Deadline passes as Red Cross
fails to reopen PA facility
Agency launches annual drive today
By Staff
The Red Cross has fallen short of its expected March 15 re-opening of the Puerto Aventuras clinic and when it will open is anybody’s guess, to the chagrin of local fund-raisers. “I won’t raise any more money until it opens,” said one woman who manned a Red Cross booth last Sunday. Colonos GM Armando Rincon said he was told yesterday during a phone conversation with the Red Cross director in Playa del Carmen, that issues remain with the Hard Rock Hotel and Barcelo. What the issues are was not explained.
The RC outpost in the Poblado closed without warning in December after the new clinic and ambulance center in Playa del Carmen opened amidst a shortfall of funds for its greatly expanded space and medical services. It necessitated the closure of outlying centers like PA.
In the interim, a boat crewman who suffered severe burns in a Puerto Aventuras boat fire had to wait 30 minutes for an ambulance. Fortunately, several visitors vacationing in Club Aventuras nearby the accident had the medical knowledge and the will to care for him until a private ambulance arrived.
The incident underscored the need for faster response time of ambulances in Puerto Aventuras. This, in turn, motivated several resort residents to find out from Red Cross what was needed to reopen the PA center and then went about soliciting the funds from several generous contributors.
The Red Cross’s inability to meet the March 15 opening date disillusioned Puerto Aventurans who had quickly raised sufficient funds mostly from private donors to cover half the cost of salaries for four emergency technicians and two doctors, all of whom receive the same salary. In addition, the Colonos board agreed to use some of its funds as a loan to guarantee payment to the Red Cross.
In other Red Cross news, the Playa del Carmen branch was scheduled to send two people to Mexico City this week to take possession of a new $750,000-peso ambulance from Mexican President Enrique Pina Nieto, courtesy of the Azteca Foundation.
But even with this new unit, said Teresa Jiminez Rodriguez, president of the women volunteers, the division needs one more ambulance to efficiently provide pre-hospital services in the district which is heading toward a population exceeding 160,000. She said half the cost of the new ambulance and equipment will be borne by the local Red Cross budget. She called upon residents and businesses to give generously this year to the annual Red Cross Drive that begins today (March 19) with a goal of a million pesos.
Unfortunately, the Red Cross closure of the PA clinic and ambulance service without notice and the failure to meet their own deadline for reopening it has some big donors balking at continued donations to a service that isn’t there.
Jiminez Rogriguez said this year, more than ever, contributions are needed to support the new, larger central clinic in Playa del Carmen, which offers consultations in general medicine, dental services, laboratory testing, x-ray, ultrasound tests, and specialty care in pediatrics and gynecology. Much of the equipment in the new Playa clinic was provided through the efforts of several Rotary Club International members living in Puerto Aventuras and Seaside Rotary in Playa del Carmen.
In disturbing allegations, a local newspaper alleges there is collusion between 066 operators and profit-making ambulance services that are given first choice to emergency/accident cases involving foreigners from whom private responders can yield a large service fee. The newspaper claims the Red Cross is called by 066 mostly for minor cases of fallen drunks and the like. The Red Cross does not have a fee for ambulance services but hopes those who can afford a donation for the service will do so.
In addition to raising funds to assure the re-opening of the local Red Cross clinic and ambulance service in Puerto Aventuras, Timothy Howard, who heads an informal panel that includes Colonos GM Armando Rincon, John Klug and Martin Wohnlich, said two private ambulances that charge for services are located at the Hard Rock Hotel and Barcelo. Phone numbers for all ambulance services locally are:
Red Cross ambulance: 065; Puerto Aventuras Security: 873-51-28 and 51-73. Tell them what your emergency is, and whether you want the Red Cross ambulance or a private ambulance. If a private ambulance, they will send the one which is closest. Ambulance at the Barceló: 044-984-876-22-50; Ambulance at the Hard Rock: 044-998-214-41-32.
Food fest delights 400 fans
with appetites and a thirst
By Staff
Twenty-five chefs served up international food samplings to some 400 people at Puerto Aventuras’ 5th annual International Food Festival held Sunday on the campus of the Colegio.
