The Lost World of Quintana Roo by Michel Peissel - Five Stars

 

THE LOST WORLD OF QUINTANA ROO by Michel Peissel

BOOK REVIEW: FIVE STARS

This is a true story by the young Frenchman Michel Peissel of his journey to the Mexican Caribbean before it became the Riviera Maya. It is an exciting story and a “must read” for anyone who is inquisitive about what life was like in Quintana Roo before the All-Inclusive resorts transformed the jungle into a tourist mecca.

This classic book warranted me reading it for a third time. My wife and I are very familiar with the area, published a book on it and know people who verify the author’s chronicles..

At the end of this review I have a great surprise on where you can check out a digital copy.

EXCERPTS:

Through an introduction scribbled on a small, dirty piece of paper I had met some friends who rather reluctantly, as is often the case when a foreigner crashes into the privacy of a home, had invited me on a picnic. We drove down the Paseo de la Reforma, whose modern buildings and bordering parks recalled the fact that Mexico City is not only capital of the nation but a mighty city of four million inhabitants and international fame. We then sped on through Lomas de Chapultepec, the fashionable residential district whose flowered villas shelter thousands of wealthy foreigners who seek asylum, often eitlier political or matrimonial, in Mexico. I was off to Tepoztlan, a place whose strange name was to be the first of many I was to learn while in Mexico, and which, like such names as Coatzacoalcos and Teotihuacan, suggests a strange poetical beauty hidden under a harsh and complicated Indian origin.

I had come to Mexico with no particular purpose save to spend pleasantly the six months that lay between my entering graduate school and my completion of a dreary six months as trainee in a bank on Wall Street.

The only good highway in Mexico, instead of joining major cities or industrial centers, serves Mexico's two largest luxury resorts, Cuernavaca and Acapulco.

Mexico is entirely composed of innumerable different worlds which really meet only in the green or gray smudges of international atlases. It was in Tepoztlan that I fully realized that Mexico was a country yet to be fully explored.

Gustav Regler, the writer we had come to visit in Tepoztlan. Gustav Regler, well known as a cynic and for his profane and ironical books on the sixteenth century, is also one of the men who know Mexico the most thoroughly. His book The Three Faces of Mexico has acquired world fame.

He had, through involved circumstances, been banished from his paradise and now lived beyond its gate.

The Mayan civilization, I found out, was probably the most sophisticated culture of pre-Columbian America.

Mayas were probably the greatest builders of the ancient inhabitants of Central America. They left thousands of temples and palaces spread all over what was their domain, the principal cities being Palenque, Tikal, Copan, Uxmal, and Chichen-Itza, strange places whose pyramids, towers, and palaces still stand today as silent testimonial of the great Mayan civilization.

Mayan is more widely spoken in Yucatan than Spanish, and many books are written, in modern characters, in Mayan, which is also taught in schools.

The Yucatecans take good advantage of their god-sent gift which goes well with their lazy character, and hammocks are strung up everywhere and the majority of the population sleeps all day and all night. Hammocks are found under railroad cars, between trees, and in all the houses, which have hooks on the walls of every room. This allows the Indians to live in comfort in their small huts, with more living space by day. Since mosquitoes are the plague of Quintana Roo and I presumed also of the so-called Mosquito Coast, I bought a large, fragile-looking mosquito net, a cocoon affair that could be fastened around my hammock.

The hammock, mosquito net, Antiviperine, and medical kit, plus twenty rolls of assorted film, cameras and lenses, and a pair of sandals, were all neatly thrown into a large henequen bag. Besides this, I carried a small bluish bag, a cross between a flight bag and a briefcase, for my shaving and toilet articles.

How much modern Yucatan could envy the ancient Mayas. What had once been a thriving coast, with innumerable ports such as Yochac, Puha, Puerto Chile, and Ak, was now nothing more than jungle and occasional isolated palm huts. Being curious about the lives of chicleros, men began telling of the deeds of chicleros and of their own experiences, of murders committed by their colleagues, and of the bloody orgies at the great chicle camps such as Leona Vicario (the god-forsaken corrugated-iron inferno I had passed through on my way by bus to Puerto Juarez). To my horror I was soon to realize that the worst tales told about the chicleros were true. Apparently the chicle areas of Quintana Roo, which are situated behind the coast from Tulum up to Cape Catoche, are exploited by several companies, but for the chicleros the two most important companies are two clans of chicleros who are constantly at war with each other.

