More from Isla Mujeres, Mexico

As I said in my previous post, our last two full days in Isla Mujeres were action packed. Here are some photo highlights (click for full-size views):

On Friday afternoon, we took a boat trip with our friend Ariel and his wife Rosi aboard their boat Sol Zorro. They picked us up at the Ballyhoo pier and motored us around the bay and lagoon for an hour to check out possible anchorages for next spring when we sail Whispering Jesse down from Savannah. Here we are approaching the new house at Sac Bajo, where there is a cut between the bay islands and the sea. The old house was destroyed by Hurricane Wilma in 2005.

Nan, Ariel and Rosi cruising through the bay toward Sac Bajo. The bay anchorage is in the background. The sailboat visible in the distance is in a perfect location, anchored between the shallow central area of the bay and one of the mangrove-flanked bay islands. The snorkeling there would be very good.

Our friend Wbeymar, the owner of Brisas Grill, motored past aboard his new boat Lizardo while we were in Laguna Macax. He was on his way to the Villa Vera fuel dock after chartering a morning whale shark trip.

A water-side view of El Milagro marina, showing the pier, the beach and the palapa-covered office/bar. There are no finger piers, so most of the boats are slipped stern-to. This would be a minor disadvantage for us since we have a solid stern pulpit with gates on either beam at the forward edge of the cockpit. I might be able to figure out a long gangplank that we could mount at an angle so we wouldn't need to climb over the pulpit--easier for us and easier for Scout.

A water-side view of Brisas Grill, where our friend Juan Gomez works as a waiter. The restaurant is wide open in front and back, allowing cool breezes, as the name "Brisas" implies, to blow through. The outdoor seating is a great place to sip a drink and watch the sun go down.

A street-side view of El Milagro marina, taken from the island's main drag, Rueda Medina. It doesn't look like much from this angle but there are all kinds of nice amenities between the large, hangar-like building and the pier. Nan and I appreciate that there is a security gate, and also a small tienda, located on the other side of the Coke truck, for quick food and beverage purchases if we don't want to take the easy walk or bike ride to downtown.

Erika and Mike took a day from their vacation in Playa del Carmen to visit us on Saturday, before we left the following day. We rented a golf cart and showed them Isla Mujeres's many sights. Here they are at Punta Sur, the island's southernmost point, looking east across the turquoise Caribbean Sea. Mike will be my first mate when we sail down from Savannah next spring.

Our final sunset of the trip, taken from the balcony of our Color de Verano penthouse apartment. The turnaround at the end of Rueda Medina and the fishermen's memorial statue are visible below. Our favorite beach is located right across the street. Nan and I enjoyed our trip so much that we're already thinking of trying to squeeze in another quick week before the sailing trip next spring. Dream on!

New Year's Eve in Isla Mujeres

Nan and I are just back from another trip to Isla Mujeres, our tenth in fourteen years. Usually, we go in the spring, after the ski season is over, or in the fall if we went somewhere else in the spring, but we had never been there around the holidays before.

The first thing we noticed was how busy the island seemed. In the spring and fall, most of the tourists are Americans, Canadians and Europeans, but most of the tourists we saw were Mexicans. They packed the beaches, the streets and the restaurants. It was good to see them vacationing in one of their own resort areas, and the island appeared to be prospering as a result. There were new shops and restaurants, and a new Walmart-type store, Chedraui, that carries just about everything. Our local friend, Juan Gomez, who lives in one of the mid-island colonias near the new store, told us he goes there almost every day. No more shopping trips to Cancun for those difficult-to-find items!

There were no vacancies at Color de Verano, where we normally stay, so we spent five nights at Elements of the Island and two nights at Ixchel Beach Hotel. Elements is a little three-unit boutique hotel and cafe in the Centro recently purchased by French Canadians, Madjid and Jean. Ixchel is one of the big new luxury hotels on Playa Norte. Both were fine, though very different in their levels of accommodation. Color de Verano will always be our first choice.

Most mornings, we went for long walks either around the north end of the island or south along the street that fronts Playa Sol, as far as the Soggy Peso bar. One morning, we visited Isla Animals, the local dog rescue facility, to play with the puppies. There were probably close to thirty of them, ranging in age from about eight weeks to four months, chasing each other around the yard and falling asleep in spontaneous piles.

We rented a golf cart for only one day because of the holiday premium rates, and we used it to check out the marinas a little more closely than during our last visit. If plans work out, we will sail Whispering Jesse, our 1980 Valiant 40, down to Isla Mujeres in the fall of 2013, and we will want to keep it somewhere safe. Puerto Isla Mujeres would still be our first choice. It has reasonable rates, the nicest facilities and a security gate at the entrance. We also checked out Enrique Lima's Marina, which has the advantage of being downtown instead of further south in Laguna Macax. If we spend any time swinging on an anchor in Isla's large bay, a downtown marina would be handy to use for its dinghy dock.

