Love is in the air. Getting married in Mexico!

Punta Sur, Isla Mujeres

It’s a perfect place for romance – Isla Mujeres.

Sunshine, white sand beaches, palm trees, and dozens of locations where you can tie the knot, get hitched, walk down the aisle, go to the chapel, drop the anchor, or get spliced (two ropes woven into one). 

You could also celebrate your mutual weirdness or blend your families.

First, there are numerous options for the proposal, ranging in price from expensive, with the fine champagne, an enormous diamond, and dinner at a classy restaurant. 

Or a spur-of-the-moment sign on the beach using pieces of coral and shells, asking his lady love to marry him. She said, Yes!

Marry me?

 

Then there are the bachelorette parties frequently featuring the bride, maid-of-honour and bridesmaids wearing matching t-shirts. Hilariously happy, the women ricochet around the island, flitting in and out of bars, nightclubs, and restaurants, creating their own party wherever they go. 

Typically, the bachelorette bashes are the advance party, celebrating the last few days of singledom for the bride. 

Occasionally, the women celebrate for a week in paradise before returning to their northern homes for a large formal wedding.

The Bachelorette!

Guests arriving for destination weddings are recognizable by the amount of luggage and the fancy clothes draped across overburdened arms. 

They disembark the passenger ferries in chatty gaggles of parents, in-laws, assorted relatives, and close friends. The groups disembark the passenger boats heading to the host hotel, or an assortment of private homes rented for the occasion. 

Once the throng has settled into their accommodations, they start the social whirl of gatherings, getting to know one another before the big day. By the time the event takes place, everyone is relaxed and sociable, having finally settled into the slower pace of island time.

Zama's Beach Club decorated for big day

For venue choices, there is everything from large all-inclusive beach resorts, beach clubs, beach restaurants, or simply on the beach. 

You can arrange for your guests to arrive by boat, taxi, golf cart, or whatever transportation method you can dream up.

We have also seen a colonial-style, horse-drawn carriage transport the bride and groom from the church to the reception. 

 

Bodas Colectivas 2012

And for the economy-minded, the municipality of Isla Mujeres traditionally sponsors Bodas Colectivas, collective weddings, group weddings around St. Valentine’s Day for residents who wish to be married in a civil ceremony.  

A decorated bus drives the prospective brides and grooms to the chosen location, and everyone recites their vows together. It’s an affordable and festive event reserved for Mexican citizens.

Goddess IxChel at Punta Sur

And for the younger just-marrieds, a stop at Punta Sur, a small gift for the Goddess IxChel, is rumored to quickly produce offspring. 

A couple of years ago, a thirty-something American woman told us her four children forbade her from even looking at IxChel. Every time the woman visited the goddess, she became pregnant. The kids said, “Enough already!”

We have attended an assortment of island weddings, everything from a handful of people to hundreds of guests joyfully celebrating the happiness of the new couple.  

Isla Mujeres is a romantic destination for the proposal, the wedding, and of course, the annual celebration of your unforgettable experience in paradise.

Golf cart decorated for a wedding

Cheers

Lynda, Lawrie, and Sparky

Isla Mujeres Mystery series

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Death in the Vineyards

    

Elmo, and pirates Invade Isla Mujeres, Mexico!

Take three kids, add eight adults, toss in a few pirate hats, pirate wigs, swords and eye-patches, and you get - a treasure hunt!

On Monday afternoon, we marshalled the group at our house on Aeropuerto Road, starting with the first clue that directed them to the downtown area with instructions to "walk east to where lost souls gather" and to quietly look for the secret clue behind Pirate Mundaca's gravestone. Shhhh. Don't let him hear you.  And be very respectful of other residents sleeping there.
 

From there, Lawrie (Captain Elmo) led them through town, with clues to "walk south past the brightly painted building with a name that translates to either tomorrow or morning." 

Then they trekked along the seawall looking for clue number three, which then directed the group past the Naval base with various directions, including "look for a man named Benito. The fourth clue is behind the golden hands."

I had the easiest job. I kept fifteen minutes ahead of the group in the nicely air-conditioned car, setting out the next clues.  

One stop included the Casa de Gallo - "House of the Rooster" where Chuck and Marcy helped out with clue number five. They also provided a cooling drink of "grog" for the pirates.

Out on the road again, the next clue included "Drive south past: beer so cold it will make your teeth hurt, and turn right onto the road to the newest house of God."  

As it turned out, I had to amend that instruction to avoid that particular route, as various carnival rides were now parked smack in the middle of the road.  Oh well, this well-equipped pirate had a cell phone to communicate with the drivers to re-route the cavalcade of golf carts.

At the Hacienda Mundaca park, in the centre of the island, the group paid the twenty pesos per person entrance fee and stormed the park. The sixth clue was inside Pirate Mundaca's Casa, "behind the light that does not shine." I was waiting hidden in the bushes at the park, watching to see if the group would take the correct path to the next location. Lawrie had dropped off at our house to make sure that the treasure was buried on the beach in front of our house.  

 

Our neighbours snuck onto our beach after the pirate cavalcade left the area, and created a giant X on the beach, along with a terrific sand sculpture of a skull and crossbones!  

Lawrie then buried the three sacks of treasure in the sand.