Curious and want to read the book.

It is available free to borrow from Internet Archives. Follow this link:

https://archive.org/details/lostworldofquint00peis

Although the book is no longer in print, you can obtain a used copy at Amazon. com. Follow link: The Lost World of Quintana Roo.

It is also available through Abes Books. Follow link: The Lost World of Quintana Roo

Also read: Yucatan for Travelers by John M. Grimsrud

Recommended Reading and Notable Authors: Yucatán, the Maya, Mexico and Spanish Colonialism

Recommended Reading

Notable five-star authors who visited Cozumel and the Peninsula of Yucatán

1842, explorer, author, and anthropologist John L. Stephens arrived in Cozumel on a small coastal sailing vessel from Yucatán shortly after Mexican independence and before the protracted Caste War. He became the first to chronicle Cozumel, Tulum, the Mayan temples, and wild jungle in the days of pirates in his 1843 two-volume publication Incidents of Travel in Yucatan. This excellent book is still in print and also available in the digital addition free from Gutenberg Press.

1947 Lilo Lenke, a German author arrived in Mérida, Yucatán and wrote a marvelously fascinating and factual book, Magic Yucatán, before the days of railroad or highways opened Yucatán to tourism and the outside world.

1958, Michel Peissel traveling by himself embarked on an adventuresome and audacious journey into uncharted wild and dangerous places on the recommendation of Germans he met near Mexico city. Each leg of his dauntless journey contained enough chancy astounding thrills to warrant a book by themselves. Crossing to Yucatán, getting through the uncharted jungle of Quintana Roo, surviving pirate attacks, living out of the jungle, discovering Mayan ruins, and trekking the Caribbean Sea coast relentlessly to Belize, formerly known as British Honduras, only to be jailed and extorted are a few of his exhilarating experiences.

Excepts for his book The Lost World of Quintana Roo:

“But the smuggling is now very much reduced, and as an islander told me sadly, "One hardly lives on smuggling today." Occasionally a few small boats dump whisky and perfumes from British Honduras on the islands. In the old days Isla Mujeres and Cozumel had been thriving pirate stations; here the buccaneers would wait in ambush as slowly the Spanish galleons, weighted down with Peruvian gold, would beat their way up along the coast and through the Yucatan Straits on their way to Cuba and Spain from Panama.”

Michel Peissel arriving at Cozumel on a 45 foot sailing schooner wrote:

“Judging from the rough weather that is characteristic of the straits between Cozumel and the coast, the dugout canoes of the Mayas must have been seaworthy craft and the oarsmen good sailors. From the summit of the waves I could catch a glimpse of the island which now appeared as a low gray streak on the horizon … At three o'clock we were up against the flat coastline of Cozumel and the small village of San Miguel came into sight. I was quite disappointed, for the village looked ugly, composed of an odd assortment of stone, cement, and wooden houses of various styles that were stretched along the waterfront.

Yucatán for Travelers, Side Trips from Valladolid and Tulum by John M. Grimsrud. A current look at the Caribbean Sea coast and the points of interest that tourists miss most. Narrated in philosophical short stories available in paper or digital editions.

Yucatán's Magic-Mérida Side Trips: Treasures of Mayab by John M. Grimsrud looks beyond the obvious tourist attractions to discover the unique Yucatán. 

The Caste War of Yucatan by Nelson Reed

Yucatan, A World Apart by Edward H. Mosley and Edward D. Terry

Time Among the Maya by Ronald Wright (Highly recommended

The Folk-Lore of Yucatan by Daniel G. Brinton

The Mayan Elites of the Nineteenth-Century Yucatan by Charlotte Zimmerman

The Cult of the Holy Cross by Charlotte Zimmerman

Yucatan’s Maya Peasantry and the Origins of the Caste War by Terry Rugeley

Links to: The Maya, Mexico and Spanish Colonialism:

Introduction and Chapter 1.

