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After a week of exploring Belize on the most recent Discovery Tour there, I took a ride north to Quintana Roo, the southeast state of Mexico best known for the concrete nightmare of Cancún. But we weren’t headed for the malls and supermarkets of that tourist trap with its shantytowns surrounding high-rise hotels. Tom and Sue Wriley, from the Trans Caribbean Trust Co. based in Cancún, met Michelle Sedita, who helps run our Discovery Tours, and me in the state capital, Chetumal, just a short drive up from the Belize border. The real Mexico Chetumal is the opposite of Cancún: It’s a real Mexican city, charming, green, clean, and small-scale, with terrific local architecture, two universities, dozens of good cheap restaurants, many lush parks, a huge botanical garden, a romantic sea wall across from the government palace, an impressive Mayan museum, and a bustling main street where seemingly everybody on the Yucatán Peninsula comes to buy shoes—shoe stores (“zapaterias”) outnumber other businesses two to one. While not a rich town, it lacks the Dickensian slums of its cancerous neighbor to the north. Perhaps Chetumal should post on the road to town a billboard reading “Se Habla Español,” for those leery of Quintana Roo because of Cancún’s generic fakery and excess. Foolishly, I wrote off the whole state years ago. Walking the beach outside one of the hotel/condo towers up north, I looked south and saw nothing but more towers, more construction, pale Midwesterners, and chain-smoking French babes covering the sand. It was my assumption that this sprawl went all the way to Belize. It doesn’t. Look for
the coatimundi and wildcats
From the airport, you can take a taxi or rental car into Chetumal, explore the town, have a good meal, and buy 100 pairs of cheap shoes. Then follow the road our guide Tom took, Highway 307, for a look at the modern Mayan town of Bacalar, with its bizarre “Cenote Azul,” a giant jungle-surrounded sinkhole full of gorgeous clear water, and the huge Bacalar Lagoon lined with the tasteful vacation homes of Chetumal’s elite. Then head up Highway 295 and look for the Majahual turnoff. The U.S.-funded Mexican-army drug checkpoint means you are almost to the shore, a truly stunning shore. Costa Maya is protected by the same reef that thrills divers in Belize and Cozumel, meaning that beach sand stays put and the waves are minimal. Coconut palms sprout everywhere, and a bird watcher’s buffet of avian life squawks and flies all around. We saw coatimundi and small wildcats crossing the roads, while monkeys howled and chattered in the nearby jungle. Where Belizeans
go to shop
The electricity
lines haven’t yet arrived, so the Hotel Majahual Caribe—where we stayed—cranks
up the generator at sundown. I spotted a couple of adventurous young travelers
strolling the gorgeous beach as the day faded to dusk, but otherwise the
locals (mestizo and nearly pure Mayans) and half-stray dogs made up the
road’s only traffic. The pace of this area is deliciously slow. Only the
hotel’s angry black Chihuahua seemed busy, bossing the larger dogs and
angrily yipping at whatever annoyed him. That, of course, will change.
The question is how much it will change. And how long will it take?
