Memories

Our first camping trip to the Yucatan Peninsula happened in the winter of 1979 when my teaching position in Smiley became redundant. We loaded up our Volkswagen Westfalia and headed out, hoping to complete the trip on $5.00 per day as suggested by Frommer's book.

We visited many areas in Mexico before meeting a couple in Merida who suggested we follow them to a beach camping spot called Paamul. We did just that and ended up camping on the beach for two months.

Paamul was an undiscovered paradise with only about ten to twelve people scattered about...two groups were in units like ours and the rest were in tents. There was a small, old, beat up hotel that the owner used as his source of income. He opened up the end unit so all campers could use the showers and toilet...often so filthy you hated to go in there.

There was a very tiny building that the owner used to serve a few meals and beer to the campers, plus there was a small palapa that was used to rent diving equipment.

The old man who owned the buildings and rented the "spots" for camping used to sit by the restaurant [used as his home also] watching the activity going on with the tourists. Not that we did much...there was no electricity so at dark all activity stopped as no one wanted to run down their batteries in their units nor did people want to run out of kerosene for their lanterns.

The months we spent there were laid back, good old fashioned boon-docking. The bay we were on was clean and quiet except for Sundays when the Mexicans came to enjoy the beach and water.

Fishermen would occasionally bring in their catch for us to buy, lobsters were sold by the men who went spearfishing, beer was trucked in by the Mexican beer companies and water was delivered by the jug full. The only time we needed to drive to Playa Del Carmen was to get an ice block for our cooler. Playa Del Carmen at that time is another story!

To complete this rambling...yesterday we decided to go back to Paamul [we have done this a couple of times over the years] to check the progress of the place.

The one kilometre lane into Paamul hasn't changed much and is still rough and full of pot holes.

There is now a guard at the gate and once inside, our ancient little peace of heaven is not longer recognizable . Not that we expected anything else nor do we resent the change...we just wanted to see it.

Where we used to camp, there are now 50 large RVs permanently set up, with grass palapas used to cover them and keep the sun out. The restaurant is enlarged and there is a huge hotel right on the beach near where we camped.

The picture below shows the few [maybe eight] overnight camping spots that are not used for year round living.

Where Fred is standing is approximately where we camped for months at a time.

Even with these changes, Paamul is still a laid back beach community with not much going on other than living on the beach!