‘Yes, you can make it here with two-wheel drive. In just two hours from Tulum you will be in paradise!’

I could feel the enthusiasm in Juan’s email. The owner, with his wife Marta, of Hotel Las Palapas had assured us our rental car would handle the dirt road that travels through the Sian Ka’an Biosphere Reserve between Tulum and Punta Allen. In person, Juan was just as enthusiastic as I pictured him. He was also funny, friendly, and, as it turned out, wildly optimistic. Two hours seemed like more than enough time to drive the thirty-five mile stretch. But one does not drive this road in a singular direction – due to the profusion of potholes, we had to zig and zag it’s entire length – and only arrived at Juan and Marta’s place after three hours of painfully slow driving.

Punta Allen has that end-of-the-earth feeling, perhaps because it fits the description as well as anywhere else we’ve been. Located at the southern end of the finger of land that sits between the Biosphere Reserve and the Caribbean Sea, Punta Allen has a grid of clay and limestone lanes (as pot-holed as the access road) covering about three square blocks, a handful of restaurants looking over the water, about as many guesthouses and fishing lodges . . . and not much else. Some folks come as a day trip from Tulum, stay a night, take a boat tour of the lagoons and the offshore reef in the morning, then head back to ‘civilization’ (if foul-smelling, over-developed and crumbling Tulum can be called that). We chose to spend three full days here, hoping we could fill our time paddling, snorkeling and swimming. The constant wind took paddling off the table. The profusion of sargassum (a problem all along the Caribbean coast of the Yucatan this time of year) kept us from snorkeling and swimming off the beach. We did make the three-and-a-half mile roundtrip walk out to the lighthouse on the point (punta), found some palm trees to hang our hammocks a couple afternoons, and dined in most of the restaurants. On our final day we had Juan organize a boat trip for us. We were taken to the community dock on the bay, met our captain and headed out onto the water. It was a stunning day (other than the stiff breeze) – the sun shone brightly, large puffy cumulus clouds dotted the horizon and the water offered a palate of blue colors. If we’re lucky, our captain said, we might see manatees, dolphins and turtles during our trip. He patrolled the bay for several minutes and then circled around just as a manatee surfaced for a breath. ‘Manatee. Check!’ Heather said to him with a huge smile on her face. Then we left the bay and headed into the open sea. Soon Heather was able to turn to him again – ‘Dolphins. Check!’ Minutes later we spotted the first of three turtles as it swam just below the surface – ‘Turtle. Check!’ With that we had fulfilled the tours promise, but we still had a snorkeling stop out on the reef to fill out the morning. While the reef didn’t offer much in the way of colorful coral or large numbers of fish, the appearance of a couple manatees certainly made the snorkeling fun. After returning to the boat, we motored into shallower water for another swim before returning to the dock. It was an epic trip, topped off with another delicious fish dinner at one of the waterfront restaurants back in town.

Continuing our trip down the Costa Maya, we arrived in the small town of Mahahual, where we had planned on a three-day stay. The town runs about five blocks along the shore, fronted by a paved malecon (promenade) lined with small gift shops, dive operators and restaurants, whose tables spill out onto the white-sand beach right down to the clear waters of the sea. A reef just offshore keeps the waters calm for swimming and offers a chance for snorkeling. To the north and south of town a packed-dirt road runs for thirty miles in both directions, with nothing but an occasional house to break up long stretches of deserted beach, palms, sea grape and mangroves. Back in town there’s a cruise ship port, which has been idle for the past year. Many businesses are doing okay, dependent on the increased visitation by Mexican tourists. But we noticed a lot of empty stalls where vendors would normally have been hawking all the kitsch, t-shirts and shell necklaces to the cruise shippers.

We were happy to spend our days snorkeling, strolling the promenade, driving the deserted roads along the coastline and feasting on the creative tacos and tostados offered by our favorite Mahahual restaurant – La Chilangoloense. Night after night we returned here for the tasty margaritas, impressive variety of seafood tacos and tostados, the friendly service of the staff and the toes-in-the-sand setting on the beach. Outside of the weekends Mahahual gives one the sense of what this former fishing village might have been like years ago – by nightfall at 7 pm the streets were empty, the vendors had all gone home and most restaurants along the beach were closed for the night.

Some of the tasty tacos – and a shrimp burger – at La Chilangoloense

After a week in Mahahual, it’s time to leave the coast and head inland and across the Yucatan peninsula. Ahead over the next couple weeks lies the lake and cenotes of Bacalar, the Mayan ruins at Calakmul in the jungle of the interior and the colonial city of Campeche, overlooking the Gulf of Mexico.