Prelude to the Caste War, Chapter 2.

A Brief History of the Caste War, Chapter 3.

While the Caste War still Smoldered, the Mexican Revolutionary War Commenced, Chapter 4.

Juan Bautista Vega, Chapter 5.

Lázaro Cárdena's Years, Chapter 6.

Recommended Reading and Notable Authors.

MEXICO – INCIDENTS AND COINCIDENCES 2020

MEXICO – INCIDENTS AND COINCIDENCES 2020

This amazing and interesting story unfolds and intertwines with one of our adopted girls and some engrossing books set in Mexico. 

Lupita and her daughter May 2020

We read the book The Lost World of Quintana Roo on the advice of a friend, Mark Callaghan, whose mother took her two young sons to Yucatán to escape the carnage of the Vietnam War. Mark’s mother was a journalist and adventurer.

We often ran into Mark at Caffe Latte where we heard many of Mark’s stories of adventures in Tulum, a wild outpost in the Federal Territory of Quintana Roo on the Caribbean coast, long before any paved roads pierced the jungle.

At one chance meeting at Caffe Latte Jane and I exuberantly told Mark the story of our recent trip to the Caribbean Sea coast at Akumal where we paid $20.00 for a book we definitely wanted to read entitled, Under the Waters of Mexico by Pablo Bush Romero, owner and operator of Mexico City's largest Ford dealership, a big game trophy hunter, treasure seeker, Caribbean resort owner, and very manipulative businessman.*

Mark replied that we must read the book, The Lost World of Quintana Roo by Michel Peissel for the true story of Quintana Roo before the advent of tourism.

Without going off target here let me tell you Mark’s piece of advice opened up a most intriguing part of our lives. The book was out of print, scarce and hard to find.

Long story short: The Mérida English Library had a copy and a friend checked it out for us. The print was too small for Jane to read. Jane was not going to be foiled. Jane made a digital copy of the entire book. This was time consuming but the result was that it could be read on a Kindle reader where the user friendly features made font size and other modifications easy.

Back to this amazing book that ultimately led us to more intriguing reading and out of the way adventures.

A quick synopsis of young Michel Peissel. Michel (1937-2011) was the son of a French diplomat and raised in England. He attended Harvard Business School. After business school he had six months free before starting work on Wall Street in NYC. Looking for an adventure, he headed to Mexico. It was 1957.

In Mexico he fell in with a group of expatriate German intellectuals and artists who had fled the regimes of Russia, Germany, Spain, and other war torn hot spots. Michel told the group he was looking for an exceptional adventure to a place without roads. Their unanimous advice was to head to the jungle territory of Quintana Roo on the Yucatan Peninsula’s Caribbean sea coast.

The result was one of the most harrowing stories of exploring and discovery of the century.

We have several friends besides Mark Callaghan who can collaborate Michel Peissel’s stories related in his book The Lost World of Quintana Roo.

Michel’s recounting of the trip from Tepoztlan to Mérida, Yucatan, contains enough adventure to be a book of its own. The trip from Mérida to the Caribbean coast through the jungle was more adventure than could be endured by most people. The trek along the Caribbean south from Cozumel all the way to the British Honduras, now known as Belize, got him acquainted with the local population in their isolated cocoteros or coconut plantations that extended along the entire Caribbean coast of Mexico. On this trek Michel was befriended, helped, guided, transported, and hunted like an animal. Hunger, thirst, fatigue, and insect attacks were just a few of his hardships he endured before being jailed in Belize. Along his way he made some extremely important geological discoveries that included the Mayan temple ruins of Muyil, a jungle seaport connected by extensive canal system still operable to this day and a series of Mayan signalizing stations dispersed along the coast.

A few interesting revelations and discoveries excerpted from The Lost World of Quintana Roo:

Seagoing sailing freight canoes of the Chontal Maya from Tabasco plied these waters ranging from distant Vera Cruz, Cuba, Florida and Central America. The cumbersome sea salt from northern Yucatan could have only been transported by seagoing vessel. Other cargo items included cotton, cocoa, copper, dyes, fish, honey, jade, and more.