While a colorful mariachi band served up lively Mexican music – food for the ears – the chefs went international in dishing out samples of foodstuffs like paella from Brazil, sushi from Japan, carne asada from Tamaulipas, mole poblano from Oaxaca, avocado key lime pie from Brazil, madras chicken from India, pulled pork from everywhere, embutidos from France and other samples that kept diners busy between snippets of jovial conversation for several hours, washing the foodstuffs down with various beverages and topping it off with gelato.
There was something special for everyone. Paamul Jack, for example, enjoyed the sushi while Marilyn Vernon was partial to the paella and her diplomatic husband, Joe, who thought a moment, replied, “…all of it was good,” a sentiment shared by most diners.
Among the many volunteers who helped make the day a gastronomic and socially delightful day among friends and neighbors were Elaine Darroch and Lucie Sellors who manned the Red Cross fund-raising booth (within eyesight of the Red Cross ambulance parked nearby) and familiar Colonos figures like GM Armando Rincon, president Jorge Kaufer and coordinator Carlos Quinones among others.
Then there was the effervescent couple Daniele and perpetually animated Lucia Gracis, he slamming two pot lids together as one would cymbals and she dancing with anyone who dared match their nimble moves with hers. Both were hawking a raffle for their medal-winning Youth Sailing Club that’s been putting Puerto Aventuras on the national sailing map. There was joy too watching a young girl who won a bicycle in the raffle who couldn’t wait to pedal it happily around the campus, and listening to singers Errol the Entertainer, a regular at Latitude 20 Restaurant, his sound mixer Shannon Rachynski who gifted the crowd with fast paced C&W and Pam Miller, who filled the campus with lilting R&B tunes from the big band era.
The day belonged to the unsung volunteers who manned the steam tables, charcoal grills and boiling pots serving the diners and to other volunteers who placed the tents and hauled the tables and chairs to assure enough shade for almost everyone, and to those chefs who represented various hotels, restaurants and “home cooking.”
All those efforts would be wasted were it not for a robust turnout of local residents like Alberto Rivera Arguelles, his wife, Gabriela, their children and their children’s friends, making the day a family affair and some residents from Paamul, Akumal and Playa del Carmen who helped keep a PA tradition alive.
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City initiates seizure of Paamul,
PA land for unpaid property tax
The municipality of Solidaridad is in the process of seizing four waterfront properties in Paamul, Puerto Aventuras, Xcalacoco and Punta Maroma for non-payment of property taxes dating back to 2010. Owners of the properties, on vacant seaside lots, owe an aggregate 18 million pesos, said Gabriel Castro, the municipal treasurer.
He said one of the properties, known as “Conchita” in Paamul, has already been repossessed and will go on the auction block in 45 days if the owner(s) do not make arrangements with the municipality to negotiate payment. He said the longer owners wait to make payment the more it costs with added penalties.
Castro did not identify the other properties since they have not yet been repossessed. He warned that the remaining properties will also be seized in 45 days from date of notice if owners do not contact his office to negotiate a payment plan.
COPELLIA’S BALLET Company presents “Swan Lake” Saturday, March 21st in the Puerto Aventuras Golf Club. Tickets available at Colegio Puerto Aventuras and Copellia’s Academy. Pre-sale cost is $150 pesos or $200 pesos on the day of the event… BIRD WALK Wednesday, Mar. 25 from 3:30-5:30 p.m. Join two, local, amateur birders on a leisurely bird walk around Puerto. Comfortable shoes, water, binoculars if you have. Meet at the tennis courts near the Golf Course (See letter to the editor below.) CENSUS TAKERS from the Institute of National Statistics and Geography (Inegi) are in Puerto Aventuras to March 27. Personnel in uniform and carrying identity papers will do the polling randomly. Anyone with doubts when contacted by a census taker can call local Security 984-873-5128 or Inegi directly 1-800-111-4634… COOKING CLASS - Latitude 20 cooking class is held at 10 a.m. Fridays. All are welcome to join in … SPANISH CLASSES at Latitude 20: Call Gloria Contreras at cel: 984-108-3517 for information… Falling back in love at our age. Oh, why not? – Join Professor Emeritus Jim White at 10 a.m. April 8 in the Colonos meeting room. Prof. Jim White has published scientific data on how to enliven a loving relationship and add years to your life at the same time.… SEASIDE ROTARY is an English speaking Rotary Club that services the Municipality of Solidaridad. The club meets at 12;30 p.m. Tuesdays at the SOHO Bistro in Playa del Carmen. Meetings are open to the public and visits from visiting Rotarians and anyone interested in doing good work to support our local community are encouraged to attend…
Editorial…
‘Access’ is a word that anguishes,
divides cultures, communities
Private property vs. free-rein models abound
The day after the PA golf course ordered dump trucks laden with stone and soil to rumble along a fairway and deposit their loads to block a roughly 25-yard short-cut across a private wooded lot, a golfer wandered onto the private property of Esmeralda Condos asking residents if they had a net to retrieve his golf ball – just one of many – that landed in the condo pool.
