Isla Mujeres
A seven-kilometre island twenty minutes away by boat, with water the bay does not have.
Duration
5 hrs – 10 hrs
Best time
On the first crossing of the morning
Open
Every day
Entry price
Free
Isla Mujeres is seven kilometres long and six hundred metres wide, thirteen kilometres off Cancún. The Spanish named it in 1517 on finding female figurines left in a Maya shrine to Ixchel, goddess of the moon and fertility.
Playa Norte, at the northern tip, shelves so gently that you walk a hundred metres with water at your waist. The southern tip, Punta Sur, is the easternmost point of Mexico — the first place in the country where the sun rises — with a cliff, the remains of the Ixchel shrine and a sculpture park.
Getting there
Ferry from Puerto Juárez, twenty minutes, departures every half hour. On the island you get about by golf cart or scooter.
Rules on site
Touts on the hotel-zone piers sell the crossing at two to three times the price of the public Puerto Juárez ferry, for the same boat. The current at Punta Sur is strong and swimming there is banned.
