A love letter to Tulum

Tulum lingers in me like a soft afterglow.

On the ride back, my mind was buzzing with gratitude—tender, quiet, expansive. I thought of warmth. Not the kind measured by temperature, but the kind that settles in your chest when life reminds you you’re still alive.

The warmth of sunlight resting on our skin as we wandered the Mayan ruins, the way it kissed the stone and threaded through time. The warmth I found inside the cenote, even as the cold water sent goosebumps rising like static. Somehow, in all that chill, my body made its own heat. That alone felt like a kind of triumph.

The cenotes were otherworldly. A kind of breathing cathedral carved by the Earth herself.

Before entering, we rinsed ourselves clean—surrendering modern traces, offering respect. It felt ritualistic, sacred. As though the Earth were asking for stillness before allowing us entry.

The plunge was transformative. Shocking and beautiful. The water didn’t just startle, it awakened, it cleansed. It held me and in its grasp, I witnessed pureness, a connection to the Earth in its most primal form, raw and untouched.

While swimming, a flicker caught the corner of my eye—a bat, sweeping across the upper reaches of the cave. I’ve always loved them, but to see one so close, in its natural rhythm, was awe in motion. I floated there, suspended between wonder and water, knowing I’d remember that moment longer than most.

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Later, at lunch, I soaked up every degree the day had to offer. Sunshine wasn’t just overhead—it was inside me. Radiating from some tucked-away part I hadn’t noticed in a while. On the ride back, I sat quietly with that feeling. The warmth of being alive. The gentle curve of time and depth. Even now, I can still feel the tingle of that particular sun, from that peculiar day.

And the ruins— I don’t think I’ve fully comprehended them yet. You walk among what once was, and what still is, and the imagination strains to fill the silence. Footsteps crunching over gravel echoed beside me, and I wondered: did they ever have to learn to walk in silence here?

There’s a kind of reflection that rises in ruins. A hunger to know more, paired with an absence of the right questions. You want to understand, but part of the understanding is accepting that you won’t.

Around a bend, high on a hill, there was a small burst of life: a cluster of plants, home to butterflies. A sacred little strip. Even the Mayans, it seems, had their own butterfly garden. I like to imagine it at night, in total stillness. Just the flutter of wings—soft, steady. The heartbeat of the ruins.