Thanks for your replies everyone! gbchayctca - The reason for looking at QR is based on the ease of moving there from San Pedro. When travelling with no vehicle and a blind St. Bernard the ease of making a transition is a big priority So to summarize what I see...Chetuaml although easiest and pleasant can be very boring at times and the beach is not a simple walk to it; Cancun while somewhat cheaper also has less beach access except by bus and taxi while Playa has easy beach access but a bit more costly to settle in.... A million people in Cancun sounds a little daunting to a small town Vancouver Island/San Pedro couple but could be an interesting adventure unto itself. We plan at this point on leaving San Pedro on the 19th of the month and taking the water taxi to corazol and then over the border. A friend there will look after Shmoo (our dog) while we find where we are going to settle. Perhaps armed with the info that you have given us we are best just using the bus and townhopping north until we find a place that seems like baby bear's porridge (just right) I see many condos for rent...In Canada dogs are not allowed in condos at all...is it different in Mexico if an extra deposit is paid and the dog has references ? Anyone know ? Thanks again for the friendliness and info sharing and we hope to meet some of you wherever we end up and although sad to be leaving Belize we're looking forward to getting there in a couple weeks (wherever there ends up being lol)
someone here in Belize mentioned a town called Mahahual - I assume looking at it on a map that while nice and peaceful appearing it is also likely to have the same or similar unreliable tele-com problems that neccesitated us leaving San Pedro Do any of you happen to know much about Mahahual ?
If Cancun's nearly 1 million people sounds daunting then I have two points...one, it feels like a small town to me...I almost never go anywhere without seeing someone I know...just went to the movies and one of my friends ran into a friend...just went to the supermarket and saw a neighbor. And second, Playa is reported to be the fastest growing city in Latin America, so it's catching up to Cancun as fast as it can. There's a message board for Mahahaual...you might Google around and try to find it. I think there are some serious connectivity issues there and lots of areas there aren't on the grid yet. And it's a godawful long way from an airport...but then I'm one of those people who can't stand to live more than 1 hour from an international airport. It does seem like if where you are now is too remote then you don't want to go live in Mahahual. You might also look at Akumal and Tulum. Both have more infrastructure than Mahahual but are not so big. Although Tulum is the next Playa, it's growing pretty fast...you can almost hear them building a Costco there...
Puerto Morelos Infrastructure has improved greatly in Puerto Morelos in the 7 years we have lived there, except for the roads, they are terrible. They promise to fix them every year, but so far very little has been done. Electricity was actually restored quite quickly after Wilma, though because they were replacing every single line in town and in the general area, they would take it down during the day and restore it at night. This went on for a couple of weeks, but allowed us to live fairly normally. There were no tourists anyway! The electricity is much better now, as are the phone and cable lines.
