It’s a long walk from the parking lot through the jungle paths under the slow gaze of iguanas beneath the trees or perched on walls. Brightly coloured birds in the branches overhead look down and ruffle their wings as, somewhere up ahead, monkeys yell to each other in the undergrowth. You pass through the ticket booth and step through an archway in a stone wall into the ancient past. The sunlight, after the shade of the path, is almost blinding but what actually dazzles is the bright city rising from the plain before you: Tulum.