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The month of February has slipped away and we have been busy but haven’t done much traveling.
We arrived at the Ichpaatun Restaurant just north of Calderitas with the intention of staying as long as necessary
to figure out whether we had found a good place to put down some roots. We agreed to eat an occasional meal in
the restaurant and give a little something to the night watchman in exchange for staying there. Just down the road
2 miles is a trailer park that charges 220 Pesos a night ($20 US) and charges 50 pesos to dump the holding tanks
and fill the fresh water tank. All the caravans that are going to Belize stay at Yax Ha and any that come to this
corner of the world also stay there.
Our little spot was alongside the access road into the restaurant and the only complaint about the spot was it was
a little dusty at times. The restaurant would have an occasional client during the week and would have a good
crowd on the weekends. While we were there they celebrated their second business anniversary by having some
live music and giving away T-shirts to selected clientele…Colleen and I were honored with a shirt. The Uc family
owns the restaurant and their sons have two other restaurants in Calderitas. We stayed at Ichpaatun for 24 days.
While we were there we spent the first two weeks in town researching how to buy property in Mexico. We went to
every government and utility office gathering information. We were lucky that Chetumal, the nearby large town, is
the capital city of the state of Quintana Roo and all the offices are there. We took lots of notes and finally decided
that there were some items pending but nothing that would keep the project from moving forward to the next step.
We found a really nice piece of property with a 44 meter waterfront and with another piece next door with a 44
meter waterfront that had a sign on it that it was for sale. It took some doing to track down who was the owner and
discovered that he was off on a 3 week cruise. There are two other pieces on the other side that the owners are
not using so we have been working for weeks to find them too. Just yesterday a friend of ours traveling near
Puerto Vallarta found their place of business and left them a note and got us a good phone number for them.
When the fellow on the cruise got back we talked to him and found out that he has changed his mind and doesn’t
want to sell. Drats!!!! So, the status of purchasing at this time is on hold while we think things through and get in
contact with the other owners that we have just found.
Also while we were there, Kim and Jon, a couple we met in Texas just when we crossed back into the States last
year, tracked us down and also moved in at the restaurant. We shared lots of dinners, took two boat trips, went to
the zoo and just hung out. Kim and Jon painted a neat sign for the Ucs to put out in front of the restaurant saying
that they offered RV camping. The Ucs are clearing a field that currently has cattle fodder growing on it so that
people can stay there instead of alongside the road. We also worked up an information sheet in Spanish and
English that they can show to prospective customers since they don’t speak English. It will be fun to check in
periodically to see whether they have gotten any customers.
One day Colleen and I took our kayak to Laguna de Milagros and paddled 18 kms to the Mexico/Belize border
crossing. It was actually quite a feat as we weren’t sure how many tributaries fed from the laguna into the Rio
Hondo which marks the border of the two countries. We had the GPS with us and only made one wrong turn and
ended up crossing another laguna that was a dead end…that was an extra 2.5 kms of paddling we would have
preferred to avoid. There is so little fall on this land that it is difficult to detect which way the current is flowing. On
arrival at the dock we found a taxi that took us and the kayak back to the car for 150 pesos.
For now we have left the restaurant and are camped at Xcalak the very southeasternmost tip of Mexico just north
of the island of Ambergris Caye in Belize. Xcalak is on a little spit of sand and is a sleepy little town with lots of
gringos. Today we are going to go snorkeling out on the reef, then we have reservations to eat at a restaurant
two Canadian women operate that is wildly successful and tomorrow some of us are going deep sea fishing.
Kim and Jon will be leaving to head to Tulum and then to Cancun to pick up Kim’s mom who will travel with them
for a couple of weeks. We will hook back up with them for at least a day so we can get our camera that her mom is
bringing down for us.
So that is it for February….we have set a new record for staying the longest in one place…24 days.
We arrived at the Ichpaatun Restaurant just north of Calderitas with the intention of staying as long as necessary
to figure out whether we had found a good place to put down some roots. We agreed to eat an occasional meal in
the restaurant and give a little something to the night watchman in exchange for staying there. Just down the road
2 miles is a trailer park that charges 220 Pesos a night ($20 US) and charges 50 pesos to dump the holding tanks
and fill the fresh water tank. All the caravans that are going to Belize stay at Yax Ha and any that come to this
corner of the world also stay there.
Our little spot was alongside the access road into the restaurant and the only complaint about the spot was it was
a little dusty at times. The restaurant would have an occasional client during the week and would have a good
crowd on the weekends. While we were there they celebrated their second business anniversary by having some
live music and giving away T-shirts to selected clientele…Colleen and I were honored with a shirt. The Uc family
owns the restaurant and their sons have two other restaurants in Calderitas. We stayed at Ichpaatun for 24 days.
While we were there we spent the first two weeks in town researching how to buy property in Mexico. We went to
every government and utility office gathering information. We were lucky that Chetumal, the nearby large town, is
the capital city of the state of Quintana Roo and all the offices are there. We took lots of notes and finally decided
that there were some items pending but nothing that would keep the project from moving forward to the next step.
We found a really nice piece of property with a 44 meter waterfront and with another piece next door with a 44
meter waterfront that had a sign on it that it was for sale. It took some doing to track down who was the owner and
discovered that he was off on a 3 week cruise. There are two other pieces on the other side that the owners are
not using so we have been working for weeks to find them too. Just yesterday a friend of ours traveling near
Puerto Vallarta found their place of business and left them a note and got us a good phone number for them.
When the fellow on the cruise got back we talked to him and found out that he has changed his mind and doesn’t
want to sell. Drats!!!! So, the status of purchasing at this time is on hold while we think things through and get in
contact with the other owners that we have just found.
Also while we were there, Kim and Jon, a couple we met in Texas just when we crossed back into the States last
year, tracked us down and also moved in at the restaurant. We shared lots of dinners, took two boat trips, went to
the zoo and just hung out. Kim and Jon painted a neat sign for the Ucs to put out in front of the restaurant saying
that they offered RV camping. The Ucs are clearing a field that currently has cattle fodder growing on it so that
people can stay there instead of alongside the road. We also worked up an information sheet in Spanish and
English that they can show to prospective customers since they don’t speak English. It will be fun to check in
periodically to see whether they have gotten any customers.
One day Colleen and I took our kayak to Laguna de Milagros and paddled 18 kms to the Mexico/Belize border
crossing. It was actually quite a feat as we weren’t sure how many tributaries fed from the laguna into the Rio
Hondo which marks the border of the two countries. We had the GPS with us and only made one wrong turn and
ended up crossing another laguna that was a dead end…that was an extra 2.5 kms of paddling we would have
preferred to avoid. There is so little fall on this land that it is difficult to detect which way the current is flowing. On
arrival at the dock we found a taxi that took us and the kayak back to the car for 150 pesos.
For now we have left the restaurant and are camped at Xcalak the very southeasternmost tip of Mexico just north
of the island of Ambergris Caye in Belize. Xcalak is on a little spit of sand and is a sleepy little town with lots of
gringos. Today we are going to go snorkeling out on the reef, then we have reservations to eat at a restaurant
two Canadian women operate that is wildly successful and tomorrow some of us are going deep sea fishing.
Kim and Jon will be leaving to head to Tulum and then to Cancun to pick up Kim’s mom who will travel with them
for a couple of weeks. We will hook back up with them for at least a day so we can get our camera that her mom is
bringing down for us.
So that is it for February….we have set a new record for staying the longest in one place…24 days.
Copyright - All Rights Reserved
2005
2005
February 2005
Around the World with Kathe and Colleen