Punta Allen

Punta Allen is what the Riviera Maya paved over everywhere else. The road in sets the terms: forty-odd kilometres of potholed sand track down the Boca Paila peninsula, Caribbean surf glimpsed through palms on one side, Sian Ka'an's lagoons on the other, until the track ends at a village of perhaps five hundred people, sand streets, one lighthouse and a fleet of lanchas. The economy is spiny lobster - taken by cooperative divers from "casitas" habitat shelters in a fishery studied worldwide as a sustainability model - and, increasingly, the flats: the surrounding shallows are among the planet's premier fly-fishing grounds for bonefish, permit and tarpon, with village guides poling anglers at dawn. Cooperative boat tours run the visitor classics - dolphin pods in the bay, snorkeling the reef line, turtle and frigate stops, a beer on a sandbar. Electricity runs on generator hours, cell service shrugs, and evenings offer fried lobster, rum and stars. It is the biosphere's human face: a working village living, carefully, from the wilderness around it.

What you actually see

• The village - sand streets and lobster lanchas at road's end.
• The flats - world-class bonefish and permit water.
• The bay tours - dolphins, reef snorkeling and sandbars.
• Sian Ka'an around - lagoon, mangrove and empty coast.

When to go

December to August for the driest road and calmest bay; fishing runs year-round with seasonal stars. After heavy rain, ask about the track before driving it.

Honest expectations

The road is slow and punishing - many visitors come by tour or boat transfer instead. Cash only, simple rooms, generator electricity. That is the price of the emptiness, and it is fair.

Nearby

The Boca Paila bridge fishing lodges dot the peninsula; Muyil's canals and Tulum bracket the biosphere's landward side.