Mexico 2012 RV Trip - Day 33 - January 29, 2012 Mahahual - Xcalak

Lounging on the beach and a short walk on the malecon took up most of our morning into the early afternoon. We enjoyed watching a black lab and golden retriever that were chasing each other into the water then swimming around to cool off. They then raced back to shore and were off again. Race, swim, roll in the sand, repeat. It was really fun to watch. Maria’s dog hung out with us by our lounge chairs for a while. She loved getting petted, but wasn’t much for playing with the other dogs. We at least got our dog-fix for the day.
The Blue Bay is a really nice operation. They have the restaurant and cabanas that they rent. The cabanas look like they have bunk beds and a small bench – they are the small hut looking things at the back of the picture. They also have a large RV in the parking lot that they use as a rental, as well as beachside palapas and lounge chairs.
The malecon was pretty deserted – cruise ships come in Tuesday-Friday, so it is mainly local folks and some Mexican tourists the rest of the week. Just north of the Blue Bay is the Navy base. We walked by and a couple of the sailors were doing landscape maintenance and waved to us.

We met an interesting young man from Spain who was renting Blue Bay’s RV while in Mahahual. Pablo is a journalist and has been traveling throughout Mexico for about three months so far. He told us that the unemployment rate in Spain for people his age, 25-35, is about 53%, but he left his job with a good newspaper to make this trip. He is traveling with friends and will also go through Central America and hope to reach Argentina by the end of the year. Their trip will be about 13 months long or until their money runs out! They try to find work when they can and try to support themselves with their writing. They were interesting and intelligent young people concerned about the plight of the people and interested in the political climate in many of the countries. He is writing a blog,  www.dromanos.com, but it is all in Spanish, so we really have no idea what it is like! We will need to wait until we have better internet service to try translating some.

 
We really enjoyed Mahahual, but had planned to head to Xcalak (esh-ca-lack) today.

We packed up and headed south 46 miles arriving about 4pm. There are two roads heading south, the beach road,  which is on our map, and the paved road, about 10km inland, which we actually took.

We checked into scuba diving at the  XTC Dive Center. It appears to be an efficient and very professional operation, a PADI 5 Star center.  (www.xtcdivecenter.com) The center is run by a group of New Zealanders.

A local group worked with government to establish the Xcalak National Marine Park. Their purpose was to promote ecology and  save the local fishermen’s territory from being overfished. Now only local Xcalak fisherman are allowed to fish this area, thus saving their livelihood. As a bonus, the Chinchorro Banks Biosphere Reserve and Xcalak National Marine Park have seen a rebound in the variety of fishes in this area, adding to scuba divers’ enjoyment.

Xcalak is at the tip of a peninsula that borders the Caribbean Sea to the east and Chetumal Bay to the West. We are very close to Belize. Ambergris Cay is only about 4 miles across the canal!

How remote are we? Earlier in the day we stopped to check out the campground located in the middle of the map. While there was no one camping there, there was a young man eager to check us in. After we explained that we were heading south, we bid farewell. Just then we noticed him lower a “basket” made from a 2 liter coke bottle from the top of a palm tree. In the basket was his cell phone and he explained that it was the only way for him to get his text messages!
Xcalak is a small fishing village with about 400 residents. The main draw for tourists seems to be scuba diving and saltwater flats fishing in Chetumal Bay. We are camped on the “beach” road in town, looking out to the Caribbean Sea. In the

Traveler’s Guide to Mexican Camping, you are supposed to be able to camp at the Restaurant Bar Xcalak Caribe, but it is closed up and has a “For Sale” sign on it. We spoke to a couple people and they told us we could just camp on the beach road anywhere with no problems. We seem to be somewhat of a novelty as just about everyone in town has driven by to check out our rig. One car even stopped to take our picture!
There is another interesting place here – Toby’s Restaurant! They are closed on Sundays, but the owner was there when we stopped to see about having dinner. He let us use his free WIFI since there is NO CELL service here!

 
The beach here, however, is not what either of us had envisioned. There are lots of fishing boats and not much sand.There is not a single place I would want to walk along the water, which is really sad.
The primary school was really easy to spot as we drove through town. The fence was marked by these gigantic pencils. I can imagine happy children eager to pass through this fence to get to class!

GPS 18.27014°N, 87.83475°W