On other days, we used the ubiquitous red taxis to get around the island, taking one to Teresa and Louis's house one afternoon to check out the progress Louis is making on his sailboat refit project. In addition to fixing some of the inherited damage, he has designed and built some ingenious interior features, like a beautiful Mexican teak table that folds down and out from a forward bulkhead. We look forward to forming a sailing flotilla with the two of them once we get our own boat down there.

The highlight of our trip was the time we spent with Juan and his family. We met Juan, his wife Paula and his daughter Paulina in the plaza downtown for New Year's Eve, which the island goes all out for. There was a huge stage set up in front of the Palacio Municipal. The plaza in front of the stage was filled with formal tables featuring flowers and white tablecloths, which were all reserved, so we sat on the steps of the Catholic church to watch the festivities, along with hundreds of other people. The entire area was packed.

According to my watch, midnight came and went, but the announcements from the stage went on for another couple of minutes before the countdown to the New Year. Confetti and streamers filled the air and fireworks blazed overhead. People cheered, hugged and kissed. And then the band started up. We made our way closer to the stage, where people were dancing. Nan and Juan's family joined in but I hung back and watched the band. It featured at least nine players, all doing a synchronized dance to their Latin music, which featured a brass section and was oh so loud. They kept up a constant medley of songs, with no breaks in between, and worked up enough of a sweat, despite the chilly night, that they were peeling off layers of their band costumes and flinging them aside. By one o'clock, our ears were buzzing and we were ready to go. Nan and I walked Juan and his family to a taxi stand and then walked back to our hotel. We found out later from Juan that there was a party in his neighborhood when they returned home, and they didn't get to bed until six in the morning. ¡Muchas cervezas!

On our last afternoon, we took a taxi to Juan's house for a late lunch of guacamole, ceviche and chicken with mole sauce. Paula and son Manolo were there, along with Dookie and Muñeca, two of their three Chihuahuas, who were wearing tiny t-shirts to stay warm. Over the course of the afternoon, family came and went, including Paulina, other son Juan Jr., Paula's twin sisters, and nephews Daniel and Paul. We struggled to communicate with everybody using our limited Spanish until we were mentally exhausted. Juan gave us Christmas gifts: a bottle of Mexican tequila that I'm sure isn't available in the U.S. and a Sol baseball cap that is probably also unavailable here. It was all over much too quickly, both the afternoon and the vacation in Isla Mujeres. We told Juan we would try to return in September or October. Until then:

¡Feliz y Prospero Año Nuevo!

Louis's new sailboat

While we were in Isla Mujeres, Teresa and Louis, the wonderful couple who own and manage the Color de Verano apartments where we always stay, mentioned that Louis had just bought a fixer-upper sailboat. It had been moldering for more than five years at Oscar's Marina, just a few doors down from where they live on Laguna Macax. According to Oscar, the owners had sailed the boat, a 1979 CS 27, from Ontario, Canada, where it was originally built, through the St. Lawrence Seaway, down the eastern seaboard, and across the Gulf of Mexico to Isla Mujeres--quite the adventure in a 27-foot boat! They left the boat behind when they returned to Canada and eventually stopped paying the dockage fees. Oscar claimed ownership and sold the boat to Louis at a very good price.

The boat was not exactly sail-ready, but Louis needed only to motor about a hundred yards farther into the lagoon to tie it up at his own pier and begin what will be an elaborate refitting project. But Louis, an expatriate from France, is an artist and a master craftsman, with the skills to turn the little sailboat into a work of art. He designed and built both of the art deco Color de Verano buildings, the one next to Jax Bar and Grill downtown and the one where he and Teresa, who is originally from Mexico City, live on Laguna Macax, including all of the beautiful wooden furniture that each contains. At one time, he owned a furniture factory in Cancun, but he is mostly retired now, with plenty of time to put into the refit.

