Bacalar is really interesting with a history dating back to Mayan times, early trade routes and pirates a plenty. The town itself having been built in 1545, when the Spanish Fort anchoring one end of the Plaza was built.  The picture on the right was taken from the top of the fort built to guard the town as pirate ships came to raid the area, known for a wood that produces dyes valued in Europe! Appropriately named Laguna Siete Colores, the lagoon lives up to its name and looks for all the world like the Caribbean, but is fresh water and gets its colors partially from high mineral content and sandy bottom once away from the marshy bottom at the shoreline.  

It’s very low key and the place I’m staying, Pata De Perro, is right on the square, which comes alive at dusk with Mexican families.  I’ve not really gotten into swimming the lagoon – there’s really not a beach, one needs a dock to go off into the water. I admit to being squeamish about treading into a marshy bottom and wading through grasses. That’s a little of my Louisiana swamp history coming to bite me.  But once you’re out about 20 feet from the shore the bottom is sandy and beautiful.

When the local tourist season, which consumes much of April, settles down, I’ll take a tour of the lagoon and get to see the Stromatolites, one of Bacalar’s claim to fame. Stromatolites date back 3.5 billion years and contributed to the creation of earth’s atmosphere, being oxygen producing structures that look like rocks. There are areas you can swim among these structures and there are only a few places on the planet where they exist.  Can’t wait till the crowds leave and Bacalar resumes its quiet existence.   

In the meanwhile, I’m plotting my next move, doing a lot of reading, using the few hours of the morning before it gets deathly hot and humid to walk and get to the market.  There’s no real shopping here, so the first thing I had to do was find cooler clothes.  While there are beautiful embroidered shirts and tops available here, they’re not cool, nor easy to wash.  It grieved me to do it but I had to venture into Walmart and get something to wear.  God forgive me – but there was no choice – no little shops here with anything but little kid clothes.  So a friend and I hopped the bus, went into Chetumal and approached said store with foreboding.  But there it was – three t-shirts and two thin, hot weather dresses and an exercise ball later, I’d spent less than $50 US.  

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