• Home
  • About Us
  • FAQs
  • Contact Us
  • The Zoe Report
  • Haley’s Corner
facebook twitter instagram
Let's Just Travel
  • Home
  • About Us
  • FAQs
  • Contact Us
  • The Zoe Report
  • Haley’s Corner
Home  >  Cenote • Mexico  >  Bacalar, Mexico
CenoteMexico

Bacalar, Mexico

Allison Sherman Posted onSeptember 28, 2016 Comments are off 5490 Views

We are in a bit of no-man’s-land at the moment. We no longer have our house in Cancun but we still have our car. But it’s not quite time to leave for Spain so that makes us… homeless? Car-full? I dunno, but it seems like a good time to do a road trip.  We decided to check out Bacalar a few days ago. It involves water and pretty colors and cenotes. We are in!

Bacalar was a city of the Maya civilization in Pre-Columbian times. This was the first city in the region which the Spanish conquistadores succeeded in taking and holding in 1543. After the town was sacked by pirates in the 17th century, the Fortress de San Felipe Bacalar was completed in 1729, and is still there today, front and center in the main square.

Bacalar is a 55 kilometer long fresh water lake that parallels the ocean in the southern part of the Yucatan Peninsula.It’s about 1.2 miles at it’s widest point. It takes about 3 hours to get there from Playa del Carmen. Other than a few towns, the only scenery you’ll see is a bunch of mangrove trees. No bother, we’ve got Spotify and Dan fired up the 80’s playlist (insert eye roll and groaning from the back seat here).

bacalar1 bacalar2

 

Bacalar itself is not all that impressive of a town, but the lagoon… well, prepared to be impressed. People call it the “lake of 7 colors”. There are 7 cenotes that the lagoon sits on top of and each one contributes a different color to the water.

Wait, what? Cenotes under a lake? Make up your mind, people is it a lake or is it a cenote?

Well, it’s both, as we learned on our boat tour. It’s definitely a lagoon but if you go to certain places you can see a very distinct change of water color. Take a look under the water and you literally see a drop-off into a very deep, dark hole. Our boat tour took us to one cenote and we parked for awhile so we could swim. On one side of the boat the water was 1 meter deep. On the other side it was 45 meters deep. What the what!? It was crazy cool to look at with your snorkel mask, but really freaky too. It made you feel like some large monster was suddenly going to emerge and suck you under. That didn’t happen to us. Es bueno.

Bacalar / QROO / Mexico - 9/26/16
You can see the color difference a little bit. The photos just don’t do it justice though.

Bacalar / QROO / Mexico - 9/25/16

Continuing our tour of the lagoon we went to a place called Pirate’s Canal. This was a pretty self-explanatory name. Evidently during the time shortly after the Spanish conquest, pirates would come to loot the wood and other valuables of the land. They had to enter from the Caribbean Sea into the canal to get on land and this was the best spot for them to do it. Well, those Spaniards are no dummies. They built a fort on land directly in front of this canal, and they also created a few traps using wooden posts that are just below the surface of the water. These posts would trap the pirate boat and kept it from leaving and provided a very easy target for those sneaky Spaniards.

You can still visit the Spanish fort, as it’s right on the main square of Bacalar. We noticed the moat and lamented that it was no longer filled with water. But given the very low wall around it from the sidewalk, we are pretty sure it claims at least a few stumbling drunks periodically. Yeah, no liability lawyers here. We also lamented the fact that the museum was closed on Mondays, the day we were there. Well, I one person lamented that fact.

Bacalar / QROO / Mexico - 9/25/16
Looking down into the moat. No drunk guys today but surely on other days there’s one or two.

In addition to the boat tour we went to a lake-version of a beach club. You pay to get in, you can play on the slides, the docks and be served lunch at your palapa. It was a great day for playing in the water and we learned we are still not immune to sunburns.

