Cancún
Cancún (Spanish pronunciation: [kaŋˈkun] ), often rendered Cancun in English (without the accent; /kænˈkuːn/ or /kɑːn-/),[4] is a city in southeast Mexico on the northeast coast of the Yucatán Peninsula in the Mexican state of Quintana Roo. It is a significant tourist destination in Mexico[5] and the seat of the municipality of Benito Juárez. The city is on the Caribbean Sea and is one of Mexico's easternmost points.
Cancún is just north of Mexico's Caribbean coast resort area known as the Riviera Maya.
Etymology and coat of arms[edit]
According to early Spanish sources, the island of Cancún was originally known to its Maya inhabitants as Nizuc (Yucatec Maya: niʔ suʔuk), meaning either 'promontory' or 'point of grass'.[6]
The name Cancún, Cancum or Cankun first appears on 18th-century maps.[7] In older English-language documents, the city's name is sometimes spelled Cancoon, an attempt to convey the sound of the name.[8]
Cancún is derived from the Mayan name kàan kun, composed of kàan 'snake' and the verb kum ~ kun 'to swell, overfill'.[9] Two translations have been suggested: the first is 'nest of snakes' and the second, less accepted one is 'place of the golden snake'.[10] Snake iconography was prevalent at the pre-Columbian site of Nizuc.[6]
The shield of the municipality of Benito Juárez, which represents the city of Cancún, was designed by the Mexican-American artist Joe Vera.[11]
It is divided into three parts: the color blue symbolizes the Caribbean Sea, the yellow the sand and the red the sun with its rays.
Attractions[edit]
Old Airport Control Tower Memorial[edit]
Despite being a young city, Cancún has a memorial monument of its foundation on a replica of the old Airport Control Tower that resembles to its own date of foundation. The original control tower was a provisional wooden structure, the work of Mexican architects Agustín and Enrique Landa Verdugo.[36]
The old airport was located on the same part of the city that today corresponds to the Kabah Avenue. The tower is 15 meters tall, has a 45 step staircase and has a base dimension of 5 × 5 meters. The memorial was first built in 2002 with a donation by Aerocaribe, a local airline, but the structure was damaged after Hurricane Wilma in 2005. After pleas by the local people to rebuild the tower memorial, a new version was erected in 2010, which was later abandoned without proper maintenance until Woox Pinturas, a local wood maintenance company, made a donation to restore the structure to its original appearance.[37]
El Ceviche Fountain[edit]
The real name of this monument is "Caribbean Fantasy", located in the heart of downtown Cancun, between the Coba and Tulum avenues intersection. It is the nerve center of the daily urban traffic of the city. It has witnessed multiple social and political events, undergoing constant repairs and remodeling for years.
Six years after Quintana Roo was recognized as the youngest state in the Mexican Republic and barely a decade after the city of Cancun was born, on October 22 and 23, 1981, the North-South Summit was held at the now defunct Sheraton Hotel. Two abstract pillars made of metal crossbeams gave the structure a stepped pyramidal appearance, with small masts displaying the flags of the countries attending the 1981 North-South Summit. The author, Lorraine Pinto, added details representing Quetzalcoatl on the sides, resembling the pyramid of Chichen-Itza, located in Yucatan.
In 1994, the municipal authorities of Cancun decided to demolish the commemorative structure because the city had been the scene of one of the most devastating climatic-environmental phenomena in the history of the Yucatan Peninsula, Hurricane Gilberto. The sculpture was irreversibly affected, leaving only the solid concrete base and the metal skeleton.
Due to its crosswise and bare appearance, the locals began to call it "Insectronic", a device manufactured by the Steren company to kill flies and mosquitoes. The municipal authorities decided to keep its base and the dynamics of the water fountain.
Once again, Lorraine Pinto was on call to create what locals began to call the Ceviche Fountain or the Ceviche Roundabout.