I learned that the peninsula of Yucatan has always considered itself independent from Mexico, and the Yucatecans, as they are called, had often tried to gain their freedom, even attempting to join the short-lived Texas republic. In April 1958, when I set out, there were no roads connecting Yucatan with central Mexico, and apart from planes the only means of communication was by the Ferrocarriles del Sur Este, a small, prehistoric railroad line that wound through the dense jungle of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec to the state of Campeche.

Unfortunately, Quintana Roo is changing rapidly and civilization will soon precipitate the extinction of the last rebellious Indians, thus hastening the end of the long history of the Mayas, who for such countless centuries have reigned as masters over the jungles of Yucatan. And the day will come when only the chachalaka will remain to call up the gods of the East, the North, the West, and the South who rule the windswept lagoons, the endless jungles, and the sun-scorched beaches of Quintana Roo.

Our Lupita’s connection to the story: In Lupita’s inquisitive life of travels she settled in the mountains south of Mexico City at Tepoztlán, the city of eternal spring, where she became acquainted with Don Ruge, one of the last to remember the group of German expatriates Michel Peissel met in 1957. Gustav Regler whom Michel met in Tepoztlán where his adventure began was part of the group.Lupita met Don Ruge and they became friends. Lupita was easy to like.

Don Ruge, a philosopher, peace advocate, and author, launched Lupita into the five-star world of travels across Europe and even as far off as Kazakhstan where Lupita started her counseling career and was the guest of the president of Kazakhstan.

One of the group of expatriate Germans that Michel Peissel met in 1957 was Gustav Regler, author of Owl of Minerva, an autobiography, and A Land Bewitched about his experiences in Mexico. Gustav Regler is one the finest authors we have ever read. His books are hard to find, but we now own a copy of A Land Bewitched, thanks to our German friend Karin Humbert who found it in a rare book store in England and gave it to us as a gift.

Excerpted from Michel Piessel’s book, The Lost World of Quintana Roo. He describes a meeting Gustav Regler:

A man quite so fascinating I had never met, and Gustav Regler had no trouble firing my imagination about Mexico and setting alight in me a small fire for exploration and adventure that had almost been extinguished by the rigors of student life and docile resignation.

In this sense Gustav Regler was responsible for what was to happen to me during what I had planned to be a peaceful stay in Mexico. The narrow window of the small gray car had not been so narrow after all, and had led by way of the four-lane highway to Gustav Regler and onto a path that was going to cost me all but my life.

A note about Gustav Regler, he was an activist with exceptional intellect and a brilliant mind. He was a compassionate humanitarian, politically just and publicly empathetic. Many events impacted this man’s life beginning with his mother introducing the Bible into her bed-time stories. He wanted to trust and came away with memories of his foolish heroism in WWI. He wished he could talk to one of the dead and was conscious of the utter finality of their end. He was imprisoned because he would no longer endure the war. Hitler’s fascism of the 1930s which he found frighteningly lethal drove him and his social conscience to communism.

Joe Stalin’s twisted and oppressive degradation of the Soviet people drove him away from communism to fight Franco’s fascism in Spain, and ultimately he was imprisoned in a concentration camp in France for being anti-fascist.

He and a shipload of anti-fascist refugees from the camps in France were shipped off to the U.S. and refused entry…Mexico took them in.

The following are quotes from The Owl of Minerva:

Regler to his wife: “We could each think our own thoughts, and we would not let this mad, merciless century drive us apart.”

Regler about his wife: “It is the only temple that has any link with the cosmos." She loved the Mexican pyramids because they were not graves but altars speaking to Heaven.”

In The Owl of Minerva Regler relates how the Russian Communists went to absurd extremes to destroy Regler, his wife, and their adopted home in Mexico.

This is a powerful book of an extraordinary man’s struggle through the tribulations of the 20th century. I have read it twice.

