The Lost World of Quintana Roo

A Mexico adventure in review

Hola Amigos! Welcome to a true adventure tale and the book that led me to the wilds of the Yucatán. I found it in a vintage bookstore on California’s Monterey Coast. The Lost World of Quintana Roo’s author and I would eventually connect via email after he read a book review I’d written that ran in The Miami Herald. But that was not the last I heard about Michel. Read on to find out more. Also, I’m 9 subscribers shy of 1000 and am offering a signed copy of my memoir, Where the Sky is Born: Living in the Land of the Maya, to my 1000th subscriber. If you’re not already a free subscriber—step right up! And thank you all for being here!

Today’s Cancun radiates luxury, flash, and all things civilized. When I first traveled there, though it wasn’t the sophisticated resort city it is today, it was no backwater. It had a Club Med, a spiffy hotel zone, and in 1989 played host to the Miss Universe pageant. Located in the state of Quintana Roo on Mexico’s Caribbean coast, Cancun’s translucent turquoise waters and white sand beaches served as an enticing backdrop to a world-wide audience. Cancun was ready for its close-up.

Back then you could venture a mere five miles north or south and find yourself traipsing through tangled jungles or walking alone on deserted beaches. Though I considered myself a seasoned Mexico traveler I’d never ventured to the Yucatán and my introduction to its eastern shores came unexpectedly. I found an out-of-print book, The Lost World of Quintana Roo, in a vintage book shop in Moss Landing, California.

Along with a compelling cover, the dust flap intrigued me. “This is the true story of a remarkable adventure. Michel Peissel, a young Frenchman with an international background, was stranded on the coast of Quintana Roo in eastern Yucatán, abandoned by boatmen he had engaged to take him southward.”

I was hooked.

Peissel's tale was a tall adventure indeed. Sixty-five years ago he walked the land and considered Quintana Roo to be "the most savage and wild coast on the American continent."

Quintana Roo was not yet a Mexican state but merely a territory—with no laws, no government, no roads—accessible only by sea or on foot.

This was how Peissel, just 22-years old, discovered it. Through a strange set of circumstances, Peissel’s fate led him on a solo walk through thick mangroves and dense jungles from the northern tip of Quintana Roo down to Belize.

Mexico sabattical

After graduating from Harvard in 1958, Peissel planned a six-month sabbatical in Mexico before entering grad school for a business career. After meeting a well-traveled German writer in Mexico City, he became fascinated with a little known territory on the Yucatán Peninsula, Quintana Roo. Peissel first headed to Merida, then Progreso, where he chartered a boat to Cozumel. From there he planned to sail down the Quintana Roo coast. After arriving in Cozumel he hired two young Maya boys with an 11-foot vessel, bamboo mast and rag sail, to take him to the QRoo mainland.

After a harrowing eight-hour crossing, they arrived at Puha, a coco plantation, or cocal, on the mainland. The coast was entirely uninhabited except for Puha, Puerto Morelos, and Tankah.

Exhausted, Peissel fell asleep and missed the second half of the journey on the Maya sailboat which left him with a fateful decision—how to get to Chetumal in a land with no roads and virtually no people. After being abandoned, his only hope to exit the jungle was to travel on foot from cocal to cocal, relying on the assistance of the Maya who lived there for food, water, and direction.

Long journey

Wearing only sandals as his boots were left on the boat, he began his two hundred mile journey through dense jungle and mangrove swamps. He was chased by chiclero bandits (chickle cutters for gum trees) and encountered Chan Santa Cruz Indians, who until then killed any light-skinned person on sight as the Caste War of Yucatán had ended just 20 years earlier. He partook in religious ceremonies with indigenous Maya and stumbled onto unknown pyramid sites. Peissel became the first person known to walk the coast of Quintana Roo, arriving in Belize 40 days later.

