Yucatan's pristine paradise
RIVIERA MAYA | After being devastated by hurricanes in 2005, this upscale resort area south of Cancun is making a tourism comeback
We were in the jungle, about an hour's drive inland from Mexico's Caribbean coast, when I stumbled upon a fine metaphor for the Riviera Maya, the tourist-friendly nickname for the eastern edge of the Yucatan peninsula.
Our group of six had kayaked and then hiked along a well-marked path to a cenote. Stripping down to our swimsuits, we could barely wait to explore this water-filled limestone sinkhole.
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GETTING THERE: Multiple airlines (American, Mexicana and United) offer nonstop flights from O'Hare to Cancun International Airport, where it's easy enough -- and fairly inexpensive -- to rent a car.
WHEN TO GO: Sunny days with temperatures in the mid-80s are the norm between December and April. It can climb toward 100 degrees from May to September. Rainy season spans from mid-September to mid-November.
TIP: English is widely spoken, but don't be surprised if you need your pidgin Spanish.
MAYAN TOURS: Alltournative Off-Track Adventures is a tour company offering daylong excursions that combine adventure with a cultural experience. A Mayan purification ceremony, for example, precedes a dip into a cenote and a zip-line ride. Kayaking, reef diving and biking are also options. A portion of your fee goes back to underprivileged Mayan communities. Tours start at $89 a person; www.alltour native.com; (800) 507-1092.
WHERE TO STAY: The colorful, Mayan-influenced Paraiso de la Bonita in the beach town of Puerto Morelos has 90 suites with private terraces facing the sea. This is the place for isolationists -- it feels like there's nothing for miles around except beach and dense mangrove. Suites from $800; www.paraisodelabonita.com.
u Rosewood Mayakoba's Balinese-inspired units line a winding lagoon at this serene property in Playa del Carmen, a half-hour's drive south of Cancun. Some of the 128 suites, each with their own plunge pool, are on the beach. Suites from $490. Through Dec. 15, if you book three nights in a beachside lagoon-view suite, ocean-view suite, or deluxe spa suite at published rates, you'll receive the fourth night free (promotion code is "autumn"); www.rosewoodmayakoba.com.
u Manicured and uber-chic, the Mandarin Oriental Riviera Maya sits on 36 acres. Its 128 bleach-white guest rooms have a more private feel than the nearby Rosewood. Rooms from $515; www.mandarin oriental.com.
u Ceiba del Mar Beach & Spa Resort is a luxury hotel in the laid-back beach town of Puerto Morelos, offering reef-diving excursions and more affordable rooms than the newer, five-star resorts down the coast. Rooms start at $200; www.ceibadelmar.com; (877) 545-6221.
MORE INFO: Check out www.rivieramaya.com or call the Mexico Tourism Board in Chicago at (312) 228-0194.
Taking a closer look, we warily contemplated the cave's narrow entrance, or chimuch -- Mayan for "frog's mouth" -- and we weren't entirely sure we wanted to be swallowed up by it.
Making like crabs, we backed in under the low-hanging lip of rock. Once inside, we walked down a stairway into a shadowy cavern full of dripping stalactites. I understood why the ancient Mayans considered cenotes links to the underworld. I also understood why we were told to wear our bathing suits. The crystal-clear water was cool and soft -- the most sublime swimming hole I've ever visited.
Which brings me to the metaphor. The easiest way to access this wonderful and still somewhat wild part of Mexico is to fly into Cancun, the local word for "fetid abyss of drunken spring-breakers." Once you get beyond that forbidding portal, you're in paradise.
Of course, the Riviera Maya is no secret garden. After being devastated in 2005 by hurricanes Emily and Wilma, the area is once again seeing a surge of tourism development.
Just outside of Cancun, a $180 million resort and residential complex called Nizuc is in the works. The man behind it, a young Mexico City developer named Alan Becker, puffed on a Cuban cigar as he took me on a golf-cart tour of the dusty construction site.
There isn't much to see yet, but you can tell it's a big-time project. The 60 residences start at $1.3 million, and the three beachfront villas are considerably more expensive.
Becker even got Oscar-nominated "Babel" director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu to make the promotional film, parts of which were shot at the same cenote I visited.
Once the trees are planted, Nizuc will have some 20 acres of restored mangrove forest. But the real selling point -- hardly a new one on this very accessible stretch of coastline -- is that it will be pristine and exclusive.
Paraiso de la Bonita, an established resort 20 minutes down the highway that survived the hurricanes mostly intact, also boasts about being pristine and exclusive. But unlike the sleek glass walls and dark-wood decks at Nizuc, it embraces a certain rusticity -- one that includes gleaming white Land Cruisers that will whisk you away for $100 an hour, yes, but that also leaves a little room for Mexico's wilder side.
