Chunchucmil: Timeless Charm of One of Yucatán’s Most Picturesque Pueblos
Despite being a town of roughly a thousand people, Chunchucmil is bursting with energy. Motorbikes and bicycles tear through the town’s few streets, even early on a Sunday morning, while locals do their best to beat each other to some cochinita pibil for breakfast.
But what really sets Chunchucmil apart from most other small towns in Yucatán is its plentiful traditional thatched-roof homes built in the Yucatec-Maya style.
While in most small towns these kinds of homes can still be spotted here and there, in Chunchucmil, they make up a majority of residences. Don Manuel says the reason these homes are still so popular in Chunchucmil is that they often suffer power outages, and unlike homes made of cement, traditional Maya homes tend to stay much cooler.
Interjecting, Don Esteban also points out that another reason is that in Chunchucmil, there are still folks who make a living from maintaining these types of homes, a trade that is lost in other pueblos.
With a gesture and to prove his point, Don Esteban points towards a home undergoing renovation of its thatched roof a couple of blocks away. Sitting on a wooden beam, a young man meticulously weaves a new roof for the house, replacing long-dried-out palm leaves with fresh ones.
Depending on the quality of the work and density of the material, a thatched roof can last from a few years to a couple of decades, according to Don Esteban, who mentions that his own roof would soon be slated for repairs.
Traditional Maya homes have several advantages, most notably their ability to stay cool even during the hottest months of the year.
One of the reasons traditional homes in Chunchumil still thrive is that, unlike in other towns, people who know how to repair them and provide maintenance have remained in the community.Photo: Carlos Rosado van der Gracht / Yucatán Magazine
Chunchucmil is rural, but does not feel as sleepy as communities even twice its size.Photo: Carlos Rosado van der Gracht / Yucatán Magazine
Just like across towns and cities across the Yucatán Peninsula, cochinita pibil for breakfast is a time-honored tradition in Chunchucmil.Photo: Carlos Rosado van der Gracht / Yucatán Magazine
The remains of ancient Maya ruins can be seen in the countryside surrounding Chunchucmil, but the ruins of the ancient city are not easily accessible.Photo: Carlos Rosado van der Gracht / Yucatán Magazine
Most of these traditional homes are of the Náh variety, built in an oval shape and framed with sturdy native hardwood poles (ideally tzalam or jabin), lashed together with vines or henequen cord. The walls are traditionally filled in with bajareque — interwoven sticks plastered with a mixture of clay, lime, and straw.
There are also a handful of homes of mampostería, built with stones and a construction style that reflects millennia of ancient techniques, as well as a dose of Spanish colonial influence.
In either case, these types of traditional homes tend to be built modularly, allowing for new constructions to be erected on a family’s plot when a son or daughter marries and wants their own house.
Kitchens are detached from the main home and often built in a semi-open fashion to allow for the circulation of air and smoke as they burn firewood collected from nearby.
Another thing that Chunchucmil really has going for it is plentiful water. The area has several cenotes and even a handful of lagoons and wells that can be dug only a few meters before reaching aquifers.
The community is also home to a Mayan archaeological site of the same name, which dates to the early pre-Classic period, well before the beginning of the current era. It is difficult for most people to reach.
In the community’s main square sits an example of what appears to be Maya revival architecture, in the form of an artificial platform that surrounds a ceiba, the most sacred of trees for the Maya.
However, while inspecting the structure, a woman accompanied by her daughter pointed out that it was, in fact, built using carved stones found at the archaeological site, which were assembled around the ceiba roughly 15 years ago. The claim seems especially plausible given that Chunchucmil is part of the municipality of Maxacanú, which at its entrance has an early Puuc-style (Oxkintok to be more specific) monument. Locals say it was also built using the idea of extracting carved stones to replicate an ancient structure.
As for Chunchucmil’s archaeological site, only a handful of structures are still discernible through the thick vegetation. However, a sacbé — an ancient Maya white road — that begins just outside town, past the graveyard, seems to extend for several kilometers, perhaps linking Chunchucmil to the ancient regional capital Oxkintok.
The community and small towns around it are also home to a large number of haciendas built during the henequen boom of the 19th and 20th centuries. These haciendas are worth checking out, though, as they are currently ruins, visitors must tread carefully.
If You Go To Chunchumil
Despite feeling a world away, getting to Chunchucmil only takes about an hour and a half by car from Mérida. The best approach is to leave Mérida via the Caucel exit from Periferico as if on the way to Celestún and then turning south at “Reten Chunchucmil”. Pass the community of Sinkehuel and then continue south, keeping an eye open for wildlife and cenotes.
To avoid tracing the same route on the way back, after your visit, head east, passing through Hacienda Kochol (certainly worth a visit) and Maxcanú, before heading north again through Cholul and Chocholá to enter Merida from the south.
Senior Editor Carlos Rosado van der Gracht is a journalist, photographer, and expedition leader. Born in Mérida, Carlos holds degrees from universities in Mexico, Canada, and Norway.