Experience Mexico through the words of Michel Peissel and Gustav Regler:

The Lost World of Quintana Roo by Michel Peissel

The Owl of Minerva by Gustav Reglar

A Land Bewitched: Mexico in the Shadow of the Centuries by Gustav Regler

*Akumal is a small beachfront tourist resort community in Mexico, 100 km (62 mi) south of Cancun popular with scuba divers and owned by Pablo Bush Romero. Pablo Bush's family still controls a portion of Akumal.

Cozumel - September Getaway 2013

Jane’s latest book, Brule River Forest and Lake Superior, was just successfully published in paperback, digital and large print additions.

All our ducks were in a row and we slipped out of town dodging the unrelenting tropical waves and September low pressure troughs at the absolute peak of hurricane season. On again, off again black rain clouds mercilessly traversed the Yucatan.  

Traveling light included our German bicycle rain capes, [the same type used by British police.] and plastic covers for our packs. Folding bicycles and space age 6 ounce hammocks gave us freedom of movement and unparallel comfort. 

After a five hour bus trip from Merida, we arrived a 1 p.m. at Playa del Carmen, which is on Yucatan’s tropical Caribbean coast.

Twenty-five years ago the sleepy little fishing village of Playa del Carmen had but one claim to fame. It was the ferry landing for San Miguel on the island of Cozumel, 19 km. away in the Caribbean.
Today Playa has become a significant shopping and tourist destination with all varieties of accommodations ranging from five-star all inclusive to budget. A first time visitor may easily get the impression that they are on Spain’s Costa del Sol.

Rain squalls did us a favor; as luck would have it the bus terminal had a covered bench on the walking street just waiting for us and Jane had the fixings for a picnic lunch.

As we finished our lunch, the rain quit and we rolled away.

We rode north to check out some accommodation leads…we were not thrilled.

Plan B:

Another rain squall blackened the northern sky and we quickened our pace to the Cozumel ferryboat landing.

The squall tied with our convergence at the ferry pavilion waiting area and we were still dry.

We boarded the 3 p. m. ferryboat. It was nearly full and this is off season.

Our last visit to Cozumel was nearly ten years ago. The population is now over 100, 000.

In 1958 when Michel Peissel, ethnologist, explorer, and author, landed at Cozumel it was a different world.  In his book, The Lost World of Quintana Roo, he wrote:

“The Cuban revolution had also affected the coast, for in closing Cuba to American tourists Castro had opened up a boom on Cozumel Island. Three years earlier Cozumel had no hotel, and now I learned that four were in operation and two giant hostelries were under construction. There was a daily flight from Mérida to Cozumel, which had become but another name in the world of Caribbean resorts. The invasion of Cozumel by tourists was, I felt, the end of the Quintana Roo I had known.”

When Jane and I first explored the Caribbean coast of Yucatan in the mid 1980s Playa del Carmen had about a dozen single story thatched roof structures along the beach, and it was jungle all the way to the newly built road where there was a Pemex gasoline station…the only one between Cancun and Felipe Carrillo Puerto.  Today Playa del Carmen is a major tourist and shopping destination on an eight lane super highway with urban sprawl. 

The island of Cozumel has its appeal; crystal clear Caribbean waters, tropical temperatures, gentle trade winds, and fresh air.

A cast bronze sculpture depicting reef divers at the waterfront of San Miguel, Cozumel.

If a hurricane does not blow you away in September or October, this is paradise.

After crossing to Cozumel on the ferry, we followed a lead to Hostelito on 10^th Avenue. We took their best room, the suite.  It had been a long day.  We could check out other places later.

In the following days, we checked out the good, bad and ugly; upscale and economy. We couldn’t find better.

With few exceptions the rental accommodations all have air conditioning and hot water. If there is one place on the planet you do NOT need these things, it is here in this balmy salubrious tropical climate where even rain storms are warm.* 

Our Mérida friend Tere Castro’s mother is from Cozumel. Tere told us we just had to try the market (Mercado Municipal Benito Juarez) food court located between Av. 20 and Av. 25 on Calle  Adolfo R. Salas. 

We found it extremely high-quality with a wide range of authentic Mexican food. Again we never found better. Their huge selection of salsas were tops.

Taqueria Molina is one of many market food court restaurants that open at 5 a. m. with a steady clientele of eager eaters who love the very best.

