Ecotourism Escape in the Yucatan

Our visit in the Yucatan was mostly for volunteer work following Hurricane Isidore in September 2002. We had contacted Ana Maria via her website to inquire about staying at Rancho Komchen de los Pajaros over Xmas and New Year's 2002-2003. When she described the state of the ranch, we thought that she might be able to use two able-bodied Canadian "boys" to help put things back together. If you could ever cry in an e-mail . . . well, let''s just say we gave the best Christmas present in a long while. Anyhow, these are our highlights -- your mileage may vary.

-Seeing first hand the destructive power of nature
-Helping rebuild the ecotourism ranch and getting it ready for incoming guests
-Getting to know Ana Maria, a woman of extraordinary means and vision
-Visiting Merida to buy hammocks
-Spending the weekend in ghost town, Progreso

Quick Tips:

NEWS: Things have grown back like crazy since we took these photos (Dec. 2002) and all of the outbuildings in use before the hurricane have been repaired. Apparently everything is a lot more lush and most of the debris has been cleaned up.

You can volunteer here as well, but you have to cover your room and board. Work is mostly of a physical nature and requires you to commit a "fair" amount of your day. See our Volunteer Work journal entry for more information.

There is an Internet cafe in Telchac Pueblo, about a 20 minute bike ride away. It was 6 pesos an hour (!) last year.

You may also wish to bring snacking food to tide you over between meals.

For more information on tourism in this area, check out Yucatan Today.

Best Way To Get Around:

You can reach the ranch from Cancun directly if your flight comes in early enough. Otherwise start early the next day. Check out the bus schedule from Cancun to Mérida at TicketBus Note that local transportation from Mérida to Dzemul is available on Calle 52 between Calles 63 and 65. The colectivo leaves you at the highway entrance. From there, it's a 2km walk.

Once at Komchen, it's 3km to the village of Dzemul to get basic foodstuffs and a pleasant half-hour bike ride to the beach and nearby ruins. Renting a car would be recommended for those looking to visit the surrounding sights and ruins.

Set in a 340-hectare (840 acre) tropical dry forest, Komchen de los Pajaros is a old sisal ranch that has been left to regress to its natural state. Now a wildlife reserve and bird sanctuary, the owner Ana Maria rents out rustic casitas to help sustain the operation.

Each casita is equipped with one to four beds, a cold (warmish) shower and a dry toilet (outhouse). Of note, the outhouses do not "smell" as they have been properly built with a ventilation shaft. Inside the walls are whitewashed and the floors are aged ceramic tiles. Front windows are screened and have inside-opening shutters. This is not hotel-style accommodation in that your room is not cleaned daily. But this doesn't mean you'll be roughing it as the beds are comfortable and rooms have electricity with reading lights and ceiling fans (no A/C). A few of the casitas have covered verandas where you can hang a supplied hammock.

There are also hot showers available in a small screened palapa just steps from the common kitchen. The building housing the kitchen has rounded walls and a palapa-style roof. Inside, meals are served a long banquet table capable of seating 12. Screened windows and a ceiling fan keeps things cool and the odd bugs away.

Outside, there is a 40' x 15' lap pool for swimming (see photos in the Volunteer Work journal entry). Horses run "free" in an enclosure that surrounds the accommodations. It is far enough from city lights that you get an astounding view of the night sky. Relatively quiet with only the odd carryover from nearby Dzemul. There are several "ruins" on the site, outbuildings of the old sisal operation. Recently restored trail leads out for bird watching.

It's a good base camp for those who want to explore the area on daytrips with a rented vehicle (as an alternative to staying in Merida or Cancun). This is also an ideal place for those looking to get away from things in general. Without a vehicle though, some might find it a bit isolated...but guests have been known to ride-share amongst each other and there are always the bicycles for rent.

Great while it lasted (2002-2003), this passenger/car ferry service took us across the Gulf of Mexico and saved us 6 days driving in 36 hours of sailing time. It costs about the same as driving if you have a regular vehicle (not oversize). Getting aboard in Tampa was fine, but the wait at the ticket counter and the line-up driving onto the ship were excruciatingly slow.

Once aboard the Yucatan Express (a.k.a. Scotia Prince), you quickly figure out that this is primarily a ferry ship with cabins. The age of the ship is evident and drifting diesel fumes greet you in the hallway outside the dining room. Having said that, the food and service was great. There was a meal ticket fiasco to contend with though; those that had not previously purchased the buffet meal plan got to eat for FREE (something about the occupancy rate being too low to offer a la carte service). The word got around quick and half the passengers were pissed off. Refunds were promised and eventually delivered (months later).

There’s plenty of outdoor space including the sun deck with two spas. The cabins were fine, but unless you need space, stick with the inexpensive ones without bathroom. They are small though and would not accommodate those that are somewhat overweight. We slept relatively well considering the bunk beds were pretty narrow. Entertainment was awful low-grade cruiseship shtick. Bring a deck of cards

Arrival in Progreso was timely although getting off the ship with our vehicle was not. Six hours by the time we got our import sticker and drove out of the compound. Was it worth it? You bet. Even though we had to wait a lot, it was not stressful in any way. A great way to drive into Mexico.

NEWS: This service is scheduled to return next year for the 2004-2005 season.

Volunteer work at Komchen de los Pajaros

We arrived at Komchen in late December 2002 a week after the power was restored. It was pretty much what we expected, a mowed down landscape with very little vegetation and every outbuilding in need of some kind of repair. All the buildings which make up the compound were flooded in two feet of standing water which stuck around for weeks following the hurricane.

It was a race against the clock to get all the casitas ready for the first wave of guests arriving on January 6th. What added to the difficulty was that every room was to be occupied during the same weekend! No possibility of turnover! So first off, we had to clean the ceilings, walls and floors of the four casitas. No mean feat since they were soaked from the hurricane and the resulting debris. Then we proceeded to whitewash the interior walls with calcium hydrate otherwise known as "cal" around these parts. A simple mix of water and this "cal" powder is applied with a brush to make a dingy wall look like new (well almost anyway).

We were also called upon by an exhausted Ana Maria to cook supper for the guests. Ana Maria gets up before the crack of dawn (we don't) and it was pretty draining with all the preparatory work. One such meal was a fish cook-out over glowing embers.

One of the more interesting projects we had was to repaint the swimming pool! As you can see in the photos, we went all out with a blue/aqua fade from top to bottom. As Ana Maria described it, "Muy precioso." Too bad it didn't last that long. Apparently, it's all peeled off by now. Oh well, there's nothing like ephemeral art!

In a typical day though, we got up around 7:30am, had breakfast and started working around 9am finishing around 2pm. Then it was the comida around 2:30pm followed by a bit more work or...a quick swim in the pool. Supper was more informal when there were no guests, Ana Maria preferring to retire early after a light meal. We'd stick around the kitchen later into the evening, making our food and cleaning up. We usually hit the sack early enough or read later into the evening.

For the privilege of doing this, we paid $15 per person to cover our room and board (3 meals daily). Wine and beer was available at cost. Paying to be a volunteer means that all incoming revenues go to the non-profit associacion civil that oversees Komchen.