Celebrating the arrival of the New Year, in Mexico!

Fireworks at midnight on New Year's Eve 

The best place to bring in the new year has to be on Isla Mujeres, where everyone, young and old, knows how to welcome in the New Year. The square in front of the Palacio Municipal (City Hall) is typically jammed with thousands of celebrants ready to party until dawn.

The fun starts around 11 p.m. ish, this is Mexico, don’t forget, so everything starts close-ish to the advertised time. 

Food and drinks for party-goers

Drink and food stalls are the first to open, and then the warm-up band blasts rock tunes or salsa over the crowd until the fireworks display at midnight.

Amid laughter and shouts of Happy New Year in several languages, people hug, kiss, rattle, or honk their noise makers while dodging the burning embers raining down on the square from the overhead display of pyrotechnics. It’s a fantastically fun evening.

Fireworks at midnight NYE Isla Mujeres

Next, the dozen-or-so headline entertainers crank up their amplifiers and rock the downtown area with horns, guitars, percussion, singers, and dancers. You can dance your socks off until after sunrise. 

Sleep is not on the program tonight for anyone within hearing distance of the celebrations. Entire families spend the night dancing, eating, and drinking. Even the youngest ones outlasted Lawrie and me.

Lawrie, Canadian New Year's Eve

Over the past thirty-something years, Lawrie and I have celebrated this special time in a variety of ways, from boisterous dinners at our home in Canada to just the two of us sharing a bottle of good champagne or a dinner party on Isla with rooftop drinks to watch the fireworks in Centro. 

And, we have participated in an odd northern custom of swimming in near-freezing ocean water early on New Year’s Day. 

Isla Mujeres Navy, helping with crowd control

Here on Isla Mujeres, there is a much warmer, interesting custom that started a long time ago, perhaps when the footpath to the southern end of the island became an actual road. 

Hundreds of people drive to Punta Sur to welcome the first light, to greet the dawn of the brand new year. Punta Sur is the most eastern part of Mexico and receives the first rays of sunlight.

It’s an intriguing sight to see hundreds of cars, trucks, motos, and golf carts arrive with an assortment of people still dressed in their party finery. Sleepy kids snoozing in the back of pickup trucks are carried by their parents to the edge of the starfish-shaped plaza. Women teetering on stiletto heels clutch bottles of champagne. (Trouble Isla book #2 of my Isla Mujeres Mystery series)

First Light - January 1st, Isla Mujeres

Most people look spent, tired out, and ready for bed, but it’s the perfect end to a perfect party. Others arrive bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, having slept soundly, far from the crazy celebrations in Centro. 

Everyone cheers the arrival of the new dawn, then finally makes their way home to sleep for a few hours before the normal sounds of island life wake them up again. 

 

Max, Lawrie, Sparky NYE 

As we were out walking our two dogs on the morning of January 1st, we could still hear the music pounding from over a mile away, then at 7:30 a.m., it stopped. 

Yes, that’s right, 7:30 in the morning, the band stopped, and the party officially ended.

Start making your plans now if you want to start the next year on Isla Mujeres, a Pueblo Magico, a magical town. You should book your accommodations and dinner at the popular restaurants well in advance. We know it’s hard for you spur-of-the-moment folks, but it is really worth the effort to plan ahead.

This is the time of year to enjoy being alive, to create fantastic memories, and to look forward to another good year.

Wishing you and your families a Happy, Healthy, and Prosperous New Year,

Lynda, Lawrie, Sparky, and Max

~

Isla Mujeres Mystery novels

There's Trouble on Isla, Big Trouble!
  

Book #2 in the Isla Mujeres Mystery Series

5.0 out of 5 stars

Fast and furious

By CA reviews on September 26, 2017

Yasmin and Jessica are back, and the gold they found in Treasure Isla is still haunting them, especially when Carlos, their boss at the Loco Lobo, and Yasmin’s new lover, is kidnapped. No spoilers here, but his captivity and the girls’ efforts to free him, with the help of Carlos’s pals—including local Isla Mujeres fishermen and a Mexico City cop—are the crux of this fast-paced story. Lock has created not only a compelling and authentic setting but a well-developed ensemble cast. The next Isla mystery can’t come fast enough.

