Tulum, Mexico

The Most Caribbean of the Mayan Ruins


another temple
Temple of the Wind above an inlet believed to have been used to disembark canoes loaded with goods for commercial transactions in the city.
jaguar god
Showgirl poses as the god Jaguar, one of the countless deities in the pantheon of Mayan gods.
mayan corner
Architectural detail decorated with figures from Mayan mythology.
beach in ruins
Sunbathers laze on the near-perfect Caribbean beach below the Tulum ruins complex.
In the more-than-turquoise Caribbean
Mayan family photographed at Praia das Ruínas, with a turquoise Caribbean Sea in the background.
Troop of Mayan Gods
Mayan gods' extras pose for the photograph at the entrance to the Tulum ruins complex.
on the way to the castle
The top of the Castle, the highest building in the city and which housed a lighthouse believed to have identified the entrance to the reef as vessels.
beach talk
A group of bathers coexist at the foot of the cliffs that once protected the city of Tulum, while the waves of the Caribbean Sea come and go.
the temples
Perspective of the Mayan ruins of Tulum, on the Riviera Maya.
Stairs to the Wind
Mayan ruins of Tulum, Riviera Maya.
Built by the sea as an exceptional outpost decisive for the prosperity of the Mayan nation, Tulum was one of its last cities to succumb to Hispanic occupation. At the end of the XNUMXth century, its inhabitants abandoned it to time and to an impeccable coastline of the Yucatan peninsula.

As much as we try, we fail to adjust the bathing landscape forward to the Mayan era.

A sea of ​​turquoise unfurls, in the breeze, over the coral sand. It doesn't quite touch the gray limestone cliffs that border the coast.

Coconut trees and vigorous palm trees rise from the sand and from the top of the Tulum cliff, already covered in tropical vegetation.

Tulum: Mayan Ruins on a Mexican Dream Beach

Dozens of bathers delight in that eccentric caress of water and salt. They are entertained with floats and beach conversations. Above, the Mayan temple of the God of the Wind seems to praise the painting we've revered and the radiant summer well-being.

Beach, Tulum, Mayan Ruins of the Riviera Maya, Mexico

Sunbathers laze on the near-perfect Caribbean beach below the Tulum ruins complex.

Half a millennium had passed since the temple and the inner city had ceased to function. Most of the holidaymakers were - some more, some less - Mayans.

Their short stature, the women's long straight hair, the almond-shaped eyes, and the hooked bird-beak noses left little room for doubt.

The place they frequented is called, even today, Tulum, a Mayan Yucatecan term later inspired by the walls that their ancestors endowed the village to prevent threats coming from the great blue unknown.

It is believed, however, that, in origin, the Maya they will have named it Zama, the City of Dawn, in homage to the esoteric glow that dipped into the ocean every day and that rose from it night after night.

The Iberian conquerors also appeared from those sides. From 1502, the Mayans watched in disbelief as great floating towers rose above the horizon and towered toward them:

they would be the pioneer ships of Cristovão Colombo and his sailors there, which would have anchored to the south, in what is now Honduras.

Castle, Mayan Ruins of the Riviera Maya, Mexico

The top of the Castle, the highest building in the city and which housed a lighthouse believed to have identified the entrance to the reef as vessels.

The Inevitable Intrusion of the Spanish Conquerors

As early as 1517, Francisco Hernández de Córdoba and his fleet were washed ashore. Just a year later, Juan de Grijalva's followed. Grijalva landed on the island of Cozumel. Sailed south.

On that occasion, the Spaniards will have sighted Tulum for the first time.

Offshore reefs made the approach difficult. And immediate contact was still unguarded. For Europeans, it represented a great risk to present themselves to such powerful indigenous cities, without having any idea what kind of welcome awaited them.

Juan Diaz, one of the members of Juan de Grijalva's expedition mentioned Tulum in his writings. Diaz's testimony would later contribute to the invasion inaugurated by Francisco de Montejo.

