Chiquilá

Chiquilá is a small port village on the mainland shore of the Yalahau lagoon, at the north-eastern tip of the Yucatán Peninsula, in the municipality of Lázaro Cárdenas. It sits at the very end of the road that runs north from Kantunilkín, about 144 km from Cancún airport, and looks straight across the lagoon to Isla Holbox. The 2020 census counted 2,311 residents, more than on Holbox itself.

The site has a long past. A large Maya town called Conil stood here; Francisco de Montejo reported some 5,000 houses in 1528, and archaeological work in the 2010s showed it was one of the biggest settlements on the north Yucatán coast before it was abandoned in the mid-17th century. The present village grew out of the late 19th-century push to farm and log the north of the peninsula. The community lies within the Yum Balam Flora and Fauna Protection Area.

Today Chiquilá lives from fishing and from moving people and goods to Holbox. Most visitors only pass through the pier, where the 9 Hermanos and Holbox Express ferries load, buses from Cancún and Mérida pull in, and lots near the dock charge to keep cars while their owners are on the island. Local boat operators also run trips into the lagoon and to the Yalahau spring, about 10 km to the west along the coast. Anyone who misses the last ferry can find simple rooms in the village or in Kantunilkín.