As it happens, the answer to that question depends entirely on what day you’re there. The Mexican government opened a cruise ship dock at Mahhahual in 2001, which absolutely transformed the little village. I guess Mahahual’s pristine beaches, crystal clear turquoise waters, and beach-friendly access to the Mesoamerican Reef at Banco Chinchorro were too much to keep to themselves.

We spent three days at Mahahual, which is about two hours by bus from Chetumal. We specifically chose days when there were no cruise ships in port. On June 29th, for example, four cruise ships docked, with a total capacity of 16,622. Obviously we weren’t there, but it certainly sounds like Hell. Having the place pretty much to ourselves, though, was definitely Heaven.

Our hotel was right on the Malecón, except, unlike La Habana and Chetumal, the Malecón in Mahahual was just the promenade on the beach. No seawall. Our hotel had a beach club (as most of them did, in order to monetize all the cruise ship tourists), but as hotel guests we had full access.

There were angled openings in the net, for boats and swimmers to get out of the beach zones, and just beyond that, maybe another 30 yards out, was a floating barricade to keep the sargassum from floating up on the beach and decaying. It’s the line beyond the netting poles you can see in the picture above. It was quite the tourist problem, as the smell is pretty intense. There was one spot on the Malecón where the sargassum had crept past an opening in the barricade, and we declined to eat at the restaurant right in front of it. Before the barrier was put in, the sargassum would clog the beach along its entire length at times, and I’m sure the stench must have been something.

But our beach was clear and beautiful, and we swam multiple times each day, in addition to our snorkel adventures. When we visited Laguna Bacalar, we were stunned that there wasn’t even a hint of cold in the water. You just slipped right in without a moment’s adjustment. Imagine our surprise when we went for our first swim, and the sensation wasn’t so much an absence of cold as the presence of warm. The water was actively warm, like a pleasant bath. I mean, kind of by definition, shouldn’t an ocean be colder than a lake? We attribute it to the meteorological phenomenon known as El Baño.

The Malecón

My absolute favorite part of the Malecón was the galaxy of storefront and beachfront pharmacies serving the cruise ship clientele.

I was very excited at the prospect of picking up some recreational painkillers (for my recreational pain), but Dorothy insisted that they were all fakes. Well, I wouldn’t stand for all these fine beachfront farmacias being tarred with an indiscriminate brush, so I turned to Dr. Google, which led me to a study by the UCLA Health Center. The UCLA team actually went to Mexican pharmacies, bought medications, and took them back to the lab to determine whether they were real or not. Facts would carry the day.

Per the study, the facts were that of the 45 pill samples they tested, almost half were not as advertised. The Adderall contained meth, and the Oxycontin contained either fentanyl or heroin. So I was right! There’s nothing fake about meth, fentanyl, and heroin. Those are absolutely real drugs. And you can just buy them at the local pharmacy. We have much to learn from the Mexicans about supply chain management.

Dorothy was unmoved. I suggested that the right answer was to start with like a quarter pill, until you figured out how strong they are. Her obdurate reply? “This is why women live longer than men.” So stubborn.

Even undrugged, the Malecón had much to offer. Beachfront restaurants with fresh mariscos and ceviche, beachside massages, iguanas… I suppose I didn’t need the drugs after all.

Snorkeling The Reef

The Malecón’s charms notwithstanding, we came to Mahahual to snorkel. There were boats and guides right on the beach at our hotel, and we took 90 minute snorkeling tours each of our two mornings there.

We’d spent a few days on Ambergris Caye in Belize about 35 years ago, at the end of our first trip to Guatemala (the one that started with me getting stuck at the top of a pyramid), and we’d snorkeled the Mesoamerican Reef then. That was spectacular, like swimming in a tropical aquarium, and the parts of the reef we saw in Mahahual didn’t quite measure up.

One explanation for that is that in 35 years the reef system has gone to shit. The more likely explanation, I think, is that in Belize, prime reef was accessible by snorkel, whereas in Mahahual you’d need to dive to get to the good stuff. All of the pictures we saw for the dive trips looked just like Belize, and there were lots of dive shops and dive tours. If we hadn’t cut our visit short to take advantage of an early opening in Chicago for Dorothy’s hip replacement, I think we’d have made it back to Ambergris Caye, which is only a 90 minute ferry ride from Chetumal. But there are great snorkeling reefs around the world, so we’ll have other opportunities.

But that’s to undersell completely how much fun we had snorkeling Mahahual. It may not have been the most spectacular reef snorkeling on the planet, but it was well worth it, and pretty damned fun. Our first day there were three other couples with us, but we had the boat to ourselves on the second day.

We were far enough out for it to be pretty real. Not deep sea diving, by a long shot, but farther than we could swim back, so that gave it a wee frisson.