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Mexico is distinguished as a country of parallel realities, countless contradictions and staggering disparities. It is a country where ancient cultural tradition meets spring break debauchery and mass consumer industry collides with indigenous craft. Mexico’s extraordinarily long and tumultuous history can account for such modern juxtapositions, as highly developed civilizations have inhabited the region for nearly 3,000 years. The rise and fall of great societies, particularly before Spanish arrival, has enriched the country with fantastic legends and lore that infiltrate every aspect of Mexico’s art, design and architecture. Hernán Cortés’ Spanish conquest of the Aztec (Mexica) capital in the 16th century resulted in a unique superimposition of Spanish culture over indigenous heritage and beliefs that can be identified everywhere in Mexico today.

Mexico’s Advanced Ancient Age

The Yucatán Peninsula is an archeological goldmine. Situated on the Gulf of Mexico’s southern shore, the region was the center of Mayan civilization throughout their rule. The extensive ruins at Calakmul (“The City of Two Adjacent Pyramids”) are some of the most spectacular, embedded in the thick tropical forest of the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve and best viewed from atop one of the ancient city’s pyramids.