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August 23, 2007

Hurricane narrowly targeted man-made cruise port and its mock Mayan village

Reuters
An aerial view of wrecked buildings in the shopping mall of the Costa Maya port, Majahual, Mexico yesterday. Below, a photo of the same buildings before the storm.

CruiseCritic.com

Doc Searls has been to Costa Maya and Majahual, where Hurricane Dean made landfall at category-5 strength along a narrow path in Mexico's Yucatan after skirting Jamaica's south coast as a 4.

Doc's history includes a trip with his sister, the last Linux Lunacy Geek Cruise, in October 2005. His photos of Majahual, and links to before and after photos and reports are in Remembering Majahual.

Since he grabbed the hard-news hurricane handoff, I get to be the potentially interested reader, new to the area now that it's gone. And what a weird area it is.

Costa Maya was a cruise port plopped down in a flat, inaccessible fishing village inhabited mainly by poor Indians. If good vibrations and Jah modified Dean's impact on Jamaica (we're going outside meteorology here), the spirits of the nearby Mayan ruins seem to have frowned and flattened Majahual, with its manmade mockery of a Mayan village.

Into the Jungle is an alt-travel writer's funny and jaundiced take on Costa Maya last year. Author Rick Archer documents the annual cruises of members of SSQQ Dance Studio in Houston, which boasts "Magic at creating Romances." Rick owns it, and spun off a travel business to do Love Boat-style cruises.

It's one long Web page, slow to load because of dozens of photos of Belize, Costa Maya and Cozumel, but worth the wait. You might scroll down the page or use Ctrl-F to find "COLORFUL COSTA MAYA" and read on. A sample:

Gary Davidson

As you can see, Costa Maya is a bizarre little Indian village right in the middle of NOWHERE.

The first thing you notice is this must be the flattest piece of earth on the planet. There are no mountains. There are no hills.

There is a forest, but it is not exactly a 'Rain Forest'. There are no caves. There are no rivers with exciting waterfalls and rapids perfect for kayaking. The nearest ruins are 60 miles away. There is no nearby snorkeling that I know of. There is no beach of any particular significance. In fact, there is practically nothing to do at this place except buy tee-shirts, drink beer or get on the bus and go see some ruins. Furthermore the trees were so short a bad guy would have to crawl on his belly not to be seen.

What possible reason could there be for this simple fishing village to suddenly become a destination for a cruise ship carrying several thousand wealthy American tourists??

The whole thing started when some speculators pooled their money and decided to build an expensive state-of-the-art dock. Suddenly a little Mexican fishing village almost completely cut off from the world had a world-class dock worth millions of dollars....more...

This is his second trip, back after a honeymoon cruise two years before to the Caymans ended up here instead. As he did some research before returning, he confronted a Glowing Travel Story:

Whereas my mediocre writing painted the picture of a muddy little village with stumpy trees stuck in the middle of nowhere, this writer came up with a flowery description of Costa Maya that made me wonder how I missed all that stuff.

In the hands of a Spin Master, Mahahual and the neighboring area began to sound like the most important vacation discovery since James Cook stumbled upon the Hawaiian Islands in 1778.

(Note: If you have followed this story closely, Majahual is virtually inaccessible by plane or car. There is an airport that isn't used and a road full of potholes. Only cruise ships can get it to it!

Undiscouraged, investors continue to flock here to cash in on the next Playa del Carmen.

I guess if they can sell swampland in Florida, someone can sell a few acres of runt trees in good old Costa Maya. You might even get hooked up to electricity if you are lucky.

And better yet, there are American expatriates living here! Maybe the next Ernest Hemingway will come from Mahahual!)

The trees are short because hurricanes down them all every few years, as Dean has once more. Doc quotes Cruise Ship Report,

... Cesar Lizarraga, director of sales and marketing for Costa Maya, said about half the port’s infrastructure — including the cruise ship pier, which was able to accommodate three ships — was damaged by the mammoth storm.

“An early estimate indicates the port will remain closed for six to eight months,” Lizarraga said. Others suggested a mid-2008 timeline might be more realistic.

While the faux Mayan shopping and entertainment complex at the foot of the cruise ship pier suffered heavy damage, the adjacent town of Majahual — where dive and souvenir shops and open-air restaurants lined the picturesque beach — has largely been destroyed.

Let's hope the actors in Costa Maya's "faux Mayan village" survived.

You can read all of Rick Archer's astonishment at Costa Maya and see more of Gary Davidson's photos -- many of Americans being silly -- from this trip at this link.

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 10:22 AM | Permalink