Lomography

Pirates, Caribbean Island Life (Mexico)
written by blue-dog on February 13th, 2009 , 16 submissions , 9 comments (3 votes)

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There is a place in Mexico that I fell madly in love with many years ago called Isla Mujeres. English translation; Island of Woman . So just given that information it becomes a place of wonder lust to most people. I love the slow life here, and it is nothing like the excess of Cancun. With its Caribbean cobalt sky, ( take your LCA ) and crystal clear turquoise waters,( take your Frogeye) And white-bright sugar-sand beaches, you could shoot lots of slow speed films here, or even pinhole shooting because it can be very bright in the shade on most summer days.

The slow life is what is important here. So when you come here slow down, take long walks, go to the zocala, watch a basketball game or the children dance and play near the water fountain. In March of the year 1517, Francisco Hernandez Cordova discovered the island. He found many female shaped idols representing the Mayan goddess Ixchel, thus Isla Mujeres got its name. It is the only known place in Mexico Pre Colombia to have found in their temple/lighthouse, figurines of woman. Bits and pieces of the old temple are still out at the south point of the Island.

There was a pirate named Fermin Anonio Mundaca y Marecheaga ( it is said he was a very bad worldly man..dealer in slave trade…) who landed shores of Isla Mujeres in 1858 after acquiring his wealth selling captured Mayan slaves to Cuban plantations and some say pirating. He soon saw and fell in love with one of the beautiful girls of this small fishing village her name was Martiniana (Prisca) Gomez Pantoja.

Mundaca as he is known, could not persuade her to leave her island and marry him. He built a lavish home on the Island, to show off his wealth, which at one time covered 40% of the Island. Prisca would not fall for him ended up marrying a local man, mortally breaking Mundaca’s heart. Mundaca slowly went mad because he could not have her. He died a lonely man in Merida. he carved his own gravestone and It still lays empty in the islands cemetery . You can still visit his pirate grave on this island, marked by skull and crossbones. His epitaph reads “As you are, I was. As I am, you will be”.