It would be three years before Peissel made a return trip, and in that time he found many things had changed along the coast. In 1974 Quintana Roo became a state of Mexico and shortly thereafter the Mexico Tourist Council devised a project for a planned resort community which is now present day Cancun.

Cancun hotel zone in the 1970s

Years later Peissel again returned to Quintana Roo. He paddled and sailed his way down the coast in a Maya dugout canoe. After his early adventure to the region, he had abandoned his plans to become a banker and went on to write 15 books and produce 20 documentary films.

His journey to Quintana Roo led him to other outback destinations including Tibet, Nepal, and Bhutan. Traveling to far away places would become his life’s passion. Peissel died in Paris October 7, 2011. At 74, his was an adventurous life well lived.

On a personal note, I was contacted by the author after I wrote a review of the 1963 Lost World book in 2000 for The Miami Herald/Cancun edition. The review reached Peissel in Paris. He located me through email and thanked me. He mentioned the book was out of print and if I knew of a publisher who might want to re-publish, to let him know. I had few publishing contacts, but I was excited to have heard from Peissel. I was later contacted by his brother, Bernard, who explained he had read The Miami Herald review and forwarded it to Michel. We remained in touch and it was Bernard who informed me of Michel's passing.

Shakespeare & Company, Paris

But my six degrees of separation with Michel did not stop with the review. I traveled to Paris and one of my stops there was Shakespeare & Company. Owning a bookstore in Mexico drew me to this famous Parisian landmark. By chance I met the owner, George Whitman. Though an ocean apart, we were kindred spirits—expats with bookstores on foreign soil. When I told him about Alma Libre Libros, he asked what part of Mexico it was in.

“Quintana Roo,” I said.

That’s when the conversation got interesting.

"Quintana Roo? Quintana Roo! I walked Quintana Roo when I was young."

"You've been there?"

"Oh yes, I traveled through Mexico in the 30s. My visa ran out and to get my papers back I had to help build a bridge between Chetumal and Belize."

"Have you read The Lost World of Quintana Roo?" I asked. "By Michel Peissel?"

"Michel, of course. He'd come into the bookshop when he was a student at the Sorbonne. We often talked about my travels in Quintana Roo."

Shakespeare and Company

So Peissel had piggy-backed onto Whitman's true life adventure. Whitman was his game changer as Peissel was mine. I'd come full circle by finding an out-of-print book in California that became the heart of my Mexico desire, inspiring me to travel south and settle as an expat in Mexico. To top that off, I met Whitman in Paris, who connected the dots with Peissel. Aaah, life can be sweet.

Though the book is out of print, it's possible to find copies through various sellers. It's a compelling tale. Climb on board and be ready for a fascinating armchair adventure.

If you’re interested in supporting independent journalism and writing, please consider a paid subscription to Mexico Soul. This is a free newsletter. I don’t paywall any of my posts, but you can choose to pay if you like what I deliver. It would mean the world to me and will keep you up to date on my posts and chapters from Where the Sky is Born, detailing how we bought land and built a house in a small fishing village on the Mexico Caribbean coast. Not to mention a bookstore, too! All for $5/monthly or $50 per year.

Backstory—Puerto Morelos sits within 100 miles of four major pyramid sites: Chichen Itza, Coba, Tulum and Ek Balam. By living in close proximity to this Maya wonderland we pyramid hopped on our days off from Alma Libre Libros, the bookstore we founded in 1997. Owning a bookstore made it easy to order every possible book I could find on the Maya and their culture, the pyramids, the archeologists who dug at these sites and the scholars who wrote about them, not to mention meeting archeologists, tour guides, and local Maya who popped into the store. I became a self-taught Mayaphile and eventually website publishers, Mexican newspapers and magazines, even guidebooks asked me to write for them about the Maya and Mexico. I’ll never stop being enthralled by the culture and history and glad there’s always new news emerging for me to report on right here in Mexico Soul. Please share this post if you know others interested in the Maya. Thank you!