Nan and I agreed to meet Louis at his home one morning during our recent stay to see the boat and discuss his plans for it. When he led us out back to his pier, we were surprised to see the boat in better shape than he had described. The worst thing about it was the three or four inches of marine growth on the hull. Louis said he planned to haul the boat out and address the hull situation later, but first he wanted to do all the work he could right at his own pier. We stepped aboard and started taking note of all the repair issues. The boat looked like it had been subjected to some heavy dock thrashing, as there was some fiberglass damage along the rails, a few of the life line stanchions were bent or missing, and the stern arch, which had once been the mount for the boat's solar panels, was mostly destroyed. None of this dampened Louis's enthusiasm. He fired up the diesel engine for us, and it hummed like it had been well maintained, not neglected for years. Then he led us down into the compact cabin to show us all the nifty design features built into the interior. He explained how he was going to spruce things up to make them as comfortable as possible so that Teresa would be willing to do overnight sailing trips to Cancun and other destinations with him. He was excited by the possibilities that the little CS 27 opened up for them, but he confided that his long-term dream is to get the boat into tip-top shape, sail it locally for a year or two, and then upgrade to a larger boat with a greater range.

Louis, we wish you the best of luck with your refitting project! We can't wait to see the results the next time we visit your island paradise!

Life in Isla Mujeres

As a contrast to my post from a couple of weeks ago, Life in Grand Junction, here are my observations on life in Isla Mujeres, based on the month we lived there with our dog, Scout, in September and October of 2009:

The flash of red behind my eyelids wakes me up an instant before the thunder crashes and brings me fully awake. It is early dawn and another thunderstorm is moving through. I hear the heavy raindrops drumming on the awning that covers our rooftop patio. I hear the hum of the air conditioner above the bed and the soft clank-clank of the ceiling fan in the next room. Scout shifts and resettles on his mat next to the bed. I reach out to put my arm around Nan but she is already up.

I smell coffee brewing and think about getting up to get a cup. I hear the startup tone of the laptop and lift my head to see Nan's face illuminated by its glow. Her email account is her connection to home. Careful not to step on Scout, I get up, put on a bathrobe and go out to the kitchen. Nan greets me from her perch on a bar stool in front of the laptop and we comment on the weather. It looks as though the storm will pass soon. The windows are fogged with condensation on the inside and streaked with rain on the outside.

I get a cup of coffee and sit in a wicker chair in the living area with my book, Ken Follett's World Without End. After a few paragraphs, I am engrossed in the story. I reach for my cup several minutes later but the coffee is cold. I look up to see that Nan is dressed for a walk. I look outside and see that it has stopped raining. Steam is rising from the asphalt and from the beach across the street. I put the book down and go into the bedroom to get dressed. I put on lightweight nylon shorts, a beach shirt, a baseball cap and boat shoes. Sensing an imminent walk, Scout rouses, stretches and goes to the kitchen for a drink from his water bowl. I clip him to his leash and we leave our cool, dry penthouse apartment at Color de Verano.

The heat and humidity in the hallway are intense, like entering a steam room. I start to sweat. We hurry down the stairs and out into the street. A light breeze rustles the palm trees along Avenida Rueda Medina. We jump puddles crossing the street and kick off our shoes on the beach. The sand is pockmarked like the moon from the rain. Its thin crust is wet and cool, but the sand beneath is dry and warm. We walk to the water and cool our feet. Four miles across the water, I can barely see the buildings of Cancun through the haze and humidity. Scout wades out far enough to get his tummy wet in the small lapping waves, then leaps back out and shakes water all over us.

We turn north and walk along the water's edge. It is only 7:00 but young men are already out cleaning the beach and positioning beach chairs and umbrellas for the tourists. We wish them buenos dias and they smile. Some gesture to their chairs, though the sun is still low and barely poking through the clouds. Luego, we say. We reach the furthest northwest corner of the island. The water is choppy from the meeting of the currents. Giant black cloth tubes full of sand have been placed here as breakwaters to prevent all the sand from washing over to Cancun. We climb over them and turn east. The water is calmer on this side and Scout wades out far enough to swim a bit and cool down.

Up the beach, in the distance, we see a pack of feral dogs. We do not want Scout to interact with them for fear of a fight or what he might catch. The dogs spot us and start to approach. Nan walks ahead to shoo them away. Off to the right, where a street deadends at the beach, we hear a voice call to the dogs. We see a one-armed man standing next to an old bicycle, smoking a cigarette. The dogs run to him and he rides away with them in pursuit, the cigarette dangling from his mouth.

We reach the island's northeast corner, where the Hotel Na Balam is located. We used to stay there but we don't anymore. The first time we came to the island, in 1998, the beach there extended out more than a hundred yards from the hotel's beach bar. Now the water is lapping at the roots of the palm trees right outside the bar's stone walls. Hurricanes have scoured away the entire beach. We step lightly along the wall, looking into the open-air restaurant to see if any of our old friends is still working there. We see familiar faces but can't place the names.

