Temple of the Wind God

A large iguana, its scales burning orange and amber, sprawls across pale sun-bleached rock in the foreground — utterly at ease, entirely in charge. Behind it, the Temple of the Wind God rises on its clifftop perch in Tulum, a compact dark structure of stepped warm stone framed by loose-limbed tall palms and low scrub in dusty green and rust. To the right, the Caribbean opens up in a band of impossible turquoise, bright against a wide sky of billowing white clouds and deep blue. The view is close and unhurried, as if you have crouched down to share the rock with the iguana and let the scene settle around you. Light falls hard and midday-warm, giving the stone a cool shadow that makes the water behind it glow even brighter.