Residents didn’t have a net. So the golfer got down on his stomach alongside the pool and tried to reach the ball with whatever he had at hand. Then another golfer appeared from the wood line chastising the first golfer for his (expletive) time-consuming effort to retrieve “a one dollar ball.”
What the golfers didn’t know is that about a half-hour earlier there were three children playing in that pool who could have been struck by the ball and seriously injured or killed, as happens now and then around golf courses. It’s a chance that course-side residents take with eyes wide open.
Where’s the compromise?
The golfers also didn’t know condo residents were moody over the recent blocking of a path used quietly by young and older condo residents without cars to reach Centro Comercial, where many go to shop for food, gelato, visit the Colonos office, vegetable stand, medical clinic, veterinarian and other businesses. The path also was used by some workers and bikers who first travel a few yards along the edge of the golf course, not across it, to “access” the path. Conversely, the golf course contends trespassers sometimes impede golf play, according to complaints made to course manager Jose Luis Ortega.
“When I saw that unsightly mound of dirt blocking the path,” said one older female biker about to set out for a ride, “it took the joy out of my day.” Such is Paradise. Not everybody has “access” through the Golden Gate. “Muy malo,” said one construction worker shaking his head while climbing over the mound. He offered to carry the lady’s bike over the dirt. She declined.
It is a given that the PA golf course has the private-property right to block all public access – even to paying golfers if it so chose – in order to maintain its property in good and unobstructed condition. Short-cut bikers had worn grooves in some of the fairways by repeated use. Dog walkers and dog owners use the property as poop parks while respectful recreational joggers and walkers generally do little damage, says course management.
Teens in carts have used the fairways as a race track and demolition derby in the past. Since the above trespassers confound the maintenance effort – and in some instances the golf game itself – the course management has taken a harder line lately by blocking “access” with signs, public pronouncements, fences, prickly brush, mounds of dirt… all of which hard-core trespassers ignore and eventually get around anyway. In the dirt mound case, brush and allegedly barbed wire have been added.
Then again, owners of private house lots also have blocked access from the golf course through their property over the course of several years, actions that have mostly served to shift routes by trespassers to other private properties. It doesn’t end the problem. In the case of the dirt mound, Ortega says the course acted on a complaint from a property owner on Yalku who didn’t much care for the disruption when bikers and walkers exit onto Yalku – a public street.
Unspoken compromise.
That being said, residents of the affected condo complex, as example, view their limited use of the course as a compromise. They say they don’t complain about golfers who trespass on their property, send golf balls pinging off patios and windows or plunging into the pool. They bear it in return for using a tiny portion of the course to access the short-cut to Centro. The path itself is a miniscule, unobtrusive trail through a wooded lot that is for sale.
In some instances, the course has blocked short-cuts across fairways used mostly by Chedraui shoppers, car-less guests, construction and hotel employees to “access” the main gate. In some instances, the more aggressive workers and other trespassers simply go around the impediments by using nearby private condo and villa properties. We live in a small society by agreement here and obviously there is disagreement and disappointment on the issue of “access.”
“Access” then is a word with problematic connotation. War veterans and the poor seek “access” to health care, entrepreneurs cajole bankers for “access” to loans, high school graduates vie for “access” to the better colleges, social climbers desire “access” to the next rung on the ladder and sunbathers want access to the sea, ad infinitum.
Mining possible options
Mankind is working toward populating other planets, creating an “earth star” using plentiful hydrogen to generate usable energy on earth. Scientists are devising a human heart of human cells on a 3D printer and other advances to benefit the human condition, all of which may be less difficult to do than to resolve myriad “access” problems in Puerto Aventuras, perhaps the result of myopic vision in the first place.