 
Meanwhile, still back on the treasure hunt, the pirates were told to "walk into the Jardin de Mundaca and look for the source of water, then draw up your seventh clue."  

Finally, the hot, tired group arrived back at our house to look for clue number eight, which directed them to our rooftop.

"Climb Up, up to where you can see the sea. Look to the east - then look down.  What do you see?"  

Pandemonium ensued while the three boys scrambled down the tower staircase to be the first to get their hands on the treasure.

Great fun for everyone. And a special thanks to everyone who participated. 

 

                                _________________________
 

In case you think that we don't do anything but goof around, well, you would be correct in making that assumption. 

This Wednesday week Elmo (Lawrie's secret alter-ego) made a guest appearance at the first anniversary celebrations at Barlito's on Hidalgo.  Judging by the many fans, big and small, clamouring for a photo with Elmo, he was a huge success!

Barlito's was jammed with invited customers and friends of Brad and Tiffany Wareing. Fabulous event, guys, especially the Piñata at the end of the evening. Evan and Ethan (the grand-kids) had a great time at their "first Mexican party."

Wednesday was also "Dolphin Discovery Day" for the guys.  They had a ton of fun there as well.  The Boyz head back to Canada tomorrow afternoon. We've had so much fun these last two weeks with Evan, Ethan, and John, but dear God, we are worn out!

Elmo gets the girl! Lawrie and Lynda

   

A very Merry Christmas, and a special Season's Greetings from all of us to all of you!

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Isla Mujeres Mystery Series

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Death in the Vineyards Mysteries

The Adventures of Thomas and Sparky



Ahoy! Dead ahead be pirates on Isla Mujeres, Mexico!

Garden area of Hacienda Mundaca.

The story of Isla's most famous islander - pirate Mundaca - could have been taken straight from a bodice-ripper romance novel, complete with the love triangle between a sixteen-year-old beauty, her childhood sweetheart, and a fifty-three-year-old pirate who yearned to make the young woman his wife.

The small fishing village on Isla Mujeres in the late 1800s must have been one of the most romantic settings imaginable for the melodrama of these ill-fated lovers.  Imagine: torch-lit nights, hammocks hanging in palapa-roofed houses, and whimsical paths winding between coconut palms to the gentle bay where the fishing canoes were pulled up on the sand-swept beaches.

Pirate Mundaca's home on Isla Mujeres

The pirate Fermín Antonio Mundaca de Marecheaga was born on October 11th,1825, in the village of Bermeo, Santa Maria, Spain.  When he finished his education, he shipped out to sea and eventually became a famous and wealthy slave trader in the Caribbean, selling Mayan slaves to Cuban plantation owners.  In 1860, when the British campaigned against slavery, Mundaca rented out his ships to the Yucatan Government, which continued to capture rebel Mayans and sell them to Cuba, nearly decimating the population of the Yucatan Peninsula.

 
Mundaca then set about building a large hacienda on Isla Mujeres that he named "Vista Alegre" (Happy View). 

It eventually covered over 40% of the island. There were areas for livestock, birds, vegetable gardens, fruit orchards and exotic plants that were brought from all over the world. Fermin Mundaca is said to have built the Vista Alegre using stone taken from the abandoned Mayan structures on Isla Mujeres.

While building his hacienda and expanding his giant estate, he fell in love with a young local girl, 37 years his junior, named Priscilla (some sources say Martiniana) Gomez Pantoja. Born in 1862 on Isla Mujeres, Priscilla is described as a slender, sensual woman with long wavy hair, deep green eyes and light skin tanned bronze by the Caribbean sun.

 



Isla statue honoring La Trigueña

He built her a beautiful garden with great stone arches where he carved her nickname, La Trigueña, above the apex. 

But the dark-haired beauty married her childhood sweetheart, and Mundaca became isolated, lonely, and slowly going insane, reportedly due to syphilis.

Even though he was still wealthy, he abandoned his estate, allowing it to fall into disrepair, preferring instead to live in various other locations on the island. 

Vegetables and fruits ripened and rotted, cattle wandered everywhere, destroying other people's gardens.  The locals feared Mundaca. 



Garden area of hacienda Mundaca

When he passed along the beach at sunset, the friendly chatter would suddenly die, as someone muttered in a frightened whisper.

"There goes Mundaca!"

He died at age 55 in Merida, still in love with La Trigueña. Before he moved to Merida, he built a tomb to be closer to his lost love, which remains empty and can be found in the colourful, crowded downtown cemetery. Etched on his headstone are the pirate symbols, a skull and crossbones, with the words he carved as his epitaph, "As you are, I was. As I am, you will be."



Empty grave of Pirate Mundaca

I wonder if there are any remaining descendants of La Trigueña on the island, cousins, or great-great-grand kids? 

A visit to the remains of the Hacienda Mundaca in the centre of the island costs about two dollars per person. It is well worth the time to see some of the amazing structures in the abandoned garden. Wear lots of bug repellent!

His empty tomb is in the original cemetery at the north end of the island.

Source of details: Alice D. Le Plongeon's book, written in the 1880s.

                     

 

Grab your copy today!

Isla Mujeres Mystery Series

Or

Death in the Vineyards Mysteries

The Adventures of Thomas and Sparky