This one asked the king of Spain for the right to conquer the Yucatan. And he accomplished it in 1521, the same year that, supported by Tlaxcalan warriors,

Hernán Cortéz captured the Aztec emperor Cuauhtemoc and Tenochtitlan, the monumental capital of the Aztec empire.

Tulum Temple Detail, Mayan Ruins of the Riviera Maya, Mexico

Architectural detail decorated with figures from Mayan mythology.

In 1526, Carlos V granted Montejo the title of Captain General of the Yucatan. Two years later, Montejo returned to the region. Tried to take it from the area of ​​Tulum and Chetumal. The resistance he encountered was, however, fierce.

It forced him instead to try west, through the present province of Tabasco.

He would become the son of Montejo, Francisco de Montejo “The groom” to achieve the conquest of the peninsula.

And to materialize it with the foundation of Campeche quality Mérida, still today two of its most impressive colonial cities.

Tulum's Role in the Mayan Empire

According to historical records, the Tulum area was populated from the XNUMXth century AD

It prospered under the Mayan sphere of influence from 1200 AD as a complementary trading post of Cobá, at the confluence of several sacbeobs, paved royal paths from Central Mexico and other parts of Central America.

In Tulum, the Mayans were used to exchanging food, cotton, decorative, work and even war instruments, silver and gold, salt, textiles and feathers. The city reached its height between the XNUMXth and XNUMXth centuries. It had the commercial impulse of another mineral raw material: obsidian, salt rock fromthe Maya.

Obsidian had and still has a special place in their culture and presence in numerous sculptures and also religious expressions. The Mayans associated it with divinity. They considered that she was raised in the infernal underworld of Xibalba, a place where the gods of death reigned.

Showgirl Deus Maia, Tulum, Mayan Ruins of the Riviera Maya, Mexico

Showgirl poses as the god Jaguar, one of the countless deities in the pantheon of Mayan gods.

For these and other reasons, Tulum prospered. For a long time, it bypassed the occupation and destruction disseminated by the conquerors. The dense jungle of the current Mexican region of Quintana Roo isolated it from other areas that the Spaniards took over.

Controversial Reasons for Abandoning Mayan Cities

Although the subject raises heated debate, the idea has prevailed that, when the Spaniards arrived, a good part of the larger Mayan cities had been abandoned a few centuries ago. Already then they were transformed into ruins that the jungle swallowed up.

The most accepted causes for this stampede were the overpopulation of about 15 million subjects throughout the Maya world. And the drought, deforestation and the extermination of large animals that served them as food.

About 70 years after the Spaniards began to liquidate the Mayan Empire obsessed with the demand for gold, Tulum resisted. Until smallpox and other diseases brought from the Old World by sailors, warriors and missionaries arrived there.

Tulum's turn

At the turn of the XNUMXth to the XNUMXth century, Tulum suffered a general and definitive stampede.

When its people left, the urban structure and the city's architecture were bequeathed to time.

Those who, like us, have the privilege of exploring them, quickly realize that this was not just any place.

Its 1000 and 1600 inhabitants occupied a vast area farther from the ocean and outside the religious complex.

This stronghold was protected by a wall three to five meters high, eight meters thick and about 400 meters long, parallel to the coast.

Around 170 meters on both sides oblique to the sea.

Tulum, Mayan Ruins of the Riviera Maya, Mexico

Temple of the Wind above an inlet believed to have been used to disembark canoes loaded with goods for commercial transactions in the city.

The northwest and southwest sides of the walls were equipped with watchtowers.

Near the north face, a cenote (doline of a complex and vast underground aquifer system eroded into limestone) supplied the city with fresh water.

Others of the same system reinforced the supply around: Naharon, Tortuga, Vacaha, Abejas, Nohoch Kin.

Several of them today serve as alternative bathing attractions on the shores of the Caribbean Sea. Some were recently discovered to contain preserved human bones between 9.000 to 13.000 years old.