Paraiso's lobby opens grandly onto the azure pool and beyond that, the sea -- making for a mighty impressive entrance. Its clay-red and pale yellow buildings evoke the Mexican heat. Iguanas bask along the paths and poolside, the bougainvillaea doesn't seem too manicured, and excitable birds pipe and whistle as you lounge in the sun.
I headed straight for the pool after checking in, only to realize I didn't have any sunblock. (Thank you, airport security.)
The hotel boutique offered a single brand. As I was about to sign for it, I asked the price of the 7-ounce bottle.
"Fifty dollars," the clerk deadpanned. How's that for wild?
"It's French," she explained. In that case: non, merci.
Instead, I cadged some tanning oil off a companion before settling into a chaise by the pool. A waiter brought a bottle of local Montejo beer and a plate of superb octopus ceviche, and life was very good. It got even better after an oily massage at the spa.
We were met the next morning by our trim and genial guide Jose, who promised a stimulating day away from the beach. From Paraiso, it's about an hour down Highway 307 to Tulum, then a half-hour drive inland to the ancient Mayan city of Coba. The roads slice straight through dry countryside peppered with big hunks of limestone. The land is flat as a tortilla, which means any rocky mound you see is likely a ruin.
Coba was home to 55,000 people at its peak during the Mayan classical period, which lasted from roughly A.D. 600 to 1000. Despite their advanced celestial knowledge (and a 19-month calendar that's more precise than the one we use today, as Jose was fond of reminding us), the Mayans were a Stone Age society. Coba, like its more heavily trafficked neighbor to the west, Chichen Itza, was built without metal tools or the wheel.
Coba is in the heart of the jungle, giving it a bit of an Indiana Jones feel. Some of us rented mountain bikes for the 10-minute ride along a broad, twisting path to the biggest temple, Nohuch Mul; others hired a pedal-cart.
Mayan for "the biggest mound," Nohuch Mul is just that: a 120-step ceremonial temple that dwarfs the site's smaller structures. The stairway soars at a 65-degree angle, which makes for great views -- and a precarious climb down.
Safely back on the ground, under the shade of a thick-trunked ceiba tree, our on-site guide gestured at a flat, paved surface flanked by sloping walls: a poctapoc court. Named for the sounds heard during play, this early team sport required players to use hips, elbows and knees to put a 7-pound ball through a ring -- a task that routinely took a day or more. (Clearly a forerunner to soccer, someone joked.) The first team to score won; the other team faced dire consequences.
"Death?" I offered. No, our guide assured us, nothing that serious. Just eternal enslavement in the afterlife. Not surprisingly, there's a practice court just down the path.
After our dip in the cenote, we hastily piled back into the van in order to get to the next stop: lunch. Our meal was served under a thatched roof in a modern-day Mayan village -- a modest place, to say the least, especially when contrasted with the ancient glories of Coba.
Our hosts led a life that might seem charmingly simple to the passing tourist but is, in fact, dismayingly underprivileged. I tried to think happy thoughts -- for example, that visits like ours bring in much-needed extra income -- as a squadron of female cooks served up chicken, rice and crispy empanadas.
After lunch, Jose did his best to convince us that every plant in sight had a purpose.
"Axiote," he explained, taking a spiny pod in his hand. It's on menus all over the country and, when ripe, makes great lipstick. Next, he plucked an abrasive wagumbo leaf off a bush. The Mayans use it to wash dishes, he said. Flashing a sly grin, he added that it also brings favorable effects when smoked. "Secrets of the Maya," he whispered.
"Secrets Capri," Guadalupe Marquez said to me the next day. The Mandarin Oriental's marketing director and I were having lunch on the balcony of the new hotel's gorgeous beach restaurant and she was gesturing at the all-inclusive Secrets resort up the coast.
Open since February, the Mandarin prides itself on its decentralized layout and sleek white units, neither of which was much in evidence at the pinkish, Mediterranean-style Secrets.
"Alcatraz," Marquez joked.
Is there a sense of rivalry here? You bet. The upscale resorts along this stretch of Caribbean are in the early rounds of a battle royale.
One of the 128-room Mandarin's main competitors is the stunning 128-room Rosewood Mayakoba, with Balinese-inspired bungalows that look onto a winding lagoon. It's one of two completed properties in a new development. The other one is a Fairmont, that soon will include hotels by Viceroy and Banyan Tree.
Sleek and manicured, Rosewood and Mandarin are a far cry from the Yucatan's sweaty jungle interior.
While raucous frat boys are doing shots up the coast in Cancun, Rosewood's guests are sipping rare reposado in the Tequila Library. They can stumble home along the hotel's lovely braid of serene paths and bridges or have a butler pick them up in a golf cart.
It's wonderful, but it almost makes you long for the moist uncertainty of the chimuch. Which is why I was secretly delighted to learn, on a trip to Rosewood's spa, that the hotel's man-made cenote was temporarily closed. Apparently there was an alligator in it.
Darrell Hartman is a New York-based free-lance writer.