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Hidden among the graves in the Isla Mujeres Cemetery is the tomb of the notorious Fermin Ananio Mundaca. Often billed more glamorously as a pirate, he was actually a 19th century slave trader who fancied himself a pirate.

His was not a story of tall ships and treasures, but a tragedy of impossible love. Mundaca arrived on Isla Mujeres in the late 1850s and fell desperately in love with a green-eyed local beauty who was 37 years younger. With hopes of seducing her with his wealth, he set out to build a grand hacienda. He called it "La Vista Allegre" (the happy view) and named its gates and various gardens of exotic and imported flowers after his love, "La Triguena" (the brunette).

At its peak, the hacienda covered forty percent of the island, but today only a few ruins and gardens are left. Sadly, for all his wealth, Mundaca could not win the brunette's heart. She married another man (close to her own age) and Mundaca slowly went insane. He died alone in Mérida (on the main land), and was buried there. The elaborate tomb with the skull-and-crossbones gravestone he carved with his own hands lies empty in the Isla Mujeres cemetery. An inscriptions on it, meant for his love, reads, "As you are, I was. As I am, you will be."


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