Bacalar
By Jaimy de Vries
Still a quite unknown place for tourists, but well known among locals: Bacalar! Bacalar is one of the country’s best-kept secrets. It’s a perfect place for a relaxing stay at a beautiful fresh lagoon. And not just a lagoon, it’s called the lagoon of seven colors and that’s not just a name. The lagoon really offers all kinds of blue, maybe even more than seven colors.
Bacalar, comes from the mayas “bakhalal”, which means place of reeds. With the ado bus we arrived in Bacalar. We don’t know if its this place, but we only had nice weather here. No daily rain showers as we had in the other places. After a short walk we arrived at our accommodation. We were greeted by our nice host and took a nice fresh shower. We had free bikes from our accommodation. Ideal to get around in Bacalar. We took a ride to the city center and had a fancy dinner at an Italian restaurant. Bacalar is a really small town and it’s quiet.
Cocalitos
By coincidence we met our friend from Holbox in Bacalar and we went on a trip together the next day. We cycled to Cocalitos beach. In my opinion the best place for a relaxing day and a swim in the lagoon. You need to be there early to reserve a nice spot at the lagoon.
At Cocalitos you have a natural phenomenon that you can see from up close: stromatolites. Stromatolites are formations of prehistoric life that can be seen in very few places in the world. When looking at them over the water they look like rocks covered with moss, but they are extremely fragile so you have to take care not to touch them or step on them.
In Cocalitos one can relax and have fun, eat in the restaurants, rent a kayak, enjoy the turquoise waters or snorkel to see the stromatolites. There are swings and hang mats in the water with the best view of Bacalar. You can also walk quite far into the lagoon without the depth changing. The lagoon looks like a salt water beach, with its white sand and blue crystal clear water. But it is a fresh water lake. I love it, it’s way better than salt in your eye or a salty mouth. Soon this place started to fill up with tourists, not only people arriving at the entrance of Cocalitos, but also many tourists from boat trips. Good we went early.
View over the lake of seven colors. You can see two cenotes on the picture
Cocalitos from above
On the swing
So relaxed a hang mat
Walking into the lagoon
Kayak trip
The next day we woke up early for the sunrise! Our amazing host brought us to the lagoon and we rented kayaks with him. In my Spanish attempt I said to the host: yo soy muy excitada! He was like huh? I wanted to say I was so excited. But excitada means horny. Oeps😅 Well he understood me luckily.
After we arrived it started to get light a little bit. Jaron and I had a double kayak. Once we put the kayak in the water and Jaron joined, there was a lot of water getting inside the kayak. It’s okay to have some water in the kayak but this was a lot. We tried a little bit…but the kayak was almost completely in the water on the back side. We decided to peddle back and contact the host. We were still in time to see the sunrise from the pier. It was amazing. I love it way more than the sunset. The host picked us up and gave us the money for the kayak rental back. So sweet. After this adventure we decided to relax and have breakfast. Afterwards we were so tired and it started to get really warm already. We decided to go kayaking again the next day.
Steffi enjoying the view.
Beautiful sunrise
Caribbean Piracy
We visited the fort that was quite interesting, but the museum was very small. We learned something about the first settlers (Itzaes ad 430 years), the success of this trading post, the Spanish invasion and the pirates that liked to come here, not for gold or silver, but for Campeche wood (used for textile – sold like gold) and to steal women. We were mostly interested in the piracy history.
Piracy in the Caribbean started in the XVI century and it’s tied to the main sources of wealth of that period: American mining, black slave trade, cotton and Campeche wood. It’s origin should be sought in the imperial conflicts between Spain and other European countries (England, France and Holland) in discovering new land. Spain was very powerful and claimed lots of land. As a consequence great pirates arise protected by these other European countries to create more markets and to under well the power of the Spaniards. The “war” was not really in Europe, but mostly in the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico because here were the main trading posts of that time and was the gateway to enter newly discovered land.
Entrance
Arr don’t come too close!
Aiming for the pirates
View from inside the fort
Acces to the lagoon
It’s not easy to get access to the lagoon. There are many restaurants and hotels at the lagoon, and to get access you need to be a customer. But there are some free piers: at the end of calle 14, 16, 18, 32. It’s nice to take something to drink with you and enjoy the sunset (or sunrise) from the pier.
Street dogs
We had dinner close to our place. When we walked back there was a cute street dog that walked with us. There are lots of street dogs here in Bacalar, but besides they are dirty, they’re quite cute and really well behavioral. They walk to you with a wagging tail. But once you pet them, they follow you the whole day. Oeps! Well..I dont really mind, but other people get annoyed by the dogs. Awh poor dogs. I wish I could bring them all with me.
Beautiful street art in Bacalar. They can be seen everywhere in Mexico.
A couple of street dogs that followed us.
Kayak attempt two
We kayaked around the island. They call this lagoon the lagoon of seven colors. Well now we were kayaking I really saw lots of blue colors. Dark blue, medium blue, turquoise, etc. It was so beautiful! We haven’t seen ang exciting wildlife, like an alligator (jup they can be spotted here) but we saw Jaron got attacked by a dragonfly. We headed out to pirate channel where they should be a ship wreck. We kayaked along some mangrove trees what was cool. Once we arrived at the spot we docked our kayaks and swam to the “ship”. It was not actually a ship, it was a structure in the shape of a ship made of concrete. I swam with the drybag, but it turned out not to be so dry. Shit! Our phones got wet. Luckily phones are quite waterproof nowadays, so our phones were okay. Well we could say our kayak trip was an adventure.
Great team!
A cute little mangrove tree
Three kayakkers on a big lagoon
Having fun 🙂
New adventure
After lots of swimming, and maybe too much water (phones), it’s time for a new adventure: Guatemala!
We read on the internet that Bacalar/Chetumal is a good place to cross the border overland by bus – from Mexico to Belize and then to Flores (Guatemala). There are two bus organizations that offers this transportation service. But they weren’t running when we were there. Because of low season? So we needed to take a bus back to Cancun(6hours) and take a flight to Guatemala city. That was quite frustrating news, but the nice thing is we don’t have difficult border crossings with scams.
My guide for your Bacalar trip
We loved staying in Bacalar, but it is rather small…so staying there for 4 days would be enough to have a relaxing time and do some activities.
- Recommended duration visit: 3-4 days days
- Best places to eat: La Kinta (nice postres), Nao Sushus (sushi + Veggie street food), la trattoria (good pizza place), Yunuem + La Playita (good lunch spot with access to the lagoon)
- Highlighted things to do: Kayakking with sunrise, chill at the beach of Cocalitos, visit the ford, go on a sailing trip, rent a bike and visit all the cenotes.
- Our accommodation: Villa Ahkbal (great host!) with free bikes.
- My favorite activity: With the bike to Cocalitos (and see all seven cenotes) and kayakking.