We turn south and step carefully over strings of sulfur-smelling seaweed. A man that Nan nicknamed "Mucho Trabajo" during our first visit to the island is raking the seaweed into piles. We wave and say hola. He looks up, smiles and nods, then goes back to his raking. We step over the wooden bridge that leads out to the Avalon Reef Hotel and continue south. The beach ends at an outcropping of volcanic rock. We put our shoes back on and step carefully over the sharp rock. The sun has moved higher in the sky and there is no shade. I feel the back of my shirt stick to my skin. The rock ends and we cross a stretch of pebbly beach and shells, then climb up concrete steps to the embarcadero that runs along the island's west coast. We pass a series of abandoned buildings, cinder block shells of hurricane-ravaged luxury hotels.

We turn west on to the promenade that leads to the island's central plaza. Nan goes in to the mercado across from the plaza for some groceries. Scout and I wait outside in the shade of an ancient willow tree. I am sweating profusely. Scout is panting. Nan walks out with two plastic bags and hands me the heavier one. We continue west toward the ferry dock and then turn north to walk in the shade of the palm trees that line Avenida Rueda Medina and complete our loop of the island's north end.

Home from Isla Mujeres, Mexico

Nan and I arrived home on Monday night from our vacation in Isla Mujeres, Mexico. We cut our two-week trip short by five days due to work concerns and lousy weather. The remnants of hurricane Karl were still causing rain when we arrived, transitioning seamlessly into hurricane Matthew's near miss, with its own downpours and high winds. When it wasn't raining, the heat, humidity and sand gnats drove me mostly indoors to sit in our air-conditioned Color de Verano penthouse apartment reading Jonathan Franzen's new novel, Freedom, a topical, enjoyable page turner. Nan toughed it out without me, getting as much "beach time" as possible.

Every time we go to Isla Mujeres, and we have been there eight times now, we spend time with the same friends, see the same sights and eat at the same restaurants, but we always make an effort to explore new areas and try new restaurants. This time, we even went on a "parade of homes" tour with a real estate broker named Rogelio and our Spanish instructor, Juan Torres. There are still oceanfront and lagoonfront lots for sale on the island, but they are ridiculously expensive for foreigners and would require an inordinate amount of work to build on, not to mention extensive communication in Spanish.

We tried three new restaurants: Chuuk Kay, a new Mayan-themed place located on the Laguna Macax channel and managed by our friend Ventura, whom we know from his days at Na Balam's Zazil-Ha bar and restaurant and from Brisas Grill; Rooster, a new, upscale place at the north end of Avenida Hidalgo that features wonderful creations by chef Sergio but unfortunately does not take credit cards; and Mango Cafe, an excellent breakfast and lunch place that is usually closed by the time we drive our rented golf cart past its location on the Caribbean side's main drag, but which we were lucky to find open one afternoon for jerked chicken tacos, grilled chicken empanadas and ginger lemonade.

The Sunday before we returned home on Monday was our best day, even though it had its share of rain. But we were out on our friend Ariel's panga for some snorkeling, so we expected to get wet. We had run into Ariel on our first night, working as a waiter at a new restaurant on Hidalgo, and agreed to do a boat trip with him. I asked if we could invite our good friend Juan Gomez's family to join us, and Ariel agreed enthusiastically. September ("septi-hambre") is always a very slow month for business, and Ariel told us he had not had a paying boat trip in more than a month. If you're down that way, please call (011-521-998-165-6332 from the US) or email (arielsantizo@yahoo.com.mx) him for a boat trip of your own.

Ariel, his wife Rosi and her son Chris met Nan and me with the panga on the beach across from our apartment. When Juan showed up with his wife Paula, kids Manolo and Paulina, and nephews Paul and Daniel, we all piled into the boat and headed over toward El Ferito, the little lighthouse that marks the entrance to Isla Mujeres's large bay. There is a partially submerged wreck there, a casualty of hurricane Wilma back in 2005, that is a natural haven for sealife. Juan and the kids put on lifevests and snorkel equipment before jumping overboard to see what they could see. A dark passing cloud soaked everybody left on board. Already wet, I jumped in too, but all I saw in the churned up water was a school of needle fish.

When everybody was back on board, we headed east for a slow circle around Laguna Macax, admiring the many yachts that are moored in its protective waters. Juan and his family could just see the top of their house in the Lol-Beh colonia over the mangrove treetops. The kids were intrigued by the inhabited "plastic bottle island" that floats on the opposite side of the lagoon. We departed through the channel and passed by Sac Bajo, where "the white house," another casualty of hurricane Wilma, sits abandoned except for its caretaker unit. From there, it was a short trip down the western coast to Playa Tiburon, where Ariel had arranged for "tic-n-xic" barbecued grouper, with rice, pasta, salad and tortillas supplied by Rosi and Chris. Delicious!

