Why Bacalar?

When my friend Karen showed off the plans for her house in Mexico at her retirement party in spring of 2012, a light went off in my head. I immediately began googling, “retire to Mexico”. One of the most useful sites I found was MexicoGuru and their very creative, “Take the Test”.

I thoughtfully filled out the “Test” designed to point me in the direction of the perfect Mexican retirement location. For those who know me, swimming, kayaking and being close to water comes as no sorpresa. Lisa has wanted to own a boat for the twenty years I’ve known her. We want a pueblito where amigos/as speak both Spanish and English and where we feel like neighbors, rather than outsiders. I realize that I will always be an outsider in Mexico, but we want to live among faces that recognize us and value our friendship. We do not want to live on the coast. I dislike being hammered by the wind blowing off the ocean (besides, too many tourists and expensive). We want a simple life, close to nature and near an airport for the occasional viaje to the States. After taking the test several times, the answer was clearly, SOUTHERN YUCATAN. This was a surprise for me since I had never been any further south in the Yucatan than the pyramids de Tulum.  Lisa and I have been to Belize which is less than an hour drive from Bacalar and liked it very much.

I put my research skills to work to find possible areas to live in southern Yucatan. Somehow I discovered a long skinny swath of blue called La Leguna de Siete Colores or the Lagoon of Seven Colors. The pictures were stunning. There wasn’t a lot of information on the pueblo of Bacalar, but I was very fortunate to run across Steven Sohrakoff (Stevenbacalar@gmail.com), a realtor who lives there.  Steven happily answered a bazillion questions that we sent him. Based on his answers and my research, Lisa and I took the plunge to visit Bacalar in December 2012.

Map of Bacalar

This was a boat ride with a friend we met in Bacalar. We rode the lake for four hours and didn’t visit half of it. We also only saw two other boats.

Every day the sunrise was more beautiful than the last.