No sooner has we been met by the kind and gracious Navarros, Ishmael and his charming son Angel- when they began to help us with our immediate needs. First and foremost, we needed diesel and provisions. Sounds easy, right? No so fast cowboy. In a town where the only industries are tourist boat tours and fishing, there was not one single place that sells diesel. Seriously. Petrol is king here and finding diesel would be a challenge.
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Fortunately, Ishmael seems to know literally everyone and everything about Rio Lagartos and he kows a guy, who knows a guy who might have some diesel to purchase. We loaded up Angel’s panga with jerry cans and headed up the rio. across the lagoon to a huge palapa restaurant. Despite being in proximity to a lovely spring fed and tree shaded swimming hole, the restaurant was empty save for one relative of the owner who looked exactly like the Mexican version of a Secret Service agent, right down to the sunglasses, impressively large watch and cap. He seemed to be functioning as the gatekeeper to the owner. Ishmael went to work negotiating in a back part of the restaurant. We admired the spring pool. Negotiations continued.
Eventually, we were ushered to a side room where diesel was loaded in the back of a truck in large cooking oil containers. The restaurant owner had the imposing presence of a Don. He agreed to sell 60 liters of diesel.
Now for the difficult part, paying for the diesel. It seems that Rio Lagartos not only doesn’t have diesel, they do not have a bank either and the locals have zero interest in accepting the only currency we had on us- dollars. Remember, Mexico was never on the itinary so we had done zero preparation for Mexico travel. The exchange rate he offered wasn’t horrendous but there was certainly a profit figured in for his trouble. No worries, we were not exactly in a strong negotiating position. We were also, very, very tired from the previous 14-hour ordeal. You have diesel and will take a currency that no one locally will accept? Cool. Thank you, thank you, thank you!
Our jerry cans were supplemented by fuel in old industrial sized cooking oil containers. We loaded them into the panga and then set off for the market in the town harbor. I think Ishmael may be the first person to have to tell his child to drive faster. “Rapido Angel, rapido!”. We arrived at the town dock and made our way to the market.
As is typical in Mexico, dry goods are at one shop and fresh produce is available at yet another shop. We procured some avocados, tomatoes, chilis and mangos at the produce market and headed to the dry goods shop for bread, ham and cheese. A simple list, but none of our cards worked, no one accepted dollars and there is no bank in Rio Lagartos. Ishmael was kind enough to provide currency exchange which meant a separate trip elsewhere for him later to exchange his dollars for pesos. Absolutely kind of him. Angel and Ishmael ferried us back to Ceol Mor which was now surrounded by fishing boats as they waited for the weather to settle in order to head to Progresso.
We made some avocado toast, ate some mangoes and crashed out early and slept hard through the entire night. When I say we crashed, I mean it quite literally. Exhaustion had set in after the lengthy ordeal of the last 24 hours. We would begin sorting out the repairs in the morning but for now, sleep. What a beautiful thing.
The next morning, we began trying to sort out what repair supplies were on the boat and what could be done to get us ready to limp to Isla Mujeres to clear in officially. We did not leave the boat again for three entire days during which Mark managed to find some extra lifeline wire and U-bolts on board. He began to strip off the vinyl coating, triple the wire and u-bolt it as a splice on our broken backstay. Ideal? Not at all but we were in a location that most assuredly does NOT have any supplies for sailboats and no way to bring any in.
In the meantime, the tourists in their chartered pangas began buzzing by us snapping photos of us. I was perplexed as to why they were all covered in dried mud. The pangas with their clay ghost passengers would come by, hang out and snap photos of us before speeding away. We had become a local tourist attraction. I could not for the life of me figure out what kind was up with the clay. Ishmael let me know that the nature guides would take the tourists to a beach where they could dig a hole and coat themselves with clay, then they would go look at the flamingos before the guides took them to the beach to wash off the clay. Allegedly this clay treatment would make you look ‘ten years younger”. I don’t know about that, but I do know that someone brilliant came up with a way to leverage what was available in such a remote location into a viable trade.
Rio Lagartos- warm and generous people, birds and clay. I can think of vacation destinations with far less to offer and it most assuredly is off the beaten path. You could do a whole lot worse, so long as you aren’t in need of diesel or repair supplies for a boat. It might not have been on my bucket list but I have ticked that box all the same. I never did see the pink lagoon or crocodiles though. Perhaps next time…