We plan to return to Isla Mujeres next June, when we will sail the new boat there from the United States. More on that later...

The rest of the Central America sailing trip

The next morning, after our terrific day with Eric and his family, we sailed the short distance around the corner to Roatan's West End and picked up a mooring. The idea was to shorten the distance we would need to sail to reach our next destination, Lighthouse Reef, off the coast of Belize, making it a long one-day sail instead of an overnight passage.

The West End is Roatan's original tourist area. The beaches are beautiful and the snorkeling is surprisingly good. The still-unpaved road that runs parallel to the water is lined with funky shops and restaurants. The area seems to be a magnet for "trustafarians" and Lonely Planet types. Capt. John and I drank beers at a beachfront bar while Nan and Jan explored, and then we all dinghied back out to the boat for sundowners and Capt. John's jambalaya.

We were up at dawn the next day to take full advantage of the available daylight. The southern entrance into Lighthouse Reef is tricky and cannot be navigated safely at night. We made good time surfing a broad reach most of the day, accompanied by dolphins feeding on the fish fleeing our wake. Unfortunately, the late afternoon light and significant wave action when we arrived at the reef made it too difficult to exactly locate the entrance. We dropped anchor in shallow water outside the reef, with the idea of spending the night and trying again in the morning, but the holding ground was poor and the water too rough. Capt. John made the decision to press on for Ambergris Caye, off the coast of Belize, and we sailed on. So much for the Great Blue Hole. Maybe next time.

We arrived at San Pedro on Ambergris Caye early the next morning. Unlike Lighthouse Reef, the entrance through the protective reef was well marked. The water inside the reef was extremely shallow, so we ended up anchoring a few hundred yards offshore and dinghying in. The first order of business was to clear in with Customs and Immigration, but we arrived before they were open, so Nan and I wandered up and down the main drag looking for an Internet café and a cheap hotel room for much-needed showers. We found both but returned to clear in with the crew first before going our separate ways. We regrouped for lunch at Elvi's Kitchen, probably the most famous restaurant on Ambergris Caye. The food was excellent, as was the Belikin, Belize's one and only local beer.

After lunch, John and Capt. John spent time in an Internet café while Jan, Nan and I did some gift shopping. Belizean Arts Gallery and Toucan Gift Shop offered the best native arts and crafts we could find. We met up again late in the afternoon for a wet-bottomed dinghy ride back to where Quetzal was anchored and spent a quiet night on the boat in anticipation of another early departure the next day.

The final passage of our two-week trip was an overnight to Isla Mujeres, Mexico. Light winds on the second morning, as we passed Cozumel, prompted us to fly the spinnaker, but we doused all the sails as we approached the shallow water at Punta Sur, Isla Mujeres's southern point. Quetzal's old diesel engine, which had been giving us consistent trouble with overheating due to a worn-out heat exchanger, came close to calling it quits on the final stretch to Marina Paraiso, just south of the main downtown area. Capt. Doug Dorn, who met us in his dinghy to offer advice and assistance as we were approaching the marina, asked Capt. John why he didn't want to back into the slip instead of going in bow first. Capt. John told him that he was afraid the engine would give up for good if he shifted from forward to reverse; that's how close he thought it was.

Nan and I like to get off a boat when the trip is over instead of staying on until it's time to fly home. Mostly, it's a comfort thing: marinas are the hottest, buggiest, most humid places you could ever hope to stay. We had made reservations to stay at Color de Verano that night, in one of the new ground-floor studio units, so after we checked in with José in the marina office, we gave Louis, the owner, a call. He said he would open the unit for us, and I asked if he would also be willing to give us a ride there since he would be passing right by the marina on his way. He said he would pick us up in twenty minutes, so Nan and I hurriedly packed our duffel bags and made plans to meet the rest of the crew at Brisas Grill for dinner.

Louis and his wife Teresa have done a wonderful job with their Color de Verano building at the corner of Rueda Medina and Mateos. Nan and I had stayed there three times before, once in the third-floor apartment and twice in the penthouse, most recently for a month last fall. While we were there that last time, the ground floor, which once housed a coffee shop, was being converted into two studio apartments. They turned out beautifully, with creative art-deco touches and one-of-a-kind fixtures. Louis put us in the unit closest to the building's lobby, and after seeing how nice it was, we wished that we had made the reservation for two nights instead of just one, but Nan had been able to use credit card reward points to get a free night at the Privilege Aluxes hotel across the street for the next night.

