The light,” I heard my wife, Jilian, say in a hushed, almost reverent tone. “It’s brilliant.” 

I stuck my head out the stone doorway, shaded my eyes, and looked up at the midday sun. In its intensity, the light shattered against the nearby Pyramid of the Magician, which rises 114 feet above the forest and was outlined by the blue sky of Yucatan. 

“Yeah,” I said, “the sun’s not only bright, it’s hot.” The temperature here in the Mayan ruins at Uxmal (pronounced oosh-MAHL) was over 90 degrees and it was humid, not even the breath of a breeze through the trees. My sweat-soaked Hawaiian shirt stuck to my skin like a wet rag. 

“No, not the sun,” Jilian said, staring into the dim chamber of the House of Turtles. 

I craned my neck to look up at a frieze of carved stone turtles that seem to march around the four sides of the small, flat-topped temple. Archeologists think the Mayans used the temple for aquatic worship.

 “I saw a flash of brilliant light,” Jilian said as she pointed. “In there. In that chamber.” 

Uh, oh, here we go again, I thought. Jilian is clairvoyant. On a recent trip to Ireland she said she saw leprechauns. She stretched her arm forward, passing her fingers through the portal into the empty chamber. I got the feeling she was reaching into another dimension, like in the movie “Stargate.” Nah, impossible.

Jilian turned back, squinted her eyes at the sun and said, “The Mayans had the ability to turn into light, to go into another dimension. The one I saw —”

“Did he, uh, she, um, it have a body?” I asked.

“No, just the light, as if he’d come from a parallel world.” She turned toward me, frowning at my skeptical expression. “The Mayans believed there was another world that ran parallel to their own, one in another dimension. They believed they knew how to travel in time.” 

Sure, like H.G. Wells and The Time Machine, I thought. But I had to give the Mayans credit. While Europeans were living through the Dark Ages, the Mayans developed an astronomical calendar, pioneered the mathematical concept of zero, and built temples that still evoke wonder in today’s traveler. 

Jilian walked toward the pyramid. I followed, passing several iguanas sunning themselves on a pile of rocks. In the pyramid’s shadow, I recalled reading that the first stage of its construction had begun in 600 A.D., followed by four more stages until it reached its present shape and height about 1050.

Ahead of me, people in brightly colored shirts scaled the steep, stone stairway. In place of these tourists, I envisioned Mayan priests in multicolored ceremonial robes and feathered headdresses, their necks adorned with jade and obsidian necklaces and—I saw Jilian wearing a white flowing robe. 

I blinked and shook my head. The image faded and I looked at Jilian beside me, who was dressed in shorts, sneakers, and a T-shirt. “Uh, this might surprise you, but I saw a . . .” I gulped and, before I could stop myself, said rapidly, “I saw a vision of you in a white robe and a feathered headdress.”

“Peacock feathers,” she said. “I always wore peacock feathers.” She took my hand in hers. “I’ve been here before, perhaps a thousand years ago, during the height of the civilization, probably 950 A.D.” 

“Do you mean you believe you’re reincarnated?”

“Yes, I was here, in Uxmal.” Eyes glazed, she added, “It was years ago when I first started having dreams about this place. I saw the different temples, the hieroglyphs, the paintings, the people — and myself. The Mayans had visions, and through the precision of their astronomical studies, they believed they could predict the future.”

Sure, like the world will come to an end on Dec. 21, 2012, I thought. I had read the guidebooks. The Mayans believed that on that date the world would begin anew. The Mayans also set the creation of the world in 3114 B.C.

I sighed, realizing that Jilian was here to fold back time, to enter another dimension. Meanwhile, I was here on a more immediate mission, to compare the ancient Mayan architecture to the modern-day resort we were staying at on the Cancun Riviera.

The Paradisus 

We had arrived at the Paradisus Riviera Cancun Resort and Spa three days earlier, after a five-hour flight from Los Angeles. The sun settled on the horizon as we stepped out of the taxi, and the open-air entryway to the Paradisus was bathed in a golden glow. Completed in December 2001, the resort is one of the newest on the Riviera Maya, a 100-mile stretch of coastline that runs from the city of Cancun to the Mayan ruins at Tulum. 

We were led past a myriad of green pools with gushing fountains. Marble floors cooled the resort’s open interior, and a pleasant tropical breeze wafted over us. Through the columns that flanked the passageways, we were treated to glimpses of the lagoon-size pool and, beyond that, the turquoise-hued Caribbean. We stopped in front of a door with the initials SR etched into a glass panel, then stepped inside an air-conditioned room with wood-paneled walls.

“Welcome to Servicio Royal, Mr. and Mrs. Millner,” an attractive young woman in a tailored dress said with a smile. She wore a silk scarf around her neck and her name tag read “Marta.” I had read that Mayan descendants number about 2 million in Mexico. It was my guess that Marta, our hostess in the Royal Service office, had a Mayan heritage.

“We are pleased to have you as our guests in the Royal Service, our boutique hotel within the hotel,” Marta said. Another receptionist came by carrying a tray of cold, scented washcloths, the perfect remedy for travel dust. “Care for a glass of champagne?” she asked. 

Well, I thought, this certainly is different from checking in at the reception desk in just any old hotel. I asked for two glasses of champagne, one for Jilian, of course. 

After we were given electronic door keys for our room—a junior suite with a private whirlpool bath—we were issued plastic wristbands. “These will designate you as Royal guests,” Marta said as she snapped the bands around our wrists. “You wear them at all times, even in the pool.” That done, she said, “Your butler will escort you to your room.”

As we stepped outside into the fading light, I whispered into Jilian’s ear, “What are we going to do with a butler?” She jabbed me in the ribs.