New Competition
for Belize Tourism coming from “Costa Maya”
The Miami Herald’s Cancún edition has also been documenting the Costa Maya’s progress—or ruin, depending on your view. One fellow lodger at the Majahual Hotel was outraged to find Tom Wriley there. After learning Tom was showing us property on the beach, the young man said, “It breaks my heart to hear this. I wish you weren’t here.” He had been coming to this chunk of Costa Maya for several years and has regarded the place as his secret. 80 miles of virgin coast, the Mexican and state governments officially opened Costa Maya for development less than two years back, first selling 167 hectares of beachfront to hotel developers. Anybody buying up this gorgeous coastline is just smart. Somebody’s going to grab it up, for good or ill, and whether the southern Costa Maya turns into a foul duplicate of Cancún or a more subtle form of development, the land is likely to be worth a fortune. Right now, there are some 80 miles of mostly virgin beach on the Costa Maya, and it takes dirt-road driving to reach much of the shore. Tom and Sue’s company has already subdivided one portion, which they like to call “Coconut Beach” because they believe it sounds good to the gringos. To me, it sounds like one of those Central Florida swamp developments, and I hope the name is ignored. Otherwise, the zoning plan for this subdivision is low-density, with residential areas clearly separated from commercial lots. All those young high-tech millionaires who read National Geographic adventure tales and take $50,000 dive vacations will need a place to retire at age 40 and count their money while getting a suntan, and these people hopefully have the aesthetic sense to frown upon anything vulgar. The resorts
are coming
When we showed
up, two of the chain’s bilingual managers were giving English lessons to
the local staff. Grupo Posada, the corporate owner of the new resort and
one of Mexico’s largest chains of luxury hotels, has marked Costa Maya
as a hot spot and is spending more than $50 million on three new Quintana
Roo resorts, all in the undeveloped south. Cruise ship docks? One is already
built, and I’m told another is in progress. The Herald says these docks
are only built to accommodate smaller ships sailing from Texas, but, whether
small or large, cruise ships bring money and tourists and can rather quickly
make secret hideaways very well known. And this year Mexicana Airlines
plans to start flying to the new little airport near Majahual, cutting
a four-hour drive from Cancún to an hour’s flight. Fitting in with
the turtlesWhile the developers and agents extol the environmental riches
of this area, local environmentalists are less than enthusiastic. Remember
those sea turtles that caused such a commotion at last year’s World Trade
Organization meeting in Seattle? Xcalak, a fishing village on the southern
tip of Costa Maya, is one of the last undeveloped breeding sites for the
giant sea turtles of the Caribbean. Araceli Dominguez, president of the
Mayab Ecology Group in Cancún, told Business Week, “There has been
great anarchy in Quintana Roo’s development.”
Concepcion Molina, coastal planning director for a local ecological foundation, told Reuters last year, “We can’t possibly oppose development, because the whole coast of Quintana Roo has a clear tourist vocation... There are always ecological dangers.” But Molina acknowledged that the region—with lousy soil and over-fished waters and with no real industry except government work—has no alternative but to seek tourists and expatriates.Coastal buys from $39,000 Trans Caribbean’s prices start at $59,000 for a half-acre in the Coconut Beach zone, but there is much variation in price along the Costa Maya. Tom has beachfront properties going for about $45,000 or so and some lots across the road from the beach for as low as $39,000. Cancún Real Estate is offering similar land at similar prices. For those with more money to throw around, Trans Caribbean has 735 feet of beachfront property, facing the sea on three sides, for $470,000. And for those looking for investment property or the space to build some big project on, or simply wishing to enjoy true peace and privacy on the Caribbean, there’s a 21-acre piece of Mexico with 2,788 feet of beachfront listed at $1.8 million. Tom says his company can build a quality three-bedroom/three-bath home of about 1,800 square feet for $100,000. And while financing isn’t easy for raw land in this region, it is possible to buy the land with cash and then get a construction loan for the house. While raw beachfront and jungle property make up the vast majority of Costa Maya’s real estate offerings, there are a few existing homes for sale. Tom has a two-bedroom/two-bath ranch home on 66 feet of beachfront for $174,000, as an example. Others pop up on the Internet listings; see the Web sites on this page. Bring your
own power
That’s the
Costa Maya, in brief. We’re going to try to add a few days to the next
Belize or Mexico Discovery Tour to further investigate this very interesting
region. If such a tour sounds good to you, call Michelle or contact us
at tours@gate.net , I’m certainly planning
on going back. There’s much more to see and do, such as exploring the Mayan
ruins, diving, bicycling, kayaking through the giant lagoon, and eating
plenty of broiled lobster to keep those fishermen working.
Since the 1994
changes to Mexican property laws, foreigners can now purchase “restricted
zone” land (along the beaches and borders) by forming a Mexican corporation.
You can own and control the whole corporation and make it inactive by having
your lawyer file a dormancy request with the government.
As with any purchase of foreign property, you should get a local bilingual lawyer with good references and no financial connection to your real-estate agent or the seller. The Quintana Roo Yellow Pages, which is printed in English and found in every hotel with a phone, has the most comprehensive listing of such attorneys. Call several if you travel to Costa Maya to see properties. Costa Maya
On-line
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