Costa Maya: Mexico's much visited, little known tourist region

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It's a strange sight, all right. But it's eclipsed moments later by an even stranger one. Looming on the Caribbean just beyond the end of the road is the world's largest cruise ship, the Independence of the Seas, harboring a bounty of 3,811 passengers.

Thanks to cruise ships like this one, Mexico's Costa Maya (not to be confused with the Riviera Maya farther north), set along a once mostly deserted stretch of the Yucatán Peninsula, is becoming one of the most visited, albeit least known, tourist regions in the nation. In 2006, just five years after the opening of the cruise ship facility here, 850,000 passengers sailed into port. By then, the once tiny fishing village of Mahahual had exploded from 80 souls dependent on the sea, to 3,500 dependent on tourism.

The region begins about 80 miles south of Cancun and stretches from the vast Sian Ka'an Biosphere Reserve almost to the Belize border. It encompasses huge swaths of protected jungle, a number of lesser-known Maya archaeological sites, indigenous villages, pristine lagoons and top-notch diving. Plans call for low-rise, low-density development emphasizing small, eco-friendly hotels that cater to adventure seekers and cultural travelers.

South of Tulum, a lengthy stretch of almost uninterrupted resort development comes to an abrupt halt at the northern edge of the Sian Ka'an Reserve. The UNESCO World Heritage site (whose name is Maya for "where the sky is born") is a 1.3-million-acre haven of tropical forest and wetlands. It's alive with more than 300 bird species, pig-like peccaries, monkeys, puma and jaguar. It harbors turquoise lagoons where orchids and bromeliads cling to mangroves whose spiny roots grasp the earth like gnarled fingers.

Save for a few fishing lodges, Sian Ka'an isn't set up for overnight visitors. But day trips are organized by a number of tour operators, including Community Tours of Sian Ka'an, a cooperative formed in an attempt to keep profits — and residents — in the small Maya town of Muyil.

The town lies across Highway 307 from Sian Ka'an and the Muyil Archeological Zone, where hills thick with overgrowth conceal the vestiges of old Maya temples. Antonio Caamal, 29, who sports the short, muscular build and angled profile of his Maya ancestors, leads visitors up the narrow steps of the 800-year-old Pink Palace and chats about life in his tiny village.

"Most tourists who stay in the big hotels don't know there's a Maya community here," he says. "They think the Maya disappeared. They didn't. Lots of people speak Maya. You just don't hear it in the hotels and offices."

Indeed, tours to Maya villages, which dot the southern Yucatán, have become more popular in recent years with the boom in so-called cultural tourism. But Miguel Quezada, a Sian Ka'an cooperative founder, takes exception with the portrayal presented by some operators, calling them inaccurate and disrespectful.

"They'll (stage) houses with wild pigs and turkeys in them. We know we don't live like that," he says.

'Everyone needs tourism'

The 20 or so small homes in Muyil are a mix of stone, cement and traditional thatched roofs. Some sport satellite dishes. But even recently, the residents primarily raised corn, beans and squash and hunted wild game. Now, part of the village is delving further into touristic ventures with a butterfly garden and restaurant under construction.

"Everyone needs tourism. It's hard to survive if everyone works in the fields," says Alberto Cen, the cooperative's treasurer. "And if Tulum (5 miles away) becomes another Cancun, at least we can be prepared."

The tourist hub of the region is Mahahual, thanks to the Puerto Costa Maya cruise-ship facility. The port was poised to receive 1 million passengers in 2007 before Hurricane Dean delivered a Category 5 blow, destroying the town and taking the port out of commission for a year. The privately owned facility, with its swim-up bars, duty-free shops and choreographed floor shows, was conceived as a one-stop shop for the exclusive use of cruise passengers who prefer a sanitized version of Mexico.

"It's very clean. Very secure," says the port's head of marketing César Lizarraga, near where a tourist is posing for a photo with a trained monkey on his back. "You don't see them, but there are surveillance cameras everywhere."

In the town, a post-hurricane infusion of government money has spruced things up with a new 1.6-mile oceanfront promenade, underground utilities and a new lighthouse. Fresh signage keeps tourists on track, though it's tough to get lost in two-road town.

Town has two faces

Actually, Mahahual is two towns. One is a quiet Mexican seaside village. The other emerges when the cruise ships are in port and its seaside malecón fills with souvenir vendors, beachfront massage therapists, hair braiders and menu-waving waiters. Sunburned cruise passengers quaff beers at 10 a.m., and Madonna blares from a seafront hotel where desk manager Elisa Poot assures an overnight guest: "No worry. When the cruceros leave, it'll be tranquilo."

At the Costa Maya's southern reaches, die-hard divers and fly-fishing enthusiasts began trickling into the town of Xcalak in the late 1990s.

A number of small American-owned hotels have sprung up along the coast since then, but this scruffy end-of-the-road town remains largely undiscovered and tranquil. (It got electricity only four years ago.)

Offshore is a national marine park. Onshore, there's little tourist-oriented commerce other than the lodgings, a few restaurants and a dive shop or two. For visitors, nightlife probably consists of telling fish tales around the hotel bar. But the profusion of "For Sale" signs on vacant oceanfront lots on the dirt road leading north of town indicates a boom may have begun.

Seattle transplant Margo Reheis and her husband, Robert Schneider, were among the first North American residents. Schneider, an architect, built Sin Duda Villas, a small eco-friendly inn, 11 years ago. It's the sort of place where even the tightly wound can't help but relax. The most taxing doings involve kayaking, snorkeling and collecting beach debris, with an evening toast over a batch of Reheis' "Margo-ritas."

Lovely as it is, this place isn't for everyone.

"When people ask about swimming pools and air conditioning and activity programs for their children, I explain nicely that this isn't for them," Reheis says. "Some people can't survive if they can't go to the store or use a cellphone or leave the lights on."

It feels like change

The opening of Mahahual's cruise port has spawned tourist-oriented enterprises inland, as well.

At Chacchoben archaeological site, guide Luis Tellez ascends one of the stone temples and summons visitors by blowing on a conch shell, à la the ancient Maya.

The ruins, occupied from around A.D. 200 to 700, are in a peaceful park-like setting, and are recently excavated, opening to the public in 2002 shortly after the cruise ships began arriving. "This place is getting visitors, thanks to the investment happening in Costa Maya," he says.

Nearby on Laguna Bacalar, Mexico's second-largest lake, Luis Gonzales manages Los Aluxes Bacalar, a handsome lakeside restaurant and adjoining small hotel. Bacalar has long been a popular second-home spot for Mexicans, but more recently, some North Americans are moving in.

Gonzales has heard rumors of a big residential development coming to the lake, whose crystalline blue waters are known as the Lake of Seven Colors.

"You can feel how things are changing," he says.

What hasn't changed

Elsewhere on the 31-mile-long lake, owners of communally held land that in the 19th and early 20th centuries harbored settlements for loggers and chicleros (gatherers of sap for chewing gum) have, with outside investors, created a cultural/adventure tourism venue called Uchben Kah EcoPark.

Opened in December, it appears tailor-made for cruise ship excursions, but operator Javier Guillermo is hoping the attraction's appeal will exceed the day-trip crowds.

"What I like about this area is that it's different from Cozumel or Cancun or the Riviera Maya," he says, referring to the Yucatán's busy tourist centers. "It's quiet. It's not crowded. It's sustainable. If we mess with the reefs, the forest, the mangroves, our key selling point is gone."