Bacalar - My Travel Diary

Finally Bacalar. After 8 hours from Palenque.

Bacalar is a beautiful town set along the Laguna Bacalar in Quintana Roo, Mexico.
With year-round temperatures that hover between 25°C - 35°C, there's never a bad time to head to the lake of seven colors in Bacalar.

But where to go?
There's not a lot going on, but that's why people like it here.
If you're looking for great restaurants, booming nightlife or bohemian cafes, it's not here.
This peaceful Mexican Carribean town is arguably the Caribbean’s hippest destination right now.
It's not big, but it's wonderful, all drawn to a special kind of energy.

San Felipe fort and the Palo de tinte
Along the coast of Bacalar one will come across an impressive fort, with giant walls rising above the town of Bacalar, just a few meters from the Bacalar lagoon.
The Fort was built in 1733 under the order of don Antonio de Figueroa y Silva, and it has recently been restored and sits in the center of town.
To enter the fort and the museum, Alvaro and I payed thirty pesos each, because we said that he also was Mexican, and they did not ask us for identification.
During the years of piracy Bacalar was attacked because this was the principal point in Quintana Roo for trading merchandise. The town was also raides for food, to kidnap women and especially for palo de tint, one of the plants that represented one of the greatest riches in the eighteenth century, the so-called " palo de campeche ", "palo de Brasil" or "Haematoxylum campechianun". Its height was six meters and it was used as a dye for the New Spain, Europe and the English. 
Finally, Palo de tinte is an extinct case. 

The "ecological" park?
The ecological park offers speedy access to nature, just 10 minutes from downtown. But the ecological park of Bacalar, with a natural reserve covering 5 thousand 367 hectares is used as a public health resort, without any measure, so it presents deterioration by the bathers. The payment of income is cheaper, three pesos per person, then each holiday season is visited by hundreds of vacationers, mainly locals. There are not baths, not mobile toilets, then peopble fulfill their physiological needs within the water. Then, the water of one the most beatiful lakes in the world, begings to contaminate with cyanobacteria. 

Where sleep?
There are many hotels, hostels, camp sites and cabins in Bacalar and in the peripheries.
But the majority of the hotels seemed to me to be expensive, like "La hacienda", and some of these do not have access to the lagoon, such as "Pata de perro", it looks like a very chill hotel, but it's in the center of town, so you can not enjoy of the sound of the lagoon and appreciate the beauty of the surrounding, and "Pata de perro" it is expensive too.
We visited other camp sites around the lagoon, but they were all full. Then a friend wrote me suggesting another hostel: The magic Bacalar. It took approximately 15 minutes from downtown to reach the Magic Bacalar Hostel, wich is located at 3° Avenida and 36° Calle.
When we arrived at Magic Bacalar we knew that it was the best.