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While Maya civilization no longer exists today in its original culture, many of its traditions and lifestyles are still being practised today by descendants of a people who have gone to great pains to ensure that their history and environment are safeguarded against onslaught of modernization and expansion.

The Maya have shown skills in writing, astronomy, and mathematics, and have devised one of most accurate calendar system up to this day. They settled in area known as Mundo Maya: Yucatan. Campeche, Quintana Roo, part of Tabasco, and Chiapas, in current countries of Belize and Guatemala, and western part of El Salvador and Honduras. (Opening Photo: View of La Peninsula restaurant and palapas in solarium area at Xcaret theme park.)

The Maya of Quintana Roo left an impressive legacy, which included art and architecture, proof of which are imposing pyramids in forest of Dzibanche and Coba, site of tallest pre-Hispanic building in north of Yucatan Peninsula and temples of Tulum, on shores of Caribbean.

The Preclassic period (500 BC-250 AD) saw emergence in Quintana Roo of ceremonial centers of Coba, Dzibanche, and Kohunlich, which also florished during Classic period (250 AD-1000 AD). During this period, in south of state as a result of use of wells, irrigation, and raised fields to increase agricultural production, cities of Kohunlich, Oxtankah, Chakanbakan, and Dzibanche, and surrounding villages eventually housed over one million inhabitants.

Quintana Roo is gateway to Mayan World. The major archaelogical sites in this region inclulde Chichen Itza, Uxmal (Yucatan), Calakmul (Campeche), Palenque (Chiapas). Tikal (Guatemala) Lamanai (Belize), and Copan (Honduras).

The Maya have preserved a deep respect for nature and their ancestors. They live in small rural communities and have maintained age-old customs, such as cultivation of milpa or plot of land where they grow maize.

Coba was once inhabited continuously for over 1,000 years. Surrounded by five large lakes, only ones in Norhern Yucatan, researchers think Coba was largest concentration of humanity in pre-Hispanic America, containing at one time over 100,000 inhabitants. Excavations have been going on for over three decades with a discovery estimated at uncovering some 20 percent of city.

Whether solitary temples, modest villas or sprawling cities, all Maya structures have one thing in common; they all are set high up, triumphant over their surroundings, as this is regarded as an instinctive position. As a vantage point, pyramids become essence of Mayan architecture.

There is probably no other place in world where pyramidical structures are used as extensively and deliberately as in Cancun. In Cancun's case, identification is of a visual nature. Emphasis lies on slanted angles reminiscent of pyramids, not in their reproduction. No structure in Cancun even resembles classic description of a Maya-built pyramid.

Still evident today are straw huts and palaces crowned by thatched roofs. Unchanged for over 2,000 years, straw hut is rectangular with rounded extremities. Walls are made using sticks covered in mud or plain stone, and serve to support structure for a steep double incline roof made of straw.

The frame of these buildings is prototype of Mayan edifices. These people reproduced design of their humble dwellings in stone, greatly refining esthetics in process, and up to today straw huts are almost an identical to those built in first century.

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I call them "light zones" — areas in world displaying sunshine in powerful and rarified splinters of sheen, effusing plant leaves and tree bark with dancing fluid colors for just a moment, and it can not be photographed truly but only scratches a quick sketch across retina before banked in mind's memory and then there is a rapid change, squeezing light in another direction and in a different spectrum.

While hiking in rainforests of Kenai klieg barn doors opened a filter of red light lensed through a smoking volcano across Turn Again Bay. The light in Hawaii is an interchange of power and vision, afterall, light is nature's fastest moving force, so you have to be alert to catch it bouncing off tips of elephant grass and skin of Kuhio trees. In trade winds head-high elephant grass sparkles and waves, as if tules were shot into ground by light itself.

Light in Caribbean oozes. You have time to grasp it. It is not always as colorful as in Pacific. It is brighter. It is more golden. Ian Fleming named his home in Jamaica Golden Eye because sun sets on yachting lagoon and when viewed from Oracabessa (Golden Head in Spanish), a hill above lagoon, it does look like an unblinking golden pupil.

The indigenous Arawak were first to arrive in Barbados from South America. I wish I knew Arawak description of light that they saw, but their language went extinct with tribe. When first British arrived in 1627, just a mile down coast from Glitter Bay at present day Holetown, there were no natives around whatsoever. Give British credit for navigating first to best beaches.

The Glitter Bay site was named at turn-of-the-18th-century by prominent Barbados businessman, George Manning. In 1930s property was acquired by Sir Edward Cunard, a member of famous shipping family, and nephew of renowned London hostess, Lady "Emerald" Cunard.

George built Great House that is now part of grand Fairmont Hotel resort at Glitter Bay in St. James Parish. He played host to celebrities and members of British aristocracy in that halcyon era between wars, including late Ronald Tree, grandson of Chicago tycoon Marshall Hall, and Cunard was Winston Churchill's frequent wartime host. Ronald Tree rented Glitter Bay for a holiday from Cunard family in 1946 and later went on to develop Sandy Lane Hotel just around corner.

Together Tree and Cunard made Glitter Bay a byword for refined relaxation on winter holidays. Their friends strolled through acres of landscaped gardens aflame with tropical flowers like bougainvillea and air-scenting lilies, shaded by royal palms. You can now stay in beautiful Beach House modeled on Cunard family palazzo in Venice, Italy. All is still quiet grandeur reflecting "glitter" of a bygone genteel society.

The two resorts at Glitter Bay recapture that style of gracious living. The gardens have flourished. The magnificent Beach House suites are named after former Cunard guests — Sir Edward, Lady Emerald, Clarence, Marquis. The Great House still stands and today houses reception and concierge areas, gym, and administration offices.

The first hotel on West Coast of Barbados was Miramar Hotel, built in 1940s. The original hotel was only 12 rooms in what today is home to Palm Terrace Restaurant and administrative offices at newer and renovated Fairmont property, Royal Pavilion.