I swear, one of these days we really will move on with our trip and stop lounging on beaches. Maybe after Belize? For now though there's just too many to choose from. The small village of Punta Allen sits at the end of a long narrow peninsula in the Sian Ka'an Biosphere Reserve south of Tulum. There's a single beat-up dirt road that leads there which made the drive half the fun. It had rained recently leaving long deep puddles that were just made for driving way too fast through. It's the first time we've gotten to play in the mud and get our truck and camper as dirty as they were meant to be.
At times the land narrowed to just a few feet of shore on either side of the road with water all around.
There were quite a few abandoned beaches that would have been perfect for camping except for the only downside to the biosphere reserve...all the trash.
Unfortunately, a hurricane several years back washed in a lot of garbage from out at sea, and ocean currents tend to carry in waste from cruise ships and some Caribbean islands with open landfills. It would take a massive amount of effort and resources to clean up this long remote stretch of coast so it's easy to see why nothing has been done about it yet.
Arriving in Punta Allen, it felt like the whole village may have been on valium. It's the prototype for a quaint sleepy fishing village. There were a few restaurants that may or may not have been open when we stopped by, a couple of guest houses and camping options, and several sport fishing and eco-tour operators which are the main draw there.
I guess we arrived in low season, because there didn't seem to be much going on at all. Which was fine by us. We found a restaurant with beach cabañas that welcomed campers and tucked ourselves away under some palm trees not far from the water.
An added bonus was their tiny puppy.
The days slipped away in hammocks under palm trees, and before we knew it we had overstayed the couple of days we had planned.
