums in all of Mexico and therefore should see a boom within the tourist industry for not only the region but the country too. This museum offers an impressive cultural display for millions of tourists who come to visit Cancun. Situated within a zone packed with hotels and near to the coast, it creates a pleasant surprise and enables the admiration of numerous aspects of Mexican culture. In one of the rooms, the history of the state of Quintana Roo is retraced due to a chronological sequence and present for the first time the contextual reproduction in which the skeletal remains of the ‘Mujer de las Palmas’ a female skeleton aged 14,000 years was found in a cave near to Tulum and focuses on the Pre-Hispanic period with original pieces from sites such as Tulum, Dzibanché, Kohunlich, Xcaret, Xelhá and San Miguelito, of which the majority has never been on public display.
In another room, the Museum has designated the display space to the exhibition of the various regions that are a part of this culture. Here you will find the unveiling of objects originating from Mayan civilisation such as architecture, art, cosmovision and daily life as well as Palenque (Chiapas) objects, Chichén Itzá architectural elements and a collection of engravings from Comalcalco (Tabasco). As a part of its opening ceremony, one of the exhibition rooms presents the ‘Faces of God: green stone Mayan mosaics’ recently exposed in the Parisian Picture Gallery under the title of ‘Mayan jade masks’.

On the coast, many aquatic clubs offer activities such as surf, diving, parasailing and wonderful themed cruises, excursions in the islands, transparent-floor boat rides, dinner-cruises, etc. Mass Tourism and Luxury Tourism !

Left picture : view on hotel zone in Cancun

Extract of an interview with José Bayon, director of the city infrastructure :
The « flaunted wealth » : it is the first Cancun that you discover coming from the airport. A 22 kilometer long four way boulevard, 26,000 hotel rooms which hide the ocean, swimming pools and golf courses, luxurious stores and green lawns : this is an artificial zone, built on a thin sandy stripe between the ocean and the lagoons. 95% original mangroves, which was a protection against hurricanes, disappeared.
The second Cancun is a city with 700,000 inhabitants, which developed over a twenty-five year period. It broke another record in Mexico : this is the strongest demographic growth, nowadays about 5%. According to every property developer, the prodigious expansion of this fishing village (100 inhabitants in 1970) is the undeniable proof of tourism as an economic engine.

José Bayon said :
« Cancun, which nobody believed in at the beginning, was a model for tourist resorts during years. Today, we recognize that we made mistake on the environment».

Avoid the Zone of Cancun. You will find, on the Riviera Maya, wonderful wild places, but for how much
longer ?

Mayan religion is a geographically and historically versatile phenomenon and its history remains important today. Mayan people believed in the recurrence of the cycles of creation and destruction. The rituals and ceremonies were strictly linked to multiple terrestrial and celestial cycles. The Mayan priest had to interpret these cycles and then prophesy the past and the future. A short video of a Mayan ritual show is offered in one of the hotels in Cancun.

If you are looking for organized tours in small groups, contact Cancun Diving Adventures at info@cancundivingadventures.com or log on to www.cancundivingadventures.com, (998) 287-3039. Boat tours through the mangrove or jeep tours to the Mayan ruins or diving tours in the "cenotes" or offshore, which is what they started with !

We can also recommend Aquaworld located in Cancun, Cozumel and Playa del Carmen, (998) 848 83 27, mail : info@aquaworld.com.mx, www.aquaworld.com.mx/index.html for diving, fishing and Tours, open every day between 630AM and 10PM, free entrance however all activities are not free !

Map of the state :

Map of Cancun :

Quintana Roo state extends over a surface of 50 843 km2 (18,303 sq miles) and has 1 136,000 inhabitants (2007). There were 2,432,000 tourists in Cancun, 447,000 in Cozumel, 2,649,000 in the Riviera Maya and 119,500 in Isla Mujeres in 2007.

The list of the hotels of this town is in the process of updating !