As we walked down Rueda Medina toward Brisas Grill, who should we see but our Spanish tutor from last fall, Juan Torres. He has been impossible to reach since then, and he told us the reason was that his computer had died, so he had no email access. I asked if he would be interested in having me pay him to translate the cookbook I am writing in conjunction with Juan Gomez's family into Spanish. He said that he would be, but then he shrugged when I told him he would need a computer. On a whim, I offered to give him my laptop. His face lit up immediately. We still need to work out how to get it to him, and I will need to buy a replacement laptop, but having Juan involved with the project will make a huge difference.

Entering Brisas Grill was like a homecoming. Our great friend Juan Gomez greeted us with hugs, as did Ventura, Irving and the owner, Weimar. There were big smiles all around but obvious disappointment that we were there for only two days. We took a table on the beach and ordered two of Ventura's special margaritas. Capt. John, Jan and John joined us shortly and we all ate a fantastic dinner as the sun set on another day in paradise.

We had an appointment with Louis for the next morning. Back in January, when Nan and I were in Denver to celebrate her birthday, she had tossed out the idea of spending a year living in Isla Mujeres and renting Louis and Teresa's apartment overlooking Laguna Macax. We had looked at the apartment briefly during a previous visit when it was being built but had not seen it since its completion. Louis was more than happy to show it to us. He is rightly proud of the innovations he designs into everything he builds, whether it is a simple window or an elaborate chest of drawers. The apartment is located directly on the lagoon and has two levels, a main living area downstairs and a private rooftop deck with breezes and views upstairs. It would be perfect for us, and Louis said that our dog Scout would be more than welcome to join us.

Nan and I returned to Brisas Grill for lunch and to make arrangements with Juan Gomez to stop by his house that evening with some gifts we had brought for his children. As we passed the beach across from Jax Bar and Grill on our way back to Color de Verano, we spotted Eloy, the old man who sells popcorn and chips on the beach, sitting on his adult tricycle with his basket full of snacks in the back. Last fall, we had noticed that he was in need of new shoes, so we promised we would get him some. We ran inside to get the new Reeboks we had brought for him and then ran out to the beach to give them to him. Eloy doesn't speak much English, but we could tell he was touched.

We spent the rest of the afternoon moving across the street to the Privilege Aluxes hotel and reading on the beach. It was a relief to escape the unseasonable heat with a quick dip in the cool ocean. It made me wish we weren't leaving the next morning. We regrouped back in our room and then drove our rented golf cart down to Juan and Paula Gomez's home in the Salina Grande colonia. It was fun to spend time with the family and see the photos from their daughter Paulina's first communion. We talked briefly about the cookbook, and I told them about inviting Juan Torres to do the translation. They promised to take more photos of Paula's dishes and send them to me. I hope to have the book close to completion by the time Nan and I return for two weeks in September.

We met the rest of the crew that night at the central plaza and walked up Hidalgo to find a restaurant for our final meal together. We agreed on Rolandi's, Isla Mujeres's most popular restaurant for Italian food, and ate another excellent meal. We all had flights to catch the next morning, so we called it an early night and said our good-byes.

Busy Day on Isla Mujeres

Sunday was a busy day for us here on Isla Mujeres. In the morning, I took a boat ride with my old friend Ariel and his family. Ariel runs a fishing, snorkeling, whale shark watching and Isla Contoy tour operation with his 27-foot panga: arielsantizo@yahoo.com.mx or 011-521-998-165-6332. We motored all the way around the island while I took photos of familiar landmarks for the book I am working on. Nan didn't want to go so she stayed behind with Scout. It was a calm day, which made for easy photography. Ariel says that rounding Punta Sur can be terrible on days when the wind runs counter to the current. The first photo shows the Mayan ruins of the temple to Ixchel and El Arco, the arch under it, at the southernmost tip of the island.

In the afternoon, we took the golf cart down to our friend Juan's new house in Colonia Salina Grande. The house is much further along than when we saw it last October (Isla Mujeres, Mexico), but it is still not finished and may never be. There are no loans to be had, so construction is a pay-as-you-go proposition, and it has been tremendously slowed by the poor economy and lack of tourism.

The book I am working on now is a collaboration with Juan's wife, Paula. We are writing a Mexican cookbook, Los Sabores de Isla Mujeres / Tastes of Isla Mujeres, based on Paula's traditional recipes. It will be in both Spanish and English, and there will be photos of her wonderful dishes and also of the island. The main purpose of our Sunday visit was to photograph Paula baking a tres leches (three milks) cake. It was a three-hour affair, with time for a take-out lunch of chicken tacos and cervezas from the local tienda while the cake was in the oven. The finished cake was almost too beautiful to eat, but we all took a slice or two, and neighborhood kids came out of nowhere to help share it. There were big frosted smiles all around!