Bacalar / QROO / Mexico - 9/26/16
Zoe on the slide. Rule-breaker. Homeschool kid can no longer do things the proper way.

The weather was great, the lake was beautiful and the 80’s tunes kept playing all the way back to Playa del Carmen. Road trips don’t get much better than this. Well, the kids have a few suggestions for a change of tunes but what do they know? They’re just kids.

Bacalar / QROO / Mexico - 9/25/16 Bacalar / QROO / Mexico - 9/26/16 Othón P. Blanco / QROO / Mexico - 9/26/16 Othón P. Blanco / QROO / Mexico - 9/26/16 Othón P. Blanco / QROO / Mexico - 9/26/16 Othón P. Blanco / QROO / Mexico - 9/26/16

Previous Article The Story of Haley’s Braces
Next Article Rio Lagartos, Mexico: Flamingos and Salt

Related Posts

  • Reporting From Home Base

    February 19, 2020
  • Worldschooling Happy and Crappy

    December 11, 2019
  • A Weekend At Coco’s

    December 3, 2019
  • Worldschooling Game Changers

    November 27, 2019
  • Halloween and Day of the Dead in Mexico

    November 10, 2019
  • Stories from PdC, Part 2

    October 13, 2019
  • Stories from PdC, Part 1

    September 29, 2019
  • Life in PdC

    August 25, 2019
  • Mexico 2.0

    August 7, 2019
  • Random Tours in Europe

    August 2, 2019

Social Media

Categories

  • Amsterdam4
  • Barcelona2
  • Belgium1
  • Bocas6
  • Boquete16
  • Cambodia3
  • Cape Town6
  • Cenote13
  • Chiang Mai12
  • Christmas7
  • Colombia42
  • Day Trips8
  • Dominican Republic10
  • Dubai3
  • Education70
  • FAQs13
  • Field Trips15
  • Florence1
  • Food5
  • France3
  • Germany2
  • Granada2
  • Guatemala4
  • Haley's Corner29
  • Health6
  • Iceland3
  • Italy6
  • Johannesburg8
  • Language8
  • London2
  • Malaysia5
  • Medellin41
  • Merida3
  • Mexico78
  • Mexico City3
  • Milan1
  • Money3
  • Naples3
  • Netherlands9
  • Packing5
  • Panama153
  • Panama City5
  • Pedasi98
  • Playa del Carmen6
  • Portugal5
  • Puebla3
  • Read First1
  • Recap3
  • Rome3
  • South Africa21
  • Spain19
  • Switzerland1
  • Thailand17
  • The Zoe Report10
  • USA2
  • Venice1
  • What's Next9
  • Zimbabwe2
facebook twitter

Categories

  • Amsterdam4
  • Barcelona2
  • Belgium1
  • Bocas6
  • Boquete16
  • Cambodia3
  • Cape Town6
  • Cenote13
  • Chiang Mai12
  • Christmas7
  • Colombia42
  • Day Trips8
  • Dominican Republic10
  • Dubai3
  • Education70
  • FAQs13
  • Field Trips15
  • Florence1
  • Food5
  • France3
  • Germany2
  • Granada2
  • Guatemala4
  • Haley's Corner29
  • Health6
  • Iceland3
  • Italy6
  • Johannesburg8
  • Language8
  • London2
  • Malaysia5
  • Medellin41
  • Merida3
  • Mexico78
  • Mexico City3
  • Milan1
  • Money3
  • Naples3
  • Netherlands9
  • Packing5
  • Panama153
  • Panama City5
  • Pedasi98
  • Playa del Carmen6
  • Portugal5
  • Puebla3
  • Read First1
  • Recap3
  • Rome3
  • South Africa21
  • Spain19
  • Switzerland1
  • Thailand17
  • The Zoe Report10
  • USA2
  • Venice1
  • What's Next9
  • Zimbabwe2

Archives

  • February 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • July 2014
Order Dept, LLC © Copyright 2015