The Lagoons of Mayakoba

When OHL?s design team envisioned Mayakoba as a jungle, forest and beach resort, the originality and freshness of the concept won immediate approval. But it raised the question: how will guests get around this rich landscape? Cars were not appropriate for the peaceful, natural setting. A narrow forest road would allow walkers, bikers and golf carts to travel the resort, but something else was needed.

The answer came from a peculiarity of Yucatan geography. The region has no surface rivers or other waters, but pure water exists a few metres below its limestone skin. With a leap of the imagination ? ?The water is there! The rivers are there!? ? the designers saw that a system of lagoons and canals could be brought to the surface, and that boats on this waterway could be the resort?s main transportation.

Turning that insight into a reality proved neither easy nor inexpensive. Plotting the route was a challenge, since hotels, villas and casitas all had to face water or the golf course. In other words, the waterway had to be a long, looping ribbon that unfurled over the entire site, widening at strategic points into generous lagoons, narrowing at others into canals. In a 20-hectare (50 acre) area, the canals and lagoons are over nine kilometers (six miles) long. Half a million cubic metres of earth were removed to accommodate the waterways (used later for the golf course, and donated to the boulevard along the highway). The impressive walls along the waterway are lined with local limestone, constructed without mortar. Since there were virtually no precedents for their work, Mayakoba?s design team relied on nature: ?Our main guidance has always been the simple logic of how subterranean waters work, and the beauty that water and time have made in sculpting rock.? The final bill for Mayakoba?s waterways was expensive, a luxury that seems worth every penny as you cruise the crystal-clear, glittering canals under a blue or star-lit sky.

The Yucatan?s subterranean water is rainwater that has been filtered through the limestone surface, so it?s pure, with no need for further treatment. Mayakoba?s canals and lagoons are moving, rather than stagnant water, thanks to several points at the northern end of the system where water flows in and a corresponding well that was dug at the southern end, so that water returns underground to the sea. It works like a very large natural fountain, covering 50 acres.

Mayakoba?s new waterway has been a boon to the vegetation along its shores, as well as for the birds who cluster around it looking for food. Fish are thriving, and there is a plan to introduce manatees into the canals. Meanwhile, one of the designers? small but favorite ?moments? in the system is already fulfilling its purpose. When they were planning the lagoons, they designated a particular rock that rose just above the water as a place where the local cormorants could rest and dry their wings. They recently returned to watch cormorants and many other species making use of the rock just as they intended. One of their visitors commented, ?The site must be happy: nature is working hand in hand with the design.?

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