The Riviera Maya has a lot to offer the real estate buyer. Fantastic attractions are dotted along the coast, from nature parks to fishing villages to beach clubs.

But half way down Mexico's Caribbean strip is a must-see attraction. The gem of the Tulum real estate market: the ruins of the old Mayan city, with the highest building, El Castillo dominating the skyline on a breathtaking cliff overlooking the Caribbean Sea.

Tulum was a powerful Mayan trading post and acted as a port for Coba. It was the only Mayan City on the coast. Tulum was thriving during the 13-15th century, peaking around the 14th century and still inhabited by Mayans when the Spanish invaded in the buy madden coins 16th century. By the turn of the 16th century Tulum was no longer inhabited. Certain theories suggest there was a plague or crop failure.

Tulum is the Mayan word for fence, wall or trench, but originally the city of Tulum may have been called Zama, meaning dawn. One of the first mentions of the city of Tulum was made by Juan Diaz who was on Juan de Grijalva's expedition in 1518. He wrote that they sighted mut coins a city or town so large that Seville would not have appeared bigger or better. A very tall tower was seen there too - surely a reference to El Castillo.

In 1579, in madden coins the writing of Juan de Reigosa's Las Relaciones de Yucat��n, Zama is mentioned as a walled site with stone buildings, one looked like a fortress. Another book, Informe Contra Idolorum Cultores del Obispado de Yucat��n, written in Madrid in 1639 by Pedro Sanchez de Aguilar, tells the story of shipwrecked Spaniards on the coast of Zama. The first detailed description of the ruins with detailed sketches was published by John Lloyd Stephens and Frederick Catherwood in 1843 in their popular book, Incidents of Travel in Yucatan.