 Treasure Isla - where it all began!

5.0 out of 5 stars

Captivating and authentic

By CA reviews on September 26, 2017

This was a truly fun in-the-sun kind of mystery, with an authenticity that was simply captivating. Set on the island called Isla Mujeres, not far from the better-known Mexican resort of Cancun, it follows the misadventures of two girlfriends, who on a drunken binge manage to wander onto the grounds of a cemetery and find a treasure map stuck in a crevice of an old pirate tomb. Jessica, from Canada, and local pal Yasmin both work at a tourist bar/restaurant called the Loco Lobo. Soon, their boss Carlos and a handsome attorney named Luis are involved in the girls’ illegal hunt for pirate gold. Toss in a bad dude running from a string of crimes in Key West, and it’s the start of an addictive new mystery series.

Article by Carmen Amato author of the exciting Detective Emilia Cruz mystery series

Meet Lynda L. Lock, by Carmen Amato

While you are waiting for my newest book, 43 MISSING, please welcome Lynda L. Lock, a Canadian blogger and author whose Isla Mujeres mystery series takes us to the fabled island on Mexico’s Atlantic coast, not far from Cancun. First known for her popular blog from Isla Mujeres, Lynda’s charming new mystery series features pirate gold and an ensemble cast that hangs out at a restaurant called the Loco Lobo.

1. Carmen Amato: Lynda, thanks so much for stopping by. We’re both members of the incomparable Mexico Writers group on Facebook, and you were one of the contributors to The Insider’s Guide to the Best of Mexico. I love your blog about life on Mexico’s Isla Mujeres, but you also write mysteries! Tell us how your writing career has evolved.

Lynda Lock: Hi Carmen, and thank you for the invite and for including me in The Insider’s Guide to the Best of Mexico. My writing career started with a Christmas story I wrote in grade five. It ended in a complete disaster as I nervously shredded the paper while trying to read what I thought was a hilariously funny story to my stone-faced classmates.

Over the years, I wrote hundreds of stories for my own entertainment.  Eventually, I was offered a position as a contributing writer for an American magazine, while at the same time I co-managed our bed and breakfast and worked in our craft brewery. When my husband and I retired to Mexico, I rediscovered the desire to write books. I started with a bilingual book for children and then progressed to novels. The Adventures of Thomas the Cat / Las Aventuras de Tomás el Gato won a silver award at the International Latino Book Awards in LA for Best Picture Book Bilingual in 2016.

2. CA: Your mysteries, TREASURE ISLA and TROUBLE ISLA, capture life on Isla Mujeres down to the smallest detail. How does setting influence your mystery plots?

Mary Jo P - tomb of Fermin Mundaca

LL: I am fascinated by pirates; their history, their stories, and their personalities. A few years ago our well-respected local historian, Fidel Villanueva Madrid, wrote an interesting account about the pirates that had visited and at times inhabited the Isla Mujeres.

Another islander, Ronda Winn Roberts, enjoys translating articles from Spanish to English and posting the translations on her blog to give English-speaking newcomers a sense of the island’s history. That’s how I first discovered the story of the blonde-haired Dutch pirate, Captain Laurens Cornelis Boudewijn de Graaf.

The possibility of the handsome, charming, and apparently well-educated de Graaf, nicknamed the Scourge of the West, visiting Isla over 300 years ago was the spark for TREASURE ISLA. He reportedly sailed to Isla Mujeres in 1683 after the siege of Veracruz and buried his plunder here on the island. According to all accounts, de Graaf never returned to the island but was killed in another battle. Alrighty then, let’s go find that treasure.

