10 reasons to explore Mexico's final frontier

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Not so long ago, travelers could still feel smug about bailing out of Cancún to explore the empty white-sand beaches, arrested-in-time fishing villages, Maya ruins and hidden cenotes on the unspoiled Caribbean coast to the south. What a difference 10 years makes: The Cancún building frenzy and relentless upscaling has seeped south, turning the Riviera Maya, as the northern half of Quintana Roo's coast was branded in 1999, from jungle backcountry to a string of resorts with just as many hotel rooms as Cancún.

Fortunately for travelers who pine for the old, unimproved Riviera Maya, tourism has come more slowly to the southern half of the Caribbean coast. The recently dubbed Costa Maya, tucked under the Sian Ka'an Biosphere Reserve on a wide peninsula jutting out from the mainland, remained largely unnoticed by everyone except fly-fishermen. In fact, until Carnival Cruise Line and the government's tourism arm brought a huge cruise port to the tiny fishing village of Mahahual in 2001, there were no paved roads, power lines or telephone service.

Here are 10 great reasons to take the time to venture into the Mexican Caribbean's last frontier:

1) No worries. The Costa Maya is far removed from areas afflicted with drug cartel violence, and swine flu hasn't surfaced there.

2) Change — but not too much. Cruise ships bring nearly 1 million tourists to Mahahual on port days, but development has been mostly contained to the area around the port. When ships call, the packed-sand main street bustles with tipsy, sunburned cruise-ship passengers, emptying at night to allow the sleepy seaside town to re-emerge. On the flip side, the cruise business has brought new roads and adventure companies that make the region's mangrove marshes, low jungle, cenotes, centuries-old villages and long stretches of palm-fringed, white-sand beaches accessible to independent travelers as well.

3) Stretching pesos. The Costa Maya is still the kind of bargain once found all over Mexico. Examples: Rooms in a converted family home with private bath, shared living room and kitchen, and a garden extending to Laguna Bacalar, $23 to $38; a B&B overlooking the lagoon's shore, $38 to $53; spacious, solar-powered cabañas in Mahahual with windows onto the Caribbean, $38, including breakfast; private cottages at a fishing and diving lodge, $65, including breakfast buffet.

4) Lake of many colors. Kayaking on freakishly beautiful Laguna Bacalar is an otherworldly experience. Called Mexico's second-largest lake, it is actually a lagoon, with a series of waterways leading eventually to the ocean. On a sunny day, you see why it's nicknamed the Lake of the Seven Colors: The white sandy bottom makes the crystalline water pale turquoise in shallow areas, morphing from vivid turquoise to deep indigo in the center. Get kayaks from your hotel or rent them from Club de Vela Bacalar, on the waterfront in the center of town.

5) Mother of all cenotes. As if the lagoon weren't treasure enough, Bacalar also has Cenote Azul, about a mile south of town. Measuring 600 feet across, this is Mexico's biggest cenote, surrounded by flowers and trees. You could mistake it for a lake, but the cool water is so clear that you can see 200 feet down into its nearly 300-foot depth. Ladders provide easy access, and a rope stretches all the way across to help weak swimmers. Underwater caves attract divers as well as swimmers and snorkelers.

6) Pristine coral reefs. The most intact section of the entire Great Mesoamerican Reef, which stretches 450 miles from Cancún to Honduras, offers incomparable snorkeling and diving. The 24-mile-long, oval-shaped atoll, extending from Mahahual to Xcalak, is protected as part of the Chinchorro Reef Underwater National Park. The 30 or more shipwrecks rising from the sea bottom (one actually sits on the reef itself) make an unforgettable sight.

7) Ruination. Part of the strategy for luring tourism to the Costa Maya was to excavate and open more of the southern coast's little-known Maya sites to tourism. Kohunlich, discovered by a local Maya in 1967 outside the state capital of Chetumal, lacks grandeur but offers a parklike setting and continuing excavations. It is best known for the haunting Temple of the Masks, actually 6-foot elongated plaster faces from about A.D. 500. Travelers going to Chacchoben, a short distance from the coast highway just north of the Mahahual turnoff, have a unique opportunity to see the ancient city through a native's eyes. Ivan Cohuo, whose father father started a farm near the site in 1940, grew up with the pyramids as his playground. Cohuo and his partner, David Villagomez, a flora and fauna expert whose grandmother was a midwife in Chacchoben village, now lead tours there and also offer tours of their home village.

8) The Maya cosmos unveiled. Chetumal, at the southern extreme of the state near the Belize border, offers little for the tourist except for one genuine must-see: the sophisticated, tasteful Museo de la Cultura Maya, which might be the best museum on Maya culture anywhere. Exhibits are designed around three floors representing a ceiba, the sacred tree that symbolized Earth's relationship to the cosmos. The upper level, devoted to the world of the gods, corresponds to the tree's leaves and branches, which held the 13 heavens. The middle floor is the tree trunk, the world of humans; the lower level is the tree's roots and the Maya underworld, or Xibalba. Interactive exhibits (in English as well as Spanish) illuminate Maya architecture, class system, politics and customs. Video screens "fly" you over the great Maya cities from Mexico to Honduras and show how the pyramids probably were built.

9) Beaches and more beaches. Mahahual boasts some of the finest beaches on the coast, and one of the best is in the center of town, graced by a new malecón, or seafront promenade. When the cruisers swarm in, though, head out of town; you can walk for miles on the deserted beaches.

10) Fish stories. Remote Xcalak, a short way from the channel that marks the border with Belize, began life as a military outpost. Fly-fishers started coming in the 1980s and are still pulling prizes out of the water. Vast saltwater and brackish flats harbor tarpon, bonefish and snook. More tarpon, barracuda, grouper and snapper abound in the open ocean.

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