Rather than solutions, it may be time to consider compromise options, to think out of the box. Puerto Aventuras is facing a traffic and parking challenge as buildout approaches. Creating safe bicycle lanes along all the existing main roads – similar to the exemplary bike strips and sidewalks along Phase 4 roads and on Bahia Yanten – might end that particular access problem and also mitigate current and future vehicle gridlock by accommodating and encouraging safe, smooth usage of bicycles as a less expensive, environmentally sound and healthier option than cars, fences and disagreeable dirt mounds and barbed wire that could injure trespassers.
Other options might include free shuttle buses supported by business/hotels/Colonos deployed during commuting hours to and from the resort to the Poblado, Puerto Maya and Chedraui supermarket for workers and shoppers. Similarly, shuttle buses could also be employed on Sundays to Xpuha or other public beaches for PA villagers currently concerned about potential fees at the beach in Akumal. They could also agitate for municipal swimming pools or create a think-tank to incubate other doable options. Pelican space is available for anyone wishing to propose doable possibilities aimed at diminishing the local “access” conundrum.
The idea is to make existing main streets so accommodating to pedestrians and bikers fearful of big buses, noisy trucks and speeding cars that they simply won’t want to use the golf course because better options exist. Besides…barbed wire in Paradise?
(See story under Commerce Corner in this edition to learn how the “access” syndrome is also confounding life in Akumal, and more on this PA subject in the letters section below.)
British national killed while
walking on 307 near Paamul
Another highway fatality was reported last week on the northbound lane of Highway 307 when a pedestrian identified as a British national and allegedly drunk, tried to cross the highway on a curve about 6 p.m. between Puerto Aventuras and Paamul, say the police. The driver of the car did not stop but was apprehended at the police filtro.
Emergency number 066 reported receiving a call that a person was walking along the highway apparently in a drunken state. By the time police arrived, the man had already been struck by a car and his lifeless body in the road. Police cordoned off the area to prevent other cars from running over the body. Police identified the victim as Reece Kiffin, 23, who was a guest at the Hard Rock Hotel.
Shortly afterward, police at the filter saw a car with a broken windshield, missing fender and traces of blood. The driver admitted hitting a person on the highway and driving away. The driver said he was heading north and struck the victim just before reaching the curve at Paamul where the victim evidently stumbled onto the roadway.
Oxxo teaming up with bank
for cash withdrawals at stores
Oxxo says it is planning to team up with BBVA Bancomer in a plan to make cash disbursements at stores in Quintana Roo, but when and precisely where it will take effect among its many outlets was not clear. The Oxxo in PA already takes cel phone payments.
The announcement said the service will be offered in about 12,000 stores nationally. Quintana Roo reportedly has 290 outlets, with around 150 in Cancun alone.
Using the bank debit card, clients will be able to withdraw 1000 pesos per transaction from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. for a transaction fee of 12 pesos, the announcement said. No purchase will be necessary to withdraw funds.
FEMSA Comercial, parent of Oxxo, said it has been aware that some of its stores are located in areas where financial institutions and services are not readily available and hopes to remedy that somewhat with this plan. That date of implementation was not announced.
Hard Rock Hotel takes over
18-hole Playcar golf course
Plans youth academy, night practice
The Hard Rock Hotel announced at a press conference last week it is managing the former Playacar Golf Course in Playa del Carmen and plans to offer night practice, a youth academy and international tournaments under the Hard Rock brand. Rene Malacara, manager of the Hard Rock Hotel and the golf course, lives in Puerto Aventuras with his family.
The Hard Rock Riviera Golf Club, as it is now called, aims to promote international golf tourism, particularly among Canadians and Koreans, both of whom already have a presence at the Playacar club. Malacara said special packages and rates are available to residents of Quintana Roo. The course is one of about 15 in Quintana Roo, has 65 employees and is located in the gated Playacar community. Meanwhile, the Association of Caribbean Golf Courses intends to include Riviera Maya courses in its future programs and promotions.
The Mail Bag…
Dear Editor:
Bird walk was informative
The bird walk on Wednesday led by Gayle Sandholm was terrific. We saw lots of birds, learned many things (termite trails on trees!) and met new friends. It would be great to include a botanist on future walks. We saw two parrots feasting on a termite nest near the tennis courts. The pair is quite happy! Note that they go into the nest! This is a terrific idea and we hope it continues. Thanks to Sandholm for generously sharing his knowledge. We don’t have his contact information so could you please convey our appreciation? Thank you.
