Brother Dave and I went down to Quiintana Roo a couple of weeks ago, just the two of us. I just
got back yesterday. We flew into Cancun, rented a Jeep and drove to the end of the
road to Xcalak, 400 km south near the border with Belize. It ain't the end
of the world, but you can definitely hear it from there. The surf on
the reef roars nonstop like a big waterfall about half a mile out, the sort
of white noise that makes sleep easy for me.

We went there to dive on the famous Chinchorro Bank, but it was blowing too
hard and the seas were too large the whole time we were there for the dive boats
to go out, so we just snorkeled about on the reefs closer to shore.
It was beautiful. Dave wants to buy some oceanfront land, build a house and retire
there, but his wife gets bored there, and much as he loves Quintana Roo and
Mayan culture, he loves his wife more. I love it there too and so does my
wife, but do I want to OWN a place there... ? I don't feel any more alien
there than I do in Maine, and my Spanish is getting better all the time. I
like Spanish. It feels good rolling off the tongue. Lynn's going down to Puerto
Morelos in March for a yoga retreat and maybe that will start us selling each other on retiring in QR. I don't think we'd lack friends to visit us, particularly in the winter. I still want to summer in Maine for the foreseeable future.

The hurricane thrashed Cancun and Cozumel and that whole coast south past Playa
del Carmen. It got stalled there for three days and hammered everything. In Puerto Morelos one of my favorite beaches near the port has a big ferryboat thrown on it. It's hard to imagine how they'll get it back in the water. All the leaves blew off the vast acres of mangroves that surround the town, and they look almost dead, but they're leafing
out again. Mangroves evolved with hurricanes and they're hard to kill. There's a good metaphor for adversity: better to lose your leaves than your roots.

Thousands of people are working to rebuild that coast, and
Cancunization is spreading south past Playa towards Tulum, huge resort
developments going up, and they're extending the 4-lane highway past Playa
too, down to Puerto Aventuras and further south south. Now there are three golf courses (!)
around Playa, a uniquely American assault on the environment. The cruise ships can't stop in Cozumel for awhile
because their docks were erased by the storm, so three a day are stopping in sleepy ol'
Mahahual, and a fleet of new tour buses take the tourists either to a nearby
ruin or to a nice beach. I guess the idea is to make the whole place look
like Orlando, but with Mexican color. It's like that old Eagles song: call
someplace paradise and kiss it goodbye.

For all that, it's still a lovely part of the world, and you can still find isolated beaches and healthy coral to marvel at. It's just that now you have to drive further, and now it helps to have 4WD. The shore roads took a beating, and the more remote ones are low on the repair list, assuming that such a list exists. A bridge is out too. We had a Jeep and most of the coast road was still rough going in second gear.

The Mayans are still there, still quiet and solid and smiling, watching us bizarre pale aliens with a bemused tolerance. Maybe someday we'll all go away and leave them alone in their Eden again.

For a great airplane tour of that whole coast from Xcalak to Cancun, check out www.locogringo.com/maps/tour/P1010054a-t.html .