It is also known that the cenotes were later used by Mayans for sacrificial offerings.

Tulum's Role in the Mayan Empire II

At the heart of Tulum's walled area was the Castle, a pyramidal temple measuring 7.5 meters and an imposing figure that sets it apart from other buildings, including the Temple of Frescoes and the Temple of the Sun, the two most prominent.

A small sanctuary in the Castle seems to have been built later as a lighthouse. Its function was to indicate a natural entry into the coral reef by which approaching canoes could enter.

Coincidence or not, the beach in the extension of this passage takes the form of a rare cove both up and down the coast.

This small bay was endowed with the Temple of the Winds. It is believed that with the purpose of blessing navigation in an area of ​​Central America that, now as then, continues to be plagued by cyclones.

From Tulum, goods brought by sea could still be transported up the Motagua and Usumacincta/Pasión rivers. These river arteries provided additional access to the lowlands and highlands of the Yucatan and Guatemala.

The favorable configuration of the coast may have been at the base of the foundation of Tulum. Its relevance soon justified that it was endowed with the religious, ceremonial but also empirical and scientific paraphernalia that the Maya they always covered their civilization.

The Temple of the Frescoes was said to have been used as an observatory of the sun's movements. It is believed to be the reason why several figures of the sun god (Kinich Anau) appear in niches on its façade.

Painted stucco coatings suggest that the temple was, however, dedicated to the god Itzamnaaj, creator of writing, patron of the arts and sciences.

Tulum Family Beach, Mayan Ruins of the Riviera Maya, Mexico

Mayan family photographed at Praia das Ruínas, with a turquoise Caribbean Sea in the background.

Divine Monument (bathing) to the Mayan Civilization

Day after day, the complex keeps outsiders most interested in history entertained with the explanations and assumptions of Tulum's creation and existence. Visitors increase from year to year.

The view of the Temple of the Winds with the edge of the turquoise Caribbean Sea on the right is Tulum's main hallmark. It is one of the observation points that we find more crowded with people.

Thanks largely to this perspective, Tulum has become the third most popular historic attraction in Mexico, after Chichen Itza (another ancient Mayan city) and Tenochtitlan (ancient Aztec capital).

But on days with clear skies and heat like the one we had before, the ruins have a worthy rival on the beach at their foot.

The sun had already risen to its zenith and was descending towards sunset. It had fallen so little into the sky that the blue of the sea remained irresistible. Accordingly, the number of bathers in the sand continued to increase.

At the entrance to the complex, some descendants of the Maya from other times took advantage of this influx and fascination for the culture of their ancestors to earn a living:

"Señores, we invite you to your photos with the mayas. Vengan, vengan.” appealed in costumes and feather headdresses, with glittering jewelry and paintings.

Extras Mayan Gods, Tulum, Mayan Ruins of the Riviera Maya, Mexico

Mayan gods' extras pose for the photograph at the entrance to the Tulum ruins complex.

Thus, they incarnated jaguars, birds of prey and other divine figures from the rich Mayan pantheon.

Despite the exorbitant values, several passersby became customers and proudly registered their passage.

More information about Tulum and the Riviera Maya on the Visit Mexico website.

Big Zimbabwe

Great Zimbabwe, Endless Mystery

Between the 1500th and XNUMXth centuries, Bantu peoples built what became the largest medieval city in sub-Saharan Africa. From XNUMX onwards, with the passage of the first Portuguese explorers arriving from Mozambique, the city was already in decline. Its ruins, which inspired the name of the present-day Zimbabwean nation, have many unanswered questions.  
Izamal, Mexico

The Holy, Yellow and Beautiful Mexican City

Until the arrival of the Spanish conquerors, Izamal was a center of worship for the supreme Mayan god Itzamná and Kinich Kakmó, the one of the sun. Gradually, the invaders razed the various pyramids of the natives. In its place, they built a large Franciscan convent and a prolific colonial houses, with the same solar tone in which the now Catholic city shines.
Campeche, Mexico