The people of Cozumel are an international jumble and no stereotype fits. They tend to be friendly, not pushy or high pressure, and generally eager to make a profit.  An example; Jane bought coffee for $14 pesos and I went for a refill fifteen minutes later and they wanted to charge $17 pesos…same cup same place. Tourists tend to be an easy mark.

Shopping is one of Cozumel’s attractions. Diamond, gold and silver plus tourist trinket shops abound and have a propensity to be upscale near the ferry landing.

Traffic is light and the drivers are mostly easy going. However, visitors in rentals think they own the roads and rules do not apply. Note: Your auto insurance is voided if you are drunk, breaking the law or drive off the pavement. The rental outfits hold your signed credit card voucher and all infractions and fines will be paid by you. Improperly parked vehicles may have their license plates removed or the car towed and impounded where the owner pays more charges. 

Public transport makes life in Mexico pleasanter.

Your options for rentals range from bicycles, motor scooters, jeeps, cars, and horse carriages. We travel by bicycle and bus using folding bikes.

Snorkel and scuba diving are the main draws of Cozumel. Sailboats, jet skis, paragliding, and glass bottomed boats are all there and more. The options are far too many to list here.

May and June are wonderful here with few tourists. Do not linger too long because when the June rains begin the mosquitoes can be unmerciful.

Summer is high season on all Mexican beaches.

September until mid-December is also a low tourist season. If you do not mind dodging rain squalls and the occasional hurricane then September until mid-November offers off-season advantages.

Cozumel web links:

Hostelito

Amigos Hostel

Cozumel Information

Yucatan by Bike and Bus

Cozumel Map

*Note: Visitors from northern latitudes with painfully white skin never exposed to the sunlight and totally unaccustomed to the comfort of natural tropical living insist on air conditioning and hot water showers.

Mexicans do not tend to fix anything that is working and that includes air conditioners. As a consequence, the filters become lush breeding grounds for broadcasting pathogens that can be a serious health risk. A little paranoia can save your life. Drink bottled water, take care of your personal hygiene, and wash your hands.

Take the time to learn all of the uses of hammocks. You will be richly rewarded with a lifetime of convenient, comfortable and contented repose. 

Numerous monuments that comenirate the history of Cozumel and Mexico are scattered throughout the island.

Waterfront monument dedicated to Gonzalo Guerrero, his wife Zazil Ha and their three mestizo children.

This fascinating story actually begins with the birth of Gonzalo Guerrero back in the early 1470’s at Palos, Andalusia, Spain.

Trained as a military combatant he fought to drive the last of the Moors out of the Iberian Peninsula by 1492 ending eight centuries of Islamic occupation. Then he took up his next position of soldier/sailor on Columbus’s first ocean crossing expedition aboard the small open carvel vessel Niña.

In 1511 Gonzalo set sail in good weather from the Gulf of Darien on the Colombian coast of South America north bound with looted treasure and slaves.

What happened next is one of the worst nightmare stories that could happen to anyone.

Forty year old Gonzalo’s ship floundered and he was plummeted into the sea. Aboard a makeshift raft with no food or water, Gonzalo and the seventeen men and two women that survived the wrath of a hurricane that dismasted and sunk their ship drifted to the Yucatan Peninsula. Gonzalo and his shipmates were taken as slaves by the local Maya.

Gonzalo gained his freedom from slavery through an act of bravery.  He killed an alligator that was attacking his Mayan master.

Gonzalo Guerrero left a lasting legacy with his newly adopted countrymen.

Gonzalo took a Mayan princess named Zazil Ha as his wife and was given the temples of Ichpaatún north of Chetumal, presently designated on maps as Oxtankah. He then engaged in ritual mutilation and tattooing that included piercing his ears and cheeks. These acts assimilated him into the Mayan way of life.

For centuries Gonzalo Guerrero was despised by the Spanish for being a traitor, defector, and renegade. He was a man who had fought against his countrymen, turned his back on his land of birth, society, renounced his faith and denied Christ.

