Maya Riviera

Unlike Cozumel with its abundance of dive shops, Cancun is home to only ten. But, as I discovered, this city has much to offer a diver looking for a unique diving experience. Located twelve miles from Cozumel on the mainland, Cancun is home to some of the best diving found anywhere. While many people know […]

Start with an endless array of fabulous dishes from the greatest chefs in the Americas. Add a lavish serving of wines born in regions from Napa Valley to the fields of Chile. Sprinkle with warm, sun-splashed days, beckoning beaches and spirited nightlife. The result: The tempting event called the Cancun-Riviera Maya Wine & Food Festival, staged in […]

Recollections of stunning ruins, fantastic snorkelling, exquisite food and friendly people. The Yucatan is unlike any other region of Mexico. It has unique terrain, climate, cuisine and people. The entire peninsula once lay as a giant coral reef underneath the warm Caribbean Sea. The formation of this unusual rocky landscape can be witnessed by a […]

As I walked through the hotel lobby, the weight of the three hundred $100 bills sewn to the waist band of my Jockey shorts pulled my underpants down over my small rear. The money was hanging at my knees. As inconspicuous as a penguin waddling through the hotel lobby at high noon, I could easily […]

The vast majority of visitors to Cancun never make it south of Tulum. Yet to many, that’s where the adventure starts. The relatively empty region south of Tulum is a delight to nature lovers, ruin buffs and adventure travelers. The best way to see this region is to rent a car for several days but […]

Until 1961, Cozumel was a sleepy little fishing village. Then, a television documentary by noted diver and nature lover, Jacques-Ives Cousteau, showed the world the beauty of our island waters. Today the very mention of Cozumel stirs images of tropical fish, aqua blue waters, and white powdery beaches. Even though hotels, restaurants, and other business […]

We could hear the faint sound of drums from our condo. As we walked in the tropical twilight toward the parade the music became louder. We heard a mixture of calypso, reggae, flamingo and pop, each distinct but blending into a cultural mix like the people of Cozumel. Cozumel is well known as one of […]

This is a story of how my wife, Teresa, and I realized our dream of owning a sailboat here on the Caribbean side of Mexico. Being former coastal Californians with 10 years of sailing experience under our lifejackets and now living on the Caribbean coastline of the Yucatan Peninsula, we wanted a sailboat at our […]

A lone woman stands on a quiet stage, covered almost entirely in blue. She wears a flowing blue skirt and bandeau, with matching paint saturating the skin of her face and entire body. The impression of an unending azure is broken only by the appearance of five yellow flowers: one painted on each hand, one […]

“Nature is art,” says 30-year-old artist Alan Vázquez. “You can find colors in the flowers and the reef fish that we humans can not equal, even with the most sophisticated technology. (And) the roar of thunder, like the fierceness of the sea that we feel in our chest, is a vague musical note through time.” […]

To conjure the world of the ancient Maya, all Otoniel Baruck Sala needs is a paintbrush and his imagination. This 31-year-old artist has spent more than half his life living on the Yucatán Peninsula, where his mind has long been steeped in Maya culture. “Since I was young, the Maya culture and civilization have always […]

Vanessa thought it would be the perfect vacation: a full week on Mexico’s Mayan Riviera, as the travel agent had called the Yucatan coast. The agent had suggested the small city of Campeche, stressing that it was a place not yet discovered by hordes of Americans, a pristine paradise a few hours south of Merida. […]

Cogan’s Reviews Where the Sky is Born: Living in the Land of the Maya by Jeanine Lee Kitchel Enchanted Island Press, Hawaii, 2004 Paperback, 217 pages Available from Amazon Books: Paperback And also on Kindle from Amazon.com at $9.99 Here’s another of those ‘coming to Mexico to live’  books – but with a difference. It’s not concerned with […]

I collect old books. There’s no more fun for me than to forage through secondhand bookstores, digging up the weird and wonderful, ’50s crime pulp and science fiction, 19th century poetry tomes, books on travel and adventure. In some of those cities where I’ve lived or spent time – Amsterdam, London, Melbourne, Stockholm, Tel Aviv […]

Isla Mujeres. That little gem off the coast of Cancun lying peacefully in the Caribbean Sea, beckoning you over to experience her magic. “Magic” is precisely how you will hear isleños — island residents — and visitors alike describe her. Mystical, healing, and rejuvenating are also words which have been associated with the island. Until you go, […]

The monkeys, they tell me, are asleep in a cave across the lagoon. But other than that disappointment, my trip to Pac Chen, a micro sized Maya village in the jungle of the Yucatan Peninsula, is the perfect way to step back in time. To get here from Playa del Carmen, our home base, we […]

For many visitors to Cozumel, the island’s downtown is merely a cruise ship stop or a blur out the taxi window on the way to one of the resorts that cluster on the north and south end. However, if you venture into San Miguel, you’ll find a buzzing little metropolis that is a tempting target […]

(While traveling to the Yucatan Peninsula on vacation in 1985, the author and her husband meet an adventurous contractor who offers to sell them a beachfront lot in Playa del Carmen. After accepting his offer, a series of bizarre events-including the Mexico government’s seizure of the land by eminent domain, the contractor’s financial crisis, and […]

First published in The London Observer/Guardian Foreign News Service Jan. 17, 2000 Anita Brown (my beautiful bride these twenty-two years) met a lady from Littleton, Colorado, on the way to downtown Cancun this morning. “Her daughter had the face of an angel,” she told me. “You think of someone like that lying in a pool […]

When I tell my media friends that I am writing a book called “The Real Mexico”, they invariably act a bit dumbfounded and frequently ask how I can possibly know anything about the real Mexico if I’ve lived in Cancun since 1983, as if this resort city on the Mexican Caribbean were located in Brooklyn. […]

In March 1998, when Andrew was 15 years old, we took our Mayan trip together. I decided to take him for that month, because his small school in Anchorage, Alaska, was going to the Galapagos Islands, and I chose a less structured, free-wheeling vacation for the two of us. Andrew has traveled with me since […]

I’m drifting away and feeling mighty fine about it, I don’t mind saying. For the last hour or so my brain’s been telling me to “Listen up. It’s the air and the breeze, stupid. Relax! Enjoy!” And I’m so far out of it that I actually speak to my inner voice, “Okay, all right, already!” […]