Miles of joy on Mexico's coast with the most: The discovery of another lost Mayan city makes the Yucatan Peninsula even more enticing Mark Palmer explores the Caribbean side of the Yucatan Peninsula 'It strikes me as a Las Vegas-on-Sea experience with a pinch of Dubai thrown in' READ MORE: My stay at the 'best hotel in Wales' for 2024 By MARK PALMER FOR THE MAIL ON SUNDAY Published: 08:35 GMT, 10 November 2024 | Updated: 08:39 GMT, 10 November 2024 e-mail View comments The Mayans believed in many gods. They were also highly literate, architecturally advanced and developed a system of mathematics that included one of the earliest examples of zero. Today, in their former Yucatan heartland – and especially along the Caribbean coast near Mexico ’s heaving Cancun – the worship is focused on one thing and one lucrative thing only: tourism.
The maths is all about the bottom line. Most of the architecture isn’t exactly subtle, but what an extraordinary stretch of coast it is, going on and on for nearly 100 miles, punctuated by huge hotels, mainly all-inclusive, sunk into powdery white sand. It strikes me as a Las Vegas-on-Sea experience with a pinch of Dubai thrown in.
And what makes the whole confection so extraordinary is that, until the 1970s, the iguanas, egrets and herons pretty much had the place to themselves. My first stop is the all-inclusive Grand Palladium Costa Mujeres Resort & Spa, about half an hour north of Cancun. Actually, it is three hotels – one just for .