Soothing sea

The junior suite was a pleasant room with glass panels that opened to a terrace that looked down on the shoreline and the Caribbean. “I love the sound of the ocean,” Jilian said, breathing in the scent of the sea. 

We soon learned that the 500-room Paradisus Riviera Cancun is one of the few all-inclusive or, as its brochure says, ultra-inclusive service resorts in the Cancun area. Once guests check in and are issued wristbands, there is no need for a credit card, signing restaurant bills, or paying out money for tips. With the wristband, guests can enjoy all meals, snacks, liquor and wine, entertainment, and sports facilities. It’s like being on a cruise ship that never leaves the dock. 

The butler told us there were six restaurants, the L’Hermitage (French), Capri (Mediterranean), Sumire (Japanese), Tequila Grill (Mexican), The Caribbean Marketplace (international and local specialties), and Reef Grill (barbecue and light snacks such as pizzas and hamburgers).

After unpacking, we walked around the huge lighted pool to the Reef Grill and ate a late-evening snack of grilled lobster, then retired to the comfort of our suite, the sound of the ocean and the rumble of distant thunder soothing our weariness.

A Mayan village

The next morning, after a fresh fruit plate and Eggs Benedict at L’Hermi-tage, we lounged in beach chairs at the manmade lagoon. A semicircular bar was inset in the water, and a group of happy revelers was sitting on tile stools, water up to their waists, toasting each other with margaritas and pińa coladas. They got happier as the day went on.

Sipping from a Miami Vice (a pińa colada with stripes of strawberry liqueur), I took note of the resort’s architecture. The hotel’s brochure states: “The Paradisus Riviera Cancun recreates a princely Mayan village of narrow paths and charmingly private, three-story oceanfront bungalows.”

Surrounding the pool and lining the beach were about a hundred palapas, which are circular thatched umbrellas similar to the Mayans’ na—oval-shaped, thatched-roof homes. Near the center of the pool was a large dome supported by white pillars, which reminded me of pictures I had seen of the observatory in Chichen Itza, one of the sites on our trip itinerary. The observatory, called Caracol (a Spanish word meaning snail), was used by the Mayans to observe the stars, and it enabled priests to take note of the rising and setting of planets.

“See those columns?” Jilian said, indicating a dozen columns forming a semicircle in the water. “They’re Atlantean ruins.”

I shook my head slightly. “You mean Atlantis?” 

She paused and I could see her thinking, He isn’t going to believe this.

“I’m not going to believe this,” I confirmed.

She sucked on a lemon from her drink and made a wry face. “OK, here goes,” she said. “First, accept that there was once a powerful civilization living on the islands in the Atlantic Ocean, the biggest of which was called Poseidia. I don’t believe the island disappeared through some cataclysmic upheaval; rather I believe it was inundated by the water that rose through the melting of ice at the end of the last ice age, about 10,500 B.C.”

“Don’t tell me …” I held up one hand. “The Atlanteans, seeing the water slowly rise around their ankles, left by boat and migrated to the Yucatan Peninsula.”

“Right. To eventually become another civilization, first the Olmecs, then the Mayans, Toltecs, and Aztecs.”

I looked again at the columns rising from the water. Well, maybe . . .

Other poolside entertainment that day included a swimsuit fashion show, water aerobics, salsa dance lessons, water basketball, and several drunks falling off their tile stools. 

Jilian took a break from the sound of the sea (and the salsa music) and visited the resort’s “ReVive Spa Massage Therapy” sanctuary, one of the few items not included in the all-inclusive plan. She came back rejuvenated from a Swedish deep tissue and shiatsu therapeutic massage. I had another cooling Miami Vice.

Uxmal

After two days of this exclusive treatment we were reluctant to get into our rental car and drive to Chichen Itza and Uxmal, but relaxed knowing we had three more days at the resort when we returned. En route we decided to check out the Zona Hotelera, Cancun Isla’s hotel row. This elbow-shaped sandbar is 15 miles long and just a quarter of a mile wide, yet it squeezes in as many hotels and restaurants as Hawaii’s Waikiki Beach. We passed the pyramid-shaped Hilton Cancun and Melia Cancun, both with terraced rooms. There also was a McDonald’s, Burger King, Houlihan’s, Seńor Frog’s, Mango Tango, Outback Steakhouse, and Pat O’Brien’s.

Each day, after climbing around on the rocks at Uxmal, we retired to our cool hotel room and went to sleep listening to the raspy mating call of the iguanas, a sound which conveyed all the romance of someone rubbing a washboard with a rock. 

On our last night in Uxmal, we went to a sound and light show in the Nunnery Quadrangle, so called because the chambers of these four buildings reminded the first Spanish visitors of nun’s cloisters.
By the time we arrived, the skies had darkened and lightning could be seen in the distance. As we sat down the threatening rumble of thunder followed. A light sprinkle began and Jilian and I huddled beneath our small travel umbrella. Others in the audience, which numbered about 50, bought plastic rain jackets from a nearby vendor.

As the show began and lights illuminated the decorated facades of the buildings, I noticed effigies of Chaac, the Mayan god of rain, decorating most of the friezes in the quadrangle. “Looks like Chaac is getting his wish,” I said as rain pelted the umbrella.

The lightning came closer, thrusting jagged streaks from the heavy clouds. Thunder rattled the spindly fold-up chairs we sat on as we watched the show. Nature’s heavenly show seemed to be in harmony with the flashing, multicolored lights. The shadows created by the pulsating lights, both electronic and natural, seemed to create human-like images in the archways of the buildings.
I leaned in closer to Jilian, watching her view the spectacle.

“See any old friends?” I asked.

She looked at me and grinned.