Mahahual

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April 13th 2010

Published: June 13th 2010

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DanandNat

Hammock

Dan hanging the hammock

Mahuhal is a small coastal town about 3 hours south of Tullum. The town was very badly affected by Hurricane Dean in 2007 but we thought we would pay it a visit and see for ourselves how the town was recovering.

On arrival we were impressed by the laid back atmosphere and the beautiful coastline. The effects of the hurricane could still be seen inshore with miles and miles of dead trees which were killed after the sea surge stayed inshore for many weeks. The cruise ship dock was also destroyed in the hurricane which was a huge economic disaster for the town which relied on the daily influx of North American tourists requiring food, drink and entertainment in exchange for American dollars.

We found a cabaña just out of town and Dan was excited to be able to hang his hammock, which he had purchased in Valladolid, in the room. The accommodation was great, modern with a rustic feel and just a short walk to the beach. That evening we walked to town which was extremely quiet and we felt we had found a small piece of paradise.

The next morning we strolled into town to find

Hammock

some breakfast and a cup of coffee, something had happened over night...hordes of American tourists had descended on the town from a huge cruise ship which had docked just out of town on the new pier. Our little piece of paradise had been turned into a holiday resort complete with beer buckets and locals jostling us for our dollars; we didn’t have US dollars which are widely used because of the huge amount of US tourists, this seemed to bemuse the locals but at least it singled us out from the "gringos" as the Mexicans call the North Americans.

Our requests for breakfast and coffee was met with confused faces, the norm seemed to be beer and lunch. We finally found somewhere on the beach front which rustled us up a Mexican breakfast and a coffee, we then dented their sun loungers for the day and ordered the beers a little later in the day. The cruise ship tourists headed back to the boat about 4pm and the town changed back into the laid back paradise we found the first evening.

We found a great bar/restaurant that night where we ate a great meal then headed to the

Hammock

Big enough for two...

bar. The owner made a great mango mojito and we then went on to try his vast selection of tequila with some of the locals. It was a great night, the locals were hilarious and entertained us with stories and generously offered to set us up with friends who dived. We didn’t take the diving offer up as we had planned to set off further south the next day, we wobbled back to the cabana to sleep off the tequila before boarding the bus to Xcalah the following morning.

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