Xcaret

Xcaret is the oldest and best-known of the commercial parks on the Riviera Maya, set on a small Caribbean inlet at km 282 of Highway 307, about 5 km south of Playa del Carmen and some 75 km south of Cancún. The name means "small inlet" in Maya. The park covers roughly 80 hectares of coast and low jungle, and opened in December 1990 after architect Miguel Quintana Pali bought the land in 1984 and went into partnership with the Constandse brothers; it became the seed of what is now Grupo Xcaret, which runs Xplor, Xenses and other parks nearby.

Long before the park, this was Polé (P'olé), a Maya harbour and trading town. INAH dates its first occupation to around the start of the Common Era, with most of the standing buildings from the Postclassic (roughly 1200–1550 AD). Polé was the port where pilgrims embarked for the sanctuary of the goddess Ixchel on Cozumel, and it sat on a coastal trade route that reached as far as Honduras. A wall separated the main building groups from the sea. Spanish documents record Francisco de Montejo passing through in 1528, and a small 16th-century chapel was built here; its walls still stand, and excavations in it recovered over a hundred burials. The ruins were brought to wider attention by the Spinden and Mason expedition of 1926. Several of these structures, small temples and shrines with traces of stucco and paint, now stand inside the park grounds.

A day at Xcaret is long and busy. Swimming and floating through underground rivers cut into the limestone is the signature activity, alongside a coral-reef aquarium, a manatee lagoon, a sea-turtle area, an aviary, orchid and bromeliad greenhouses, a jaguar island and what the park describes as Mexico's first butterfly house. In the evening the large-scale show Xcaret México Espectacular runs through pre-Hispanic Mexico, including a re-created ballgame, and then regional dances from around the country. The park also stages the Travesía Sagrada Maya, which re-creates the old Maya crossing from Polé to Cozumel.

This is a private, ticketed park with prices to match, and most visitors buy online in advance (it is cheaper than at the gate). Plan for a full day if you want to stay for the evening show.