We have invited Juan and his family to our apartment at Color de Verano on Friday evening for a dinner of chicken enchiladas Nan-style. We hope to keep a back-and-forth dinner exchange going for as long as we are here. Of course, we also expect to enjoy as much of Paula's fabulous cooking as we can. We'll consider it research!

Update on Isla Mujeres

Last week I received this email message, which the sender was nice enough to let me post:

Hi John,

We read your blog today with great interest. We have booked Color de Verano for two weeks in January & February 2010. Our last stay there was 2007 and we fell in love with the place. We are wondering if your friend, Juan Gomez Chan, will have completed his house and opened his restaurant by the time we visit the island. We would like to stop in there if he will have it open by next winter.

I hope you will keep us updated.

Thanks,
Terry & Terry Wilson
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

----------

Here is my response with some updates about Juan and his life on Isla Mujeres:

Terry and Terry—

Thank you for contacting me. It is difficult to say if Juan will have his house and restaurant completed by that time but he sent us photos recently that showed tremendous progress from when we were there last October.

Juan left his employment at Na Balam a few months ago after many years and is now working with his friend Ventura at Brisas Grill near the ferry dock. We’re not sure what effect this might have on his progress. Given the way the beach at Na Balam is eroding, it’s just a matter of time before the Zazil Ha bar and restaurant at Na Balam are washed away, so Juan’s timing is probably very good.

As you know from the blog, we will be spending a month there this fall, from mid-September to mid-October, and staying in the penthouse at Color de Verano. Therese has given us permission to bring our dog Scout, a one-year-old golden retriever, so it should be quite the adventure. One of our projects while we’re there, in addition to taking Spanish lessons, is to work with Paola, Juan’s wife, to put together a “tastes of Isla Mujeres” cookbook in both Spanish and English. If we get it published, I’ll send you a copy.

You can probably tell that we love it there, too. If you’re interested in one of those newer photos of Juan’s house, please let me know and I will send it along. Thanks again.

—John

----------

The photo at the top is one that Juan sent me back in March. If you compare it to the ones I took last October when we were there ("Isla Mujeres, Mexico" blog entry), you can see that he is getting closer to finishing his new house. The restaurant would be located on the left side of the house under the flat-roofed section. That's Juan's brother-in-law out front in the orange t-shirt. Click the photo for a full-size view.

To give a better idea of where all these places are on Isla Mujeres, I have put together a Google Map titled "Isla Mujeres". The satellite image is very dated. It doesn't show either Juan's house or the Color de Verano - Macax, just vacant lots. And it still shows plenty of beach by the Hotel Na Balam, where there is now almost none.

Isla Mujeres, Mexico

Nan and I spent the first eleven days of October on Isla Mujeres, our fifth trip to the island in ten years. We stayed at Color de Verano, just like we did during our last trip in May 2005, except that this time we rented the penthouse instead of one of the apartments below. The views alone were worth the rate difference. The first photo shows the view from our balcony looking south along Avenida Rueda Medina, including the lighthouse and beyond it Bahía de Isla Mujeres and the ferry docks. (Click the photos for full-size views.)

The second photo shows the view to the west, across the five miles of the Caribbean that separate Isla Mujeres from Cancun. Since most of the sand on Playa Norte was scoured away by Hurricane Wilma in October 2005, especially near the Hotel Na Balam, where we stayed during our first two trips and where we would normally use the beach, we found ourselves using the beach you see in the photo instead. With the almost-white sand, the sun is too intense to stay out in for long, so we set up our apartment's folding beach chairs in the shade under the palm trees for afternoon sessions of power reading and frequent dips in the ocean. The ship you see in the distance is the Punta Sam car ferry, which makes five runs a day.

On Thursday, our first full day, we did a morning walk around the beach to the Hotel Na Balam to see if our friend Juan Gomez Chan was still working there. We had tried to email him to let him know we were coming, but his addresses were no longer valid. He was surprised but thrilled to see us when we entered the hotel's waterfront restaurant, as were our other Na Balam friends, Victor and Mario. After smiles and hugs, we made plans with Juan to meet for dinner on his next night off. That Monday evening, Juan's wife Paola, his son Manolo and his daughter Paolina met us at our apartment. They were familiar with the building but had never been inside, so we gave them a quick tour. Juan told us he was building a new house and wanted to get some design ideas. Color de Verano was designed and built by Louis Joliot and his wife Teresa. The café on the ground floor and the apartments above are filled with furniture designed and created at Louis's furniture factory in Cancun. Much of it is teak and incorporates a nautical sensibility which is well suited to island life. Juan and his family were suitably impressed. As we walked down Avenida Hidalgo to Rolandi's for pizza, Juan talked about his building project and invited us to see it.