Campeche Upon Can Pech

As was the case throughout Mexico, the conquerors arrived, saw and won. Can Pech, the Mayan village, had almost 40 inhabitants, palaces, pyramids and an exuberant urban architecture, but in 1540 there were less than 6 natives. Over the ruins, the Spaniards built Campeche, one of the most imposing colonial cities in the Americas.
luxor, Egypt

From Luxor to Thebes: Journey to Ancient Egypt

Thebes was raised as the new supreme capital of the Egyptian Empire, the seat of Amon, the God of Gods. Modern Luxor inherited the Temple of Karnak and its sumptuousness. Between one and the other flow the sacred Nile and millennia of dazzling history.
Mérida, Mexico

The Most Exuberant of Meridas

In 25 BC, the Romans founded Emerita Augusta, capital of Lusitania. The Spanish expansion generated three other Méridas in the world. Of the four, the Yucatan capital is the most colorful and lively, resplendent with Hispanic colonial heritage and multi-ethnic life.
Cobá to Pac Chen, Mexico

From the Ruins to the Mayan Homes

On the Yucatan Peninsula, the history of the second largest indigenous Mexican people is intertwined with their daily lives and merges with modernity. In Cobá, we went from the top of one of its ancient pyramids to the heart of a village of our times.
San Cristobal de Las Casas, Mexico

The Home Sweet Home of Mexican Social Conscience

Mayan, mestizo and Hispanic, Zapatista and tourist, country and cosmopolitan, San Cristobal has no hands to measure. In it, Mexican and expatriate backpacker visitors and political activists share a common ideological demand.
Campeche, Mexico

A Bingo so playful that you play with puppets

On Friday nights, a group of ladies occupy tables at Independencia Park and bet on trifles. The tiniest prizes come out to them in combinations of cats, hearts, comets, maracas and other icons.

Mexico City, Mexico

mexican soul

With more than 20 million inhabitants in a vast metropolitan area, this megalopolis marks, from its heart of zócalo, the spiritual pulse of a nation that has always been vulnerable and dramatic.

Machu Picchu, Peru

The City Lost in the Mystery of the Incas

As we wander around Machu Picchu, we find meaning in the most accepted explanations for its foundation and abandonment. But whenever the complex is closed, the ruins are left to their enigmas.
San Ignacio Mini, Argentina

The Impossible Jesuit Missions of San Ignacio Mini

In the century. In the XNUMXth century, the Jesuits expanded a religious domain in the heart of South America by converting the Guarani Indians into Jesuit missions. But the Iberian Crowns ruined the tropical utopia of the Society of Jesus.
San Cristóbal de las Casas a Campeche, Mexico

A Relay of Faith

The Catholic equivalent of Our Lady of Fátima, Our Lady of Guadalupe moves and moves Mexico. Its faithful cross the country's roads, determined to bring the proof of their faith to the patroness of the Americas.
Champoton, Mexico

Rodeo Under Sombreros

Champoton, in Campeche, hosts a fair honored by the Virgén de La Concepción. O rodeo Mexican under local sombreros reveals the elegance and skill of the region's cowboys.
Campeche, Mexico

200 Years of Playing with Luck

At the end of the XNUMXth century, the peasants surrendered to a game introduced to cool the fever of cash cards. Today, played almost only for Abuelites, lottery little more than a fun place.
Yucatan, Mexico

The End of the End of the World

The announced day passed but the End of the World insisted on not arriving. In Central America, today's Mayans watched and put up with incredulity all the hysteria surrounding their calendar.
Yucatan, Mexico

The Sidereal Murphy's Law That Doomed the Dinosaurs

Scientists studying the crater caused by a meteorite impact 66 million years ago have come to a sweeping conclusion: it happened exactly over a section of the 13% of the Earth's surface susceptible to such devastation. It is a threshold zone on the Mexican Yucatan peninsula that a whim of the evolution of species allowed us to visit.
Uxmal, Yucatan, Mexico