Inscription in garden at Hacienda Mundaca

Another pirate better known to islanders, Captain Fermin Mundaca, lived on Isla in the mid-1800s. His empty tomb really is located in the cemetery in Centro, and his hacienda covers a large part of the center of the island.

The second book, TROUBLE ISLA begins with a kidnapping of one of the main characters from Treasure Isla. It seems that the pirate’s horde is just bad luck for everyone. 

The third book, coming in 2018, explores relationships between the characters while they deal with murder, mayhem, and a hurricane.

3. CA: One thing I love about the Isla books is the wonderful cast of continuing characters and the touch of romance. The population of Isla Mujeres is quite a mix of Mexicans, expatriates, vacationers, etc. How did this inspire you?

Lisa G. at Miramar Restaurante with novels

LL: Living on an island is entertaining, no matter where the island is located. The people who inhabit islands are typically self-sufficient, resilient individuals with quirky personalities that make great characters for novels. 

We lived on a similarly sized island in British Columbia, Canada, for 17 years. One day, I intend to write a series of novels based on that experience.

Today, interactions and reactions are a never-ending source of material. Everyone has an opinion on how Isla Mujeres should be managed, and many discussions start with “my little Isla ...” 

Javi's Cantina, featured in Trouble Isla

There is an amusing rivalry between the born-on-the-island locals and foreign residents, between the home owners who live here six months of the year and the visitors who have been vacationing every year for 30 years, but everyone picks on the dreaded day-trippers arriving in hordes from the Cancun hotels.

4. CA: I wouldn’t call your books cozy mysteries, but neither are they hard-boiled crime fiction. How do you categorize them?

LL: I think they are humorous-adventure-mysteries. Is there a category for that?

5. CA: What is next for you as a blogger and a mystery writer?

LL: Book #3 TORMENTA ISLA is scheduled to be released in February 2018. The cast of characters still have a few more stories to tell. Meanwhile, the blog is a weekly labor of love and both my husband and I contribute articles. It’s a good vehicle to congratulate volunteers, to introduce old-time islanders to the newbies, to express our quirky humor, and to just generally get to know other people who love Isla Mujeres.

Ruben's Restaurante - Trouble Isla

6. CA: You can invite any author, living or dead, to dinner at your home. What are you serving, and what will the conversation be about?

LL:  Oh my, so many choices! I read a novel a day and have many favorite authors, but I will have to say Ken Follett would be my first choice. 

I am a huge fan of his Kingsbridge Series: Pillars of the Earth, World Without End, and the newest one, just released, A Column of Fire. His attention to historical detail, his characters, and his descriptions are breathtaking. 

I have read the first two books three times each and still discover things I missed in the previous readings. As for dinner, we are very basic cooks. We live on the edge of the ocean with sand drifting through our patio doors and the turquoise sea to enjoy. Our meals are basic and easy, giving us more time to soak up the beauty of our view. 

Assuming Mr. Follett isn’t a vegetarian, we would probably grill steaks and an assortment of vegetables like peppers, onions, baby carrots, and broccoli, then make a crispy salad, and set everything on the table with a couple of bottles of good wine. 

If we were lucky, the grocery store might have a freshly made baguette – not quite, but almost as good as the baguettes in France. The fresh bread would go nicely with our stash of imported New Zealand butter. (Good butter is a rare find on the island! When a supply comes in, we buy lots and stash it in the freezer.)

7. CA: Can you leave us with a quote, a place, or a concept from a book that inspired you?

LL: “No regrets. No bad memories.” It’s a favorite saying we picked up from two friends who are slightly older than us and are also in their second marriages. What it means to me is to enjoy life, learn a new skill, be open to new adventures, and don’t worry about the past. Life is short, savour your time.

​Carmen's newest book!

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The action in 43 MISSING takes up where PACIFIC REAPER left off, with Emilia at a critical crossroads that impacts every corner of her life, even as she delves into the strange disappearance of 43 college students.

Check out all of the Detective Emilia Cruz books here.​