We met Juan at his home in the Colonia Salina Grande on Wednesday afternoon. The kids were home from school and the house was bustling with activity. Juan introduced us to his two frisky Chihuahuas and his parrot as we sat in the living room drinking beers. Juan had wanted me to look at a problem he was having with his laptop computer, but his oldest son, Juan, Jr., had taken it to school in Cancun that day. When we finished our beers, Juan said we should walk over to look at his new house. It was about a half-mile away along a walkway that bordered the Salina Grande, the large saltwater lake located right in the center of the island. When we reached the end of the walkway, we turned right, walked to the top of a hill, and there it was. Juan's house project was much further along than we had thought it would be. Because of the frequent hurricanes, everything is built out of heavy cinderblocks and cement, and all of the walls, floors and ceilings were already in place. Juan's English is much better than our Spanish, so we can usually find a middle ground to make ourselves understood, but not always.

Nan and I had been led to expect a vacant lot with maybe some trenches dug for the foundations, but this was considerably more than that. Maybe Juan was just being modest. We walked up a spiral staircase to the second floor and admired the views of Salina Grande to the east and the Laguna Macax to the west. Juan explained that we were actually in his wife's sister's half of the house. His family's half was on the other side. Just as they shared a duplex in their current living situation, they were building the new house as a duplex they would also share. Juan envisioned turning the front part of his side into a small neighborhood restaurant, where Paola would cook her wonderful food and he would serve the customers. With that, he said it was time to go back and try Paola's pollo mole. It was superb, made using chiles that gave the taste of chocolate without the need for adding real chocolate of any kind. We told Paola she needed to be sure to put the dish on the menu at her new restaurant. She beamed.

We had neglected to take a camera with us to Juan's house, so we returned the next day in a rented golf cart in the rain to take some pictures. According to Juan, the small arch at the back of the house is situated over a working well which was already on the property and which he plans to continue using.

While we were motoring around in the golf cart, we stopped by Louis and Teresa's latest project, a new three-unit apartment building located on the Laguna Macax. Teresa had invited us to see it when we ran into her earlier in the week, and we're glad we did. It was beautifully done, with many unique touches, like an air-conditioned, glass-enclosed bedroom overlooking a main living area featuring a tiled pool with an arched wooden footbridge. It got us to thinking about what it would be like to spend an extended time on the island.

All the while we were on Isla Mujeres, crews were working on the statue situated at the intersection of Avenida Rueda Medina and Avenida Adolfo Lopez Mateos, directly below our balcony. On Thursday we found out why. The statue commemorates the fishermen and their wives who resettled the island after it was abandoned by the ancient Mayans. October 9 is the local "El día del pescador," the day of the fisherman, so there was a rededication cermony that day, with flowers, dignataries and speeches.

After taking photos of the statue, it occurred to me that we didn't have any photos of our apartment, so I crossed the street and snapped some shots of it to put everything into perspective. The penthouse is at the top of the yellow building on the left. We spent a fair amount of time at Jax, the sports bar right next door, in the center of the photo, that is run by American expatriots, Michael and Jackie. That's Nan on one of the blue bar stools.

On our last night, we stopped by the Brisas Grill, which overlooks the dock that accommodates the Isla Contoy tour boats. Juan had told us that Ventura, one of our old friends from the Hotel Na Balam, was working there. He was, and we chatted with him about the good old days and what everybody we had known was up to now. We drank wine as we watched the sun set for the final time and had our photo taken by a nice couple from Indianapolis who were celebrating their second honeymoon. Then it was off to Jax for a final dinner of excellent seafood before catching the ferry back to reality the next morning.

On the long trip home, our talk returned to the idea of spending an extended time on Isla Mujeres. We have both wanted to get better at Spanish, so we could use the time to take daily lessons and immerse ourselves in the language. I can do my job from anywhere I can get a high-speed Internet connection, so I could work enough to keep some income coming in. But what about Scout? Nan emailed Teresa when we got home to ask if she would consider renting the penthouse to us and our well-behaved dog for a month. Being a dog lover herself, she said yes. So next September, we are going to drive down to Cancun by way of Santa Fe, San Antonio (Hello, Shepherds!), Tampico and Campeche, and catch the Punta Sam car ferry over to the island for our first experience with what would essentially be living abroad. ¡Debe ser una aventura!