The Mayan Capital That Piled It Up To Collapse

The term Uxmal means built three times. In the long pre-Hispanic era of dispute in the Mayan world, the city had its heyday, corresponding to the top of the Pyramid of the Diviner at its heart. It will have been abandoned before the Spanish Conquest of the Yucatan. Its ruins are among the most intact on the Yucatan Peninsula.
Barrancas del Cobre (Copper Canyon), Chihuahua, Mexico

The Deep Mexico of the Barrancas del Cobre

Without warning, the Chihuahua highlands give way to endless ravines. Sixty million geological years have furrowed them and made them inhospitable. The Rarámuri indigenous people continue to call them home.
Creel to Los Mochis, Mexico

The Barrancas del Cobre & the CHEPE Iron Horse

The Sierra Madre Occidental's relief turned the dream into a construction nightmare that lasted six decades. In 1961, at last, the prodigious Chihuahua al Pacifico Railroad was opened. Its 643km cross some of the most dramatic scenery in Mexico.
chihuahua, Mexico

¡Ay Chihuahua !

Mexicans have adapted this expression as one of their favorite manifestations of surprise. While we wander through the capital of the homonymous state of the Northwest, we often exclaim it.
Residents walk along the trail that runs through plantations above the UP4
City
Gurué, Mozambique, Part 1

Through the Mozambican Lands of Tea

The Portuguese founded Gurué in the 1930th century and, from XNUMX onwards, flooded it with camellia sinensis the foothills of the Namuli Mountains. Later, they renamed it Vila Junqueiro, in honor of its main promoter. With the independence of Mozambique and the civil war, the town regressed. It continues to stand out for the lush green imposing mountains and teak landscapes.
Host Wezi points out something in the distance
Beaches
Cobue; Nkwichi Lodge, Mozambique

The Hidden Mozambique of the Creaking Sands

During a tour from the bottom to the top of Lake Malawi, we find ourselves on the island of Likoma, an hour by boat from Nkwichi Lodge, the solitary base of this inland coast of Mozambique. On the Mozambican side, the lake is known as Niassa. Whatever its name, there we discover some of the most stunning and unspoilt scenery in south-east Africa.
Amboseli National Park, Mount Kilimanjaro, Normatior Hill
safari
Amboseli National Park, Kenya

A Gift from the Kilimanjaro

The first European to venture into these Masai haunts was stunned by what he found. And even today, large herds of elephants and other herbivores roam the pastures irrigated by the snow of Africa's biggest mountain.
Annapurna (circuit)
Annapurna Circuit: 5th - Ngawal a BragaNepal

Towards the Nepalese Braga

We spent another morning of glorious weather discovering Ngawal. There is a short journey towards Manang, the main town on the way to the zenith of the Annapurna circuit. We stayed for Braga (Braka). The hamlet would soon prove to be one of its most unforgettable places.
Traditional houses, Bergen, Norway.
Architecture & Design
Bergen, Norway

The Great Hanseatic Port of Norway

Already populated in the early 1830th century, Bergen became the capital, monopolized northern Norwegian commerce and, until XNUMX, remained one of the largest cities in Scandinavia. Today, Oslo leads the nation. Bergen continues to stand out for its architectural, urban and historical exuberance.
Salto Angel, Rio that falls from the sky, Angel Falls, PN Canaima, Venezuela
Aventura
PN Canaima, Venezuela

Kerepakupai, Salto Angel: The River that Falls from Heaven

In 1937, Jimmy Angel landed a light aircraft on a plateau lost in the Venezuelan jungle. The American adventurer did not find gold but he conquered the baptism of the longest waterfall on the face of the Earth
Tiredness in shades of green
Ceremonies and Festivities
Suzdal, Russia

