A Traveler's Lament: An Apology Letter

Do you think this is a pretty lake? Would you swim here, vacation here, watch sunrises, play until the moon was in the sky?

Lake Bacalar, unedited iPhone photo, in July of 2021

I suppose if you wanted a beach vacation in Mexico, and you found the white sand piled high with stinking sargassum, and found the first 20 feet of water from the shore just a murky, brown mess - this lake may look like a refuge. I bet if you’d never seen it before, you would love spending a day or two here, you’d take some insta stories, and maybe look at other photos of this lake and think “hmm - those must be photoshopped…” Well. Those photos weren’t photoshopped. They weren’t juiced or over-saturated. This used to be heaven on earth.

A small town, a magical lagoon of seven sparkling colors, so clear you could see the bottom with ease. This was my happiest of happy places in the entire world. More than the spectacular beach on Jeju-do, in South Korea. More than the mist at the bottom of a waterfall. More than snorkeling at Two Step in Hawaii. More than a slot canyon in Utah, watching the sunset from the Marin Headlands, and more than any day I ever spent playing in the lake in that little town in NH where I once lived.

My heart has been with this lake - in particular this spot - since 2016. It was this very spot I sat with my husband and we looked at each other and said, “Do you…want to live here…?” And then laughed that we’d said it in unison, like we tend to, and we started our plans for a move to Mexico.

It was this spot that I rang in the first week of my 40s with my closest friends and loved ones. That was two summers ago. I saw the news last summer, of the lake turning brown. Of the runoff from the booming construction around the town, compounded by multiple hurricanes. Of the snails dying en masse, the hawks that eat the snails leaving the lake. I saw the stories of sewage and agricultural runoff feeding algae. I saw how the mangroves and the limestone couldn’t keep up the filtering of the water that for centuries had kept it so magically pristine.

I saw some locals (who cannot truly be blamed for finding a way to make a living off of tourists) renting out jet skis, which churned the water further. I saw other locals pull their boats out and…leave. And I saw Instagram-friendly and overpriced boutique hotels and restaurants popping up, trying to convince people this would be the next Tulum, the next Isla Mujeres. I saw the “Tren Maya” project move forward, and knew it would enable more tourists than ever to visit. And still - still I clung to hope that this would all be ok.

My first afternoon I looked across the lake and thought, well… it’s cloudy. Tomorrow when the sun shines, it will look like the lagoon I know and love. It’s had a break from tourism. The pandemic slowed things down… these were the things I said to myself. And we walked into town for dinner, and found there were new sidewalks. Where there used to be a horse tied up and a woman selling cheese, there was a rock wall. The dirt road that had been full of turkeys and stray dogs was now paved, and all animals had been shooed away. The town square was behind fencing, undergoing remodeling and new landscaping. It was no longer a small town, it was a small town that was trying to appeal to more people, to wealthier travelers.

And again - I cannot begrudge the people who live there. I understand the catch-22 of needing tourism money, and tourism also destroying the charm of a place. I was so disheartened to know that this little slice of paradise went from 10K visitors a year, mostly from other states in Mexico and central and South America, to an astounding 140k visitors a year.

And I knew that so many of them would arrive and look out at the lake and think, “Awesome! No seaweed!” They’d rent a motorboat. They’d stand on stromatolites, killing them. The “estromalitos” are the oldest living organisms on earth - living stones, really - they are found in just 3 places in the world: this lagoon, one other spot in Mexico, and one place in Australia. They’d tell their friends how cheap it was in comparison to Tulum, 3 hours north. They’d think “huh, those insta photos must have been really exaggerated,” have a good day, and leave, content.

And all I want to do is scream that NO!!! The photos weren’t lying! This was heaven on earth, and we’ve ruined it!!! And I’m just not sure anyone would listen, anyhow. The above photo…this was a “good” day on the lake recently. There were happy tourists partying it up all over town, on boats and docks, on swings and hammocks, posing for photos and hash-tagging themselves “blessed” - and all I wanted to do was cry.

I don’t know that this will ever recover in our lifetime. I don’t know that we’ll see those magical waters again. I don’t know that I’ll sit on a dock at sunset watching a hawk pluck snails from the water. We still, guilty of being tourists ourselves, plan on moving to Mexico. I still have hopes that this lake may gain some protections, that those who remember perfect days here will somehow find a way to keep tourists off jet skis, out of the mangroves, off of the stromatolites.

But truly the damage is done. I remember the wildfire in the Gorge several summers ago, watching rocks slide and trees burst into flames, hearing the roar of the flames, feeling the heat from the other side of the river, I remember the ash raining down on everything for days and being so heartsick that this destruction was caused by man. It was so instantaneous - one day it was The Gorge, and the next it was an inferno. And man had done it. Man had changed the landscape in a visible and permanent way, with a careless act. And I thought how strange it was to be able to literally watch a place change before my eyes. I thought how rare that was. And then I stood at this spot and stared at the lake, and this was caused by man. One day it was the lagoon, the next it was muddied and murky. And man had done it. Man had changed the landscape in a visible way.

I wish I could say this won’t be permanent, but based on Instagram and fb travel pages and hashtags, I worry the damage is irreversible. It breaks my heart - I carry guilt for my own photos of this place, my own days on the lake with friends. I know we took a sailboat. I know we didn’t use sunblock. We avoided the stromatolites.

I know we patronized the small businesses. We all loved the dirt roads, the stray dogs, the turkeys, the children selling cookies and the horses that pulled wagons into town so their owners could sell cheese. We loved watching the blues change before our eyes. We loved the moon rise, we loved the sunrise. We loved the birds and tiny fish and the snails and the snail wind chimes sold on the square. We made sure to stop in a bigger town on our way, knowing the only ATM in town didn’t always work. We loved it all.

And I knew, a week ago, watching this murky green swill at my feet, that I too had loved this place to death.

Dear Bacalar, I am so sorry. And I wish that were enough.

Lake Bacalar, in an unedited iPhone photo, in fall of 2016