Signed/ Bob and Judy Gore
Dear Editor
Fences bring disillusionment
I enjoy walking and biking here in Puerto Aventuras and choose not to have a car or cart during the months I spend here each year. I bike to the caleta regularly and walk to the local market, to Centro for food or the beach, around town to observe birds, to the main gate for groceries or the colectivo.
I meet children going to and from school, lots of tourists also enjoying the walk, and locals from the poblado whose good work makes our lives much easier. Recently, my life here became much more problematic. I know I am not alone, especially for those of us on Bahia Xaak.
Attempts to alter walking and biking traffic with large fences, barbed wire, thorn bushes and rock-dirt piles has led to more frustration, anger and mistrust of golf course officials. The dangers of riding on busy streets, especially for young school children, and the added distances for less abled persons only add to the frustration.
Over the past six years, I have observed some of the basic problems in the development of the community. These include no access routes for walkers or bikers in several locations and little public access/green spaces in or around private property.
I hope any public discussion of important access issues would include these more basic development concerns. Claiming private property, golfer rights or security issues and adding fences to deny access will only lead to more distrust, disillusionment and anger within this community.
Signed/Gayle Sandholm
Dear Editor:
Blood recipient thanks friends
We have been informed the second blood donation has been successfully completed. We are so blessed to have such good friends and acquaintances here in the Riviera Maya. One donation was from Akumal, the other from Paamul. Thank you seems inadequate, but we thank you from the bottom of our hearts for your efforts and concern.
Signed/Dave and Linda Gosslin
(Ed Note: This letter was addressed to Donna Carey and copied to the Pelican.)
Commerce Corner…
Embattled Akumal stakeholders
respond to critics of new vision
Say ecology cannot sustain the free-rein era
(Ed.Note: The following was written by Laura Bush Wolfe, whose family pioneered Akumal. She is responding to critics of proposals intended to levy fees and moderate free-rein activity in the community to hopefully reverse expanding ecological damage and to sustain natural assets that have made Akumal a desired tourist destination.)
“Akumal Yesterday and Today”
“Akumal is the oldest tourism development on the coastline, before Cancun, before Playa del Carmen, before all of the Riviera Maya hotels, and it has had the LEAST amount of change to it’s Main Bay over the last 40 years, yet because of the surrounding growth in the Riviera Maya, and because Akumal has remained one of the few open private developments on the coastline, it is now experiencing an overload of traffic for a very small bay.
Akumal was developed as a quaint tourist community, with the commercial area on the Main Bay, and North Akumal as a residential area. There was no town, only jungle.
The original vision for Akumal was to receive divers and people that enjoy nature in a unique destination, ‘A special place, for special people,’ people who appreciate simplicity and a concept for vacationing that is distinctly authentic, and culturally true to this unique part of Mexico . The one entrance through the archway was never meant to be able to handle the traffic it has today, with pedestrians coming in and out through the same entrance. This truly presents a danger for public safety.
The tours coming in today are a result of more and more tour operators, cooperatives, independent guides, and transport companies doubling up as snorkel tour guides wanting to take advantage of the “ Swim with the Turtles Experience” while the government stalls on the permits and allows this free- for- all. The property owners will not give up until the government steps in and puts in limits, and decrees protection laws for the turtles and ecosystem.
Misguided opinions
Hotel Akumal Caribe is not in the tour business and yet there is a misguided opinion that my hotel has made millions from the tours that clandestine tour operators, cooperatives and independents sell at the entrance, inside private properties and on federal zone beach. These people approach visitors and guests from all sides to sell their tours, many times telling them that they HAVE to take a tour in order to see the turtles. Many times donning a Dive Shop or Dive Center T shirt in order to look legitimate and mislead visitors.
These operators do not have their own infrastructure, bathrooms, lockers, showers, and areas to give instruction and rules and so they use existing private property infrastructure for their own commercial purposes. The properties provide this infrastructure for visitors, guests and clients, but have no obligation to provide them for outside snorkel tours. The dive shops have this infrastructure for their own clients.
Another major problem that affects everyone is the lack of proper sewage in some areas of Akumal including the Pueblo. For years we have been lobbying for the government to step in and provide sewage for North Akumal and the Pueblo with no success. Everyone has to look after his or her own areas, and no one is looking after the Pueblo’s infrastructure.