The Suzdal Cucumber Celebrations

With summer and warm weather, the Russian city of Suzdal relaxes from its ancient religious orthodoxy. The old town is also famous for having the best cucumbers in the nation. When July arrives, it turns the newly harvested into a real festival.
Riders cross the Ponte do Carmo, Pirenópolis, Goiás, Brazil
Cities
Pirenópolis, Brazil

A Polis in the South American Pyrenees

Mines of Nossa Senhora do Rosário da Meia Ponte were erected by Portuguese pioneers, in the peak of the Gold Cycle. Out of nostalgia, probably Catalan emigrants called the mountains around the Pyrenees. In 1890, already in an era of independence and countless Hellenizations of its cities, Brazilians named this colonial city Pirenópolis.
Lunch time
World Food

Gastronomy Without Borders or Prejudice

Each people, their recipes and delicacies. In certain cases, the same ones that delight entire nations repel many others. For those who travel the world, the most important ingredient is a very open mind.
Women with long hair from Huang Luo, Guangxi, China
Culture
Longsheng, China

Huang Luo: the Chinese Village of the Longest Hairs

In a multi-ethnic region covered with terraced rice paddies, the women of Huang Luo have surrendered to the same hairy obsession. They let the longest hair in the world grow, years on end, to an average length of 170 to 200 cm. Oddly enough, to keep them beautiful and shiny, they only use water and rice.
4th of July Fireworks-Seward, Alaska, United States
Sport
Seward, Alaska

The Longest 4th of July

The independence of the United States is celebrated, in Seward, Alaska, in a modest way. Even so, the 4th of July and its celebration seem to have no end.
Cable car connecting Puerto Plata to the top of PN Isabel de Torres
Traveling
Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic

The Dominican Home Silver

Puerto Plata resulted from the abandonment of La Isabela, the second attempt at a Hispanic colony in the Americas. Almost half a millennium after Columbus's landing, it inaugurated the nation's inexorable tourist phenomenon. In a lightning passage through the province, we see how the sea, the mountains, the people and the Caribbean sun keep it shining.
Coin return
Ethnic
Dawki, India

Dawki, Dawki, Bangladesh on sight

We descended from the high and mountainous lands of Meghalaya to the flats to the south and below. There, the translucent and green stream of the Dawki forms the border between India and Bangladesh. In a damp heat that we haven't felt for a long time, the river also attracts hundreds of Indians and Bangladeshis in a picturesque escape.
Got2Globe Photo Portfolio
Got2Globe Portfolio

life outside

Angra do Heroísmo, Terceira, Azores, from historic capital to World Heritage, urban art
History
Angra do Heroismo, Terceira (Azores), Azores

Heroina do Mar, from Noble People, Brave and Immortal City

Angra do Heroísmo is much more than the historic capital of the Azores, Terceira Island and, on two occasions, Portugal. 1500km from the mainland, it gained a leading role in Portuguese nationality and independence that few other cities can boast.
Torshavn, Faroe Islands, rowing
Islands
Tórshavn, Faroe Islands

Thor's Faroese Port

It has been the main settlement in the Faroe Islands since at least 850 AD, the year in which Viking settlers established a parliament there. Tórshavn remains one of the smallest capitals in Europe and the divine shelter of about a third of the Faroese population.
Correspondence verification
Winter White
Rovaniemi, Finland

From the Finnish Lapland to the Arctic. A Visit to the Land of Santa

Fed up with waiting for the bearded old man to descend down the chimney, we reverse the story. We took advantage of a trip to Finnish Lapland and passed through its furtive home.
On the Crime and Punishment trail, St. Petersburg, Russia, Vladimirskaya
Literature
Saint Petersburg, Russia

On the Trail of "Crime and Punishment"

In St. Petersburg, we cannot resist investigating the inspiration for the base characters in Fyodor Dostoevsky's most famous novel: his own pities and the miseries of certain fellow citizens.
Tibetan heights, altitude sickness, mountain prevent to treat, travel
Nature

