Hacienda Mundaca - A House Built for Love
A stop on Isla Mujeres: Town to Punta Sur, a free self-guided tour.
These overgrown grounds belonged to Fermin Mundaca, the man whose empty tomb you saw in town. After a career in the slave trade, he settled here around 1858 and built an estate he called Vista Alegre, with gardens, wells and stone gateways spread across a big part of the middle of the island.
Then comes the legend. Mundaca fell for a young island woman remembered as La Triguena, Martiniana Gomez Pantoja, decades his junior, and built the house to win her. She married another islander instead. The story says the heartbroken Mundaca let the estate fall to ruin; take that part as island romance.
The hacienda is much older than Mundaca in one way: archaeologists have found Maya remains on the grounds. The town reopened the site in 2026 after a restoration that added an outdoor theater and a birdwatching tower. Check current hours, then look for the stone arch at the entrance and imagine it newly built.
Getting here: Return to Avenida Rueda Medina at the roundabout and continue south a short way. The hacienda's entrance is just past the roundabout.
Did you know?: The protected hacienda grounds still cover about 17 hectares, and the island's chronicler calls them its last green lung.
Photo op: Frame the old stone archway with the trees of the estate behind it.
More on Wikipedia: Isla Mujeres · Atlantic slave trade
Stops on this tour
- Ferry Dock - Arriving on the Island of Women
- Main Plaza - The Heart of Old Dolores
- Town Cemetery - The Pirate's Empty Tomb
- Playa Norte - Shallow Water and Long Sunsets
- Laguna Makax - Salt Ponds and a Safe Harbor
- Tortugranja - A Fisherman's Turtle Rescue
- Hacienda Mundaca - A House Built for Love
- Playa Lancheros - The Calm West Shore
- Punta Sur Sculpture Park - Art on the Cliffs
- Temple of Ixchel - Mexico's First Sunrise