Searching along the Caribbean coast of the Yucatán Peninsula, Don Pablo Bush Romero came by boat from Cozumel, looking for sunken treasure from the wreck of the Spanish galleon, El Matancero. His expedition found the shipwreck, which is located right off the shore of what is now the DIF beach, just south of Akumal. Don Pablo made camp at Akumal ("the place of the turtle," in Maya), a coconut plantation at the time just north of the wreck site. Akumal had also been a camp armed against marauders looking for gold. The coconut plantation in Akumal was run by the Tun family.

Don Pablo saw Akumal as a perfect tourism destination and purchased the plantation and the properties just north of the plantation and south to Xel-Há. As he began to develop Akumal, he and his friends created the Club de Yates Akumal, or the Akumal Yacht Club, which, by the way, had no yacht.

However, the Club de Yates did own about 4 hectares of Akumal property and, in 1993, realizing that tourism development from Cancún was growing down the coast, decided to convert the yacht club into a conservation organization—Centro Ecológico Akumal (CEA). The property was given to the new ecological center, and the Gonzalo Guerrero Salon became the CEA Information and Cultural Center. Thanks to the donation of this land, CEA is able to rent spaces to local businesses, and thus maintain the administrative operations of the organization. Donations to CEA go directly to the conservation programs.

The CEA property, or Plaza Ukana, begins at the west side of the Cancha (basketball court) and extends east to the edge of the CEA Information Center and the beach. The Cancha area was the original housing for the workers at Akumal, and now serves as the dorms for our volunteers.

As hotels and condominiums were built in Akumal, more and more people came from the interior of the Yucatán Peninsula for work. State land across the highway from the tourist area was settled, creating Akumal Pueblo. Akumal is now both sides of the highway—the original houses, hotels and condos in the subdivision on the coast, and the pueblo.