Altitude Sickness: the Grievances of Getting Mountain Sick

When traveling, it happens that we find ourselves confronted with the lack of time to explore a place as unmissable as it is high. Medicine and previous experiences with Altitude Evil dictate that we should not risk ascending in a hurry.
Sheki, Autumn in the Caucasus, Azerbaijan, Autumn Homes
Autumn
Sheki, Azerbaijan

autumn in the caucasus

Lost among the snowy mountains that separate Europe from Asia, Sheki is one of Azerbaijan's most iconic towns. Its largely silky history includes periods of great harshness. When we visited it, autumn pastels added color to a peculiar post-Soviet and Muslim life.
Kogi, PN Tayrona, Guardians of the World, Colombia
Natural Parks
PN Tayrona, Colombia

Who Protects the Guardians of the World?

The natives of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta believe that their mission is to save the Cosmos from the “Younger Brothers”, which are us. But the real question seems to be, "Who protects them?"
improvised bank
UNESCO World Heritage
Ibo Island, Mozambique

Island of a Gone Mozambique

It was fortified in 1791 by the Portuguese who expelled the Arabs from the Quirimbas and seized their trade routes. It became the 2nd Portuguese outpost on the east coast of Africa and later the capital of the province of Cabo Delgado, Mozambique. With the end of the slave trade at the turn of the XNUMXth century and the passage from the capital to Porto Amélia, Ibo Island found itself in the fascinating backwater in which it is located.
Era Susi towed by dog, Oulanka, Finland
Characters
PN Oulanka, Finland

A Slightly Lonesome Wolf

Jukka “Era-Susi” Nordman has created one of the largest packs of sled dogs in the world. He became one of Finland's most iconic characters but remains faithful to his nickname: Wilderness Wolf.
Cabo Ledo Angola, moxixeiros
Beaches
Cape Ledo, Angola

Cape Ledo and its Bay of Joy

Just 120km south of Luanda, capricious waves of the Atlantic and cliffs crowned with moxixeiros compete for the land of musseque. The large cove is shared by foreigners surrendered to the scene and Angolan residents who have long been supported by the generous sea.
Police intervention, ultra-Orthodox Jews, Jaffa, Tel Aviv, Israel
Religion
Jaffa, Israel

Unorthodox protests

A building in Jaffa, Tel Aviv, threatened to desecrate what ultra-Orthodox Jews thought were remnants of their ancestors. And even the revelation that they were pagan tombs did not deter them from the contestation.
Executives sleep subway seat, sleep, sleep, subway, train, Tokyo, Japan
On Rails
Tokyo, Japan

Tokyo's Hypno-Passengers

Japan is served by millions of executives slaughtered with infernal work rates and sparse vacations. Every minute of respite on the way to work or home serves them for their inemuri, napping in public.
Society
Military

Defenders of Their Homelands

Even in times of peace, we detect military personnel everywhere. On duty, in cities, they fulfill routine missions that require rigor and patience.
Ditching, Alaska Fashion Life, Talkeetna
Daily life
Talkeetna, Alaska

Talkeetna's Alaska-Style Life

Once a mere mining outpost, Talkeetna rejuvenated in 1950 to serve Mt. McKinley climbers. The town is by far the most alternative and most captivating town between Anchorage and Fairbanks.
Pisteiro San in action at Torra Conservancy, Namibia
Wildlife
Palmwag, Namíbia

In Search of Rhinos

We set off from the heart of the oasis generated by the Uniab River, home to the largest number of black rhinos in southwest Africa. In the footsteps of a bushman tracker, we follow a stealthy specimen, dazzled by a setting with a Martian feel.
Full Dog Mushing
Scenic Flights
Seward, Alaska

The Alaskan Dog Mushing Summer

It's almost 30 degrees and the glaciers are melting. In Alaska, entrepreneurs have little time to get rich. Until the end of August, dog mushing cannot stop.