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Costa Maya (Majahual)
Costa Maya, the next Belize, with 80 miles of virgin coast
by Ken Layne
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
The undeveloped Costa Maya region doesn’t even start until you get 100
miles south of Tulum, which is already 80 miles south of Cancún. The
road changes from a four-lane highway to a narrow two-lane one barely
holding its own against the forever-growing jungle. A better approach
is to fly, landing at Chetumal’s perfectly acceptable airport (with one
of the few decent airport restaurants I’ve found, where I spent $4 on a
giant breakfast, café con leche, fresh orange juice, and a beer).
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
Majahual is a tiny fishing village already being prepped for tourist
and expatriate development, with many makeshift huts marked for
destruction and their residents sent to the lagoon side for
resettlement. The sandy beach road, slated to be set back a hundred
feet from the water, meanders through a few rustic lodgings, primitive
seafood eateries, and fishermen’s homes.
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?
The tourist authorities in Quintana Roo and Mexico City like the money
Cancún and Cozumel attract, but the haphazard and frantic development
of those areas is no longer in fashion. So they’ve proposed an
“ecotourist” route, hoping to bring in divers, birders, and all those
travelers and potential residents who love the Mexican Caribbean but
hate the ugly sprawl on the northeast end of the peninsula. Seeing the
success of Belize’s Ambergris Caye, with its ecotourism and dive
shops—and literally connected to the Costa Maya by a narrow land
bridge—the Mexican authorities plan to target the very visitors dumping
money in San Pedro. Witness this alert I found in Turquoise.net’s
“Belize First” newsletter:
New Competition for Belize Tourism coming from “Costa Maya”
Chetumal and the Quintana Roo coast just north of Corozal Town are
poised to compete with Belize for ecotourists. Chetumal, capital of
Quintana Roo state, already enjoys some prosperity from the influx of
Belizeans who shop there for prices in cheap pesos, not to mention the
smuggling operations traditionally based there. ...A tourism master
plan calls for the construction of several small airports, additional
roads, a cruise-ship port, and a number of hotels on the coast,
stretching from the Sian Ka’an bioreserve to the Belize border. Initial
public and private investment may total US$25 million or more. Mexican
officials say Costa Maya tourism will focus on environmentally
conscious eco- and ecotourism and adventure tourism, rather than the
mass tourism of Cancún.
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
The resorts are already sprouting. They are few and far between at this
point, but projects like the 80-room Fiesta Americana beach/dive hotel
show what’s on the way. This sprawling new complex of palapa villas,
restaurants, and hotel rooms is just about to open, as soon as the
decompression chamber is completed for the benefit of clumsy divers.
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.”
Dominguez and other turtle friends aren’t quite buying the tourist
industry’s claims of an eco-friendly development—but nobody can deny
that this chunk of the Caribbean will be developed, so the
environmentalists are now warily joining their enemies to make the
place safe for humans and critters. Quintana Roo’s governor says his
designation of a 100-foot strip to serve as a turtle reserve between
the beach and any land construction is proof of the government’s
environmental concern for the Costa Maya.
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
Until the electricity lines arrive (and unlike the case in Belize,
Quintana Roo actually has the money and work crews to finish such
work), you’ll need a generator or solar power. But with year-round
perfect weather and the Caribbean breeze, an hour or two per day on the
generator would be more than enough. Water comes from the ground. Tom
says the water table is just 10 feet below the sand, but I saw several
wells with water even closer to the ground. A well can be dug by local
laborers for $150; if you want a pump and a tank, that can be bought in
town.
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.
Buying Mexican Real Estate
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.
Agencies such as Trans Caribbean offer to handle closing details,
forming a corporation and so forth. You may find it cheaper or more
comforting to hire out such work yourself, but it can also be a
bureaucratic nightmare in Mexico.
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
Trans Caribbean Trust Co.; http://www.transcaribbeantrust.com/ ; tel.
(52)987-32498
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