All the Shades of Blue

In the past few days, we visited an underground river, the lake of 7 colors, and a small 2-street town in the clear green Caribbean waters.

To understand this area better, it’s helpful to know some history. About 65 million years ago, a giant asteroid (named Chicxulub) hit the earth near where we’ve been traveling and created an impact crater.

The impact also caused cave ceilings to fall through, which is why this area has so many cenotes (sinkholes). The impact killed all the dinosaurs, most vegetation, and most sea life, paving the way for human beings to survive.

It all happened RIGHT HERE. Is that not freaking fantastic?

Anyway, Akumal has an underground river system called, “Sac Actun,” which spans hundreds of miles. Imagine that! We chose to visit the site called Pet Cemetery.

Our guide, Luis, was a Mayan who spoke English very well and took the two of us on a tour through a portion of Sac Actun.

Luis joked that the price we paid included the spa-like effects on our skin, which maybe wasn’t such a joke after all.

We jumped into the water with our snorkel gear and headed into the cave.

The numerous turns inside the cave required a guide. In some of the areas, the stalactites hung cramped together and we had to make sure not to swim into them, which was difficult because we were busy admiring the underwater view.

I took pictures with a cell phone in a waterproof bag. What we saw in life was magnificent.

(National Geographic had recently traveled through the river system and I’m thinking they got some good pictures.)

Darkness permeated many parts of the cave and we simply followed the light of our guide.

We stopped in a wide room where many bones of animals (mammoths, sloths, tapirs, anteaters etc.) had been extracted. There must have been a natural phenomenon that caused the animals to get swept into that area, hence the name “Pet Cemetery.”

On the ceiling were fossilized seashells, and even a fossilized conch shell. If we looked really closely at parts of the low ceiling, very thin strands of what looked like thread were hanging.

Those were the beginnings of a stalactite. One human touch and it would shrivel up, never to form. But left alone for millions of years, the strand would become a stalactite.

All too soon (about an hour), we circled back around to the entrance of the cave. 

We could stay at the mouth of the cave as long as we wanted. We floated around, splashed, and fought the urge to go back in and explore on our own.

Back at the top, Luis showed us the fruit trees they’d planted nearby. He was Mayan descent and taught us some Mayan words.

That night back at our hostel we stayed up and chatted with the worker who ran the place, also a Mayan. He’d worked with the hostel, owned by an American, for 10 years.

The owner, a fisherman, drove back and forth from Mexico to the US for the past 30 years. When he bought the place, he was the first gringo to do so in the entire city and everyone thought he was crazy, dubbing him with the name, “Pepe Loco.”

The worker told us Pepe’s living quarters upstairs had a bar, swimming pool, and jacuzzi. The walls were built with seashells and it was nothing short of a small palace. People no longer thought he was crazy.

It was also the night of Hurricane Patricia. We figured if things were devastated by the hurricane, we would go help. But they were well prepared and the damage was reportedly under control so we headed onward.

Bacalar, Mexico

In the next town of Bacalar, we discovered a clear lake nicknamed the lake of 7 colors for its shades of blue/green. We arrived in the small town and found the Green Monkey Hostel, owned by a Mexican woman with 5 dogs on the property.

She spoke no English and stayed mostly in the background, buying groceries for the hostel’s breakfasts, folding laundry, and watering her plants.

I often wonder what it would be like to open your home to so many strangers and never even know their names. I wonder how many of her guests even knew she was the owner.

The hostel was run by an Argentinian (I think) guy who reeked of B.O. and a thin Catalonian woman who waved her fully grown armpit hair proudly. Our accommodations for the night were on a converted school bus with 7 bunk beds in it.

There were also options to camp, which we did the following two nights.

Twice a day daily, a man would drive in on a scooter with a cooler attached to his bike and offer coconut water for sale. The dogs ran up and happily greeted him as he reached in his cooler to give them coconut pieces.

During the evenings, the owner would walk to the store and the dogs would follow. In Mexico, dogs are generally unleashed. She would leave them in the street while she ran errands and they wandered, playing with other dogs. One was digging in a pile of trash when she called to him and he sprinted over to her with his tail wagging as he fell into stride.

Down the street was a restaurant overlooking the lake and a pier that extended out. We spent a lot of time at that pier.

As far as the lake was concerned, it certainly lived up to its nickname. The water was as clear and green as the Caribbean Ocean. The sand was white, very odd for a lake, and I didn’t believe it was a lake until I personally jumped in and tasted the lack of salt for myself.

Near Bacalar (8 km away) was Cenote Azul, the second largest cenote in all of Mexico. Here is an aerial view of it. With an entrance fee of less than $1, we swam in it and explored the mangroves on the side.

After a short visit to this cenote, we returned to Laguna Bacalar. The lake was so novel and pristine, I could easily believe it was an enchanted place if I believed in those sorts of things.

At the hostel, we sat on the porch and chatted with some Brits and a guy riding down on his motorcycle from Colorado. The cool breeze felt nice and off in the nearby verandah, some hippies played the guitar and sang while another had her dreadlocks shaved off. It felt a bit surreal.

The mosquitos were a bit of a nuisance by the lake. They ate us alive from dusk until high noon. After a third night dodging them and waking up to more bites, we left a day early and headed to nearby Mahahual.

Mahahual, Mexico

Mahahual was a dusty 2-street town where everyone sat idly by waiting for the cruise ship to appear every week (every other day during the high season). Taxi drivers showed up in the morning for fares that weren’t coming, congregating in groups until night fell.

People waited in front of hotels and restaurants for patrons, quickly listing off menu items and accommodations until you were out of earshot. The desperation hung heavy and thick in the air. You wouldn’t notice if you weren’t paying attention since they employed the same sales tactics of resort areas like Cancun or Mazatlan.

We stayed at the first “hotel” we inquired with because the old man really seemed like he needed it. Turns out he was just jonesing for some booze since he was drunk every day thereafter.

One day, we heard loud water spilling from outside our window. Thinking it was a cracked pipe, we quickly alerted the woman who also ran the place. The old man had left the upstairs sink on and the woman berated him for it. He was drunk. But none of that affected us too much.

We went snorkeling in the clear ocean on a calm, sunny day. The water was fairly shallow and visibility fairly murky. About 100 yards out, we found ourselves army crawling on a bank that eventually got so shallow, we were like beached whales.

Finally, we rolled over on our backs laughing in defeat, stood up, and walked until it became deep enough to swim again. There were many conches, sand dollars, and sea urchins in the water. I dove to grab what I thought was a conch but was an octopus that darted away.

Beachfront seating was plentiful. The appeal of Mahahual was getting the scenery and accommodations of a resort area without all the congestion.

I began to feel under the weather but couldn’t have asked for a better place. I lazed on the beach with the salt air blowing. We spent the evening watching a harvest moon rise from behind the ocean until it was high up in the sky.