"You don't want that property."
"Why not?"
"First of all it's too big for you. And it's not even for sale and if it was, the owner would want more money than you want to pay.
And besides, that's not a home site. There used to be a restaurant there." At that moment Mark and I smiled at each other and completely fell in love with a very large chunk of a whole lot of nothing.
The property had been thoroughly decimated by a category 5 monster named Hurricane Dean. It was now five months later, January 2008, and that little stretch of beach still had nothing to offer but sea grass and sand. There were no palm trees, no hammocks, no solid structure that we knew of. It had no functioning plumbing system. There was no electricity. Everywhere we looked was destruction and impossibilities. Yet that property spoke to us. And we listened with passionate attention.
We didn’t however, choose to listen to the voices in our own heads. The ones that warned us to turn back while at the same time dared us to jump off the cliff. Reason had very little to do with the journey we were determined to embark on. Mark and I were just a couple of gringos from California with a slowly developing idea but no game plan. We had no clue how to purchase property in Mexico and no experience running the type of business we thought we wanted. Turn back or jump? We chose to jump. We really didn’t even feel there was a choice.
Aside from the obvious language issue, we struggled with unreasonable Mexican laws and unbelievably difficult government officials. We had to learn the ways of Mexican employees and fell victim many times to the whims of Mother Nature. Jumping ship entered my mind more times than I would confess to, and strangling my husband became a frequent fantasy.
Flash forward nine years and Maya Chan Beach is the number one thing to do in Costa Maya. With well over 1,000 five-star reviews, it's also the number 14th attraction on the entire Yucatán peninsula. We developed a cruise ship day resort and have had the great pleasure of sharing our piece of paradise with over 50,000 new friends. Actually, over 50,000 new family members. We have visited many of them stateside and cruised with a few more. Birthdays, anniversaries, weddings, even celebrations of life have been shared with us on our Little Mayan Beach. To embark on such a journey took more intestinal fortitude than we anticipated, but It Helps to be Crazy.