Treatment plant non-functional
The government may step in, over time, when the situation is so critical that they won’t be able to turn away. In the meantime the government is satisfied that because they provided a treatment plant when the Pueblo opened up, that it suffices, when only 30% of the houses were hooked up, and now the treatment plant is non- functional and would not even be sufficient for the growth of the pueblo. This is not new to Mexico, as most towns have improper sewage everywhere!
The hotels on the main bay, including Hotel Akumal Caribe, have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to put in their sewage treatment plants and comply with government standards, and yet that same government has not put in a functioning and adequate sewage treatment plant for the Pueblo of Akumal so all those homes, businesses, apartments, and now even hotels in the Pueblo have their sewage seeping into the underground river systems which open up to the ocean, thereby contributing to the death of our reef. But because of its proximity to the bay and the unique karst terrain this is a problem that needs to be addressed immediately.
Finally, it’s ironic that because this destination is so unique on the coastline, being one of the only open beaches for the public to enjoy, it gets all the surrounding visitors to the Riviera Maya coming on tours to the bay and overcrowding the turtles, polluting the water, destroying the coral, and then comfortably getting transferred back to their resorts.
Boats endanger swimmers
Additionally, Akumal has independent fishermen mooring their boats in the bay, which represent 60% of the boats in Akumal Bay. The other 40% are from the two Dive shops. This presents overcrowding for those who want to swim freely along the shoreline, a dangerous situation, and one that we have tried to come to agreements on but with no avail.
We can only hope that those who love Akumal can understand the huge undertaking that the property owners have on their plates. The balance that is needed between development, commercial activity, and overuse, while battling a socio- economic political battle is a delicate one.
The legal issue of having private property bordering federal zone and by law providing access has never been violated. Akumal is and will remain open. Private property has every right by law to mandate how and where the access point to the federal zone is. It also has every legal right to have rules for the use of their private property and to establish limits according to what their infrastructure can handle.
Private property rights
Commercial activity on Federal Zone is only allowed by those that have a “General Use Concession”, and not for street vendors and salesmen. A federal court judge mandated the protection of the private property rights of Centro Ecologico Akumal through municipal police presence on the property. This is indisputable. All documents have been presented and will be presented anytime that it is required in order to establish the legal rights of private property.
There has never been a public beach access decreed by the government on Hotel Akumal Caribe land either. Both properties have the legal paperwork to prove this once again. A referral to a road to the beach (Camino a la Playa) as a reference point is not an indication that it is a Publicly decreed official beach access.
If a certain area has been provided for the public to access the beach, it does not mean it becomes a public government run access. This would be expropriation of private property. It’s the same if your home’s side yard was regularly used by people to get to a major road, or the waterfront, because it was the most direct, but not the only way to get there, the government should not be able to deem it public. The development as a whole must have public beach accesses, which were established in the PDU 20017-2032. (Urban Development Plan)
It’s unfortunate that a destination that has always been open to the public with little or no rules would have the type of local resistance to efforts to establish order that it is experiencing today. When property owners realize that keeping it that way will ruin the bay and therefore the economy of every single user of that bay, it’s their duty, and their right, to bring in order and control. That should not be met with resistance. We should all work together towards this same goal and lobby the government together to achieve the protection the bay needs.
Hotels providing jobs
Change is inevitable, and Akumal Bay is now experiencing the most change in over 40 years. It’s important that everyone understand how important it is to the property owners on the bay to manage it. An all-inclusive 5- star resort is not out to destroy the very bay that provides their ocean front view for their guests.
The two other hotels that have been here for so many years are seeking to upgrade their properties so that their guests continue to enjoy staying there, and enjoy the view of the main bay without seeing its overuse and chaos. These hotels provide jobs for the local community who live in the very town that was created through the need to house the staff from these area businesses.
Work together to succeed
Local independent nautical services have every right to work in the bay, but in an orderly, organized way. Not by standing in the parking lots, at the entrances, and on the beach, hawking their tours. This does not give the destination a good image. All these issues have created unrest and conflict and have broken up the community when it most needs to pull together in the same direction. This is nothing personal against anyone; it’s about protecting Akumal, which makes it a personal mission for me, given that my family has been in Akumal since the early 60’s.
Ultimately, our collective goal should be about working together with new perspectives and new attitudes of cooperation so that Akumal can become a shining example of what a community united can accomplish.”