Santa Rosa Xtampak Archaeological Zone

Santa Rosa Xtampak was the dominant power of the Chenes region and spreads across a hilltop with more than a hundred recorded structures, making it by far the largest site in this part of Campeche even though only a portion has been cleared and restored. Its standout building, El Palacio, rises three stories and is entered through an interior spiral staircase, an engineering solution with almost no parallel anywhere else in the Maya area and one that hints at building techniques still not fully understood. Carved Chenes facades appear on several structures around the site, along with a ballcourt and, notably, an extensive system of chultunes, bottle-shaped cisterns cut into the bedrock to capture and store rainwater, evidence of how a major city sustained itself on a plain with no rivers, lakes or cenotes nearby. A full visit takes ninety minutes to two hours given the site's spread-out layout. The hilltop setting offers little shade, and by midday in the dry season the exposed plazas become very hot, so a morning visit is strongly preferable both for comfort and for the cooler conditions needed to comfortably climb El Palacio's interior stairs.