After the independence of Mexico from Spain, a change took place. Some Mexicans descended from the conquerors now began to feel a real passion for the Mayan culture. For the Maya, one name that symbolizes the struggle in opposition to colonial imperialist power and a struggle for freedom was Gonzalo Guerrero.

Monument commemorating the arrival of the Spanish. Replica of a Mayan temple on Cozumel’s waterfront commemorates the arrival of Spaniards Juan de Grijalva and  Hernán Cortés.

 The first Spanish expedition to visit Cozumel was led by Juan de Grijalva in 1518. In 1519, Hernán Cortés stopped by the island on his way to Veracruz.  

The Spanish commandeered the salt trade plus gold and gems. Next pirates looted the Spanish treasure fleets and the Spanish fortified their settlements for protection of their pillaged loot.

 Monument to Juan Bautista Vega, Av. Benito Juarez and Calle 120. A subdivision in Cozumel bears his name.

Juan Bautista Vega was born in Cozumel in 1884.  In 1896  Dr. Fábregas an adventurer and treasure hunter arrived in Cozumel with the intention of crossing to Tulum on the mainland of Quintana Roo.  The Chan Santa Cruz Mayas were in control in the area of Tulum.  They had been at war with the Mexicans since the Caste War that began in 1847.  Their “talking cross” had dictated that no whites should be allowed to enter their area.  With money as the lure, Dr. Fábregas succeeded in finding a boat and crew to make the crossing.  Eleven year old Juan Bautista Vega was one of the crew along with his stepfather and one other “white” from Cozumel.  The Chan Santa Cruz Maya, known as the Cruzoob, were on hand to welcome the visitors.  All were killed by the Cruzoob except young Juan who was taken prisoner.  When the Maya discovered that Juan could read Spanish, they decided he could be useful to them in negotiations with the Mexican government.  Juan was taught Maya and endeared himself to the Maya.  He lived among the Cruzoob, became a general in their militia, married a Mayan woman, and became a tribal chief.

The mainland of Quintana Roo remained an isolated and unexplored land because of the presence of the Cruzoob Maya. For over four hundred years the Mayas of Quintana Roo successfully repelled the Spanish and Mexican conquistadores until the last shots of the Caste War of 1847 rang out at Dzula in 1935.

Juan Bautista Vega was instrumental in brokering a lasting peace between the Mexican government and the Cruzoob Maya.   In 1926 Juan visited his “white” family in Cozumel but then returned to his Mayan home on the mainland and lived the rest of his life among the Maya.  Gen. Juan Bautista Vega died in 1969. 

Notable visitors to Cozumel

In 1842, explorer, author and anthropologist John L. Stephens arrived in Cozumel in a small coastal sailing vessel from Yucatan shortly after Mexican independence and before the protracted Caste War.  He became the first to chronicle Cozumel, Tulum, the Mayan temples, and wild jungle in the days of pirates in his 1843 two-volume publication Incidents of Travel in Yucatan. This excellent book is still in print and also available in digital addition free from Gutenberg Press.

In 1958, Michel Peissel wrote of Cozumel in his book, The Lost World of Quintana Roo:

But the smuggling is now very much reduced, and as an islander told me sadly, "One hardly lives on smuggling today." Occasionally a few small boats dump whisky and perfumes from British Honduras on the islands. In the old days Isla Mujeres and Cozumel had been thriving pirate stations; here the buccaneers would wait in ambush as slowly the Spanish galleons, weighted down with Peruvian gold, would beat their way up along the coast and through the Yucatan Straits on their way to Cuba and Spain from Panama.

Michel Peissel first arrived at Cozumel on a 45 foot sailing schooner. He wrote:

Judging from the rough weather that is characteristic of the straits between Cozumel and the coast, the dugout canoes of the Mayas must have been seaworthy craft and the oarsmen good sailors. From the summit of the waves I could catch a glimpse of the island which now appeared as a low gray streak on the horizon … At three o'clock we were up against the flat coastline of Cozumel and the small village of San Miguel came into sight. I was quite disappointed, for the village looked ugly, composed of an odd assortment of stone, cement, and wooden houses of various styles that were stretched along the waterfront.