Puerto Morelos plans an October of grills by the sea and Janal Pixán on the water

On the weekend of October 24 and 25, the Festival Parrillero del Caribe returns to Puerto Morelos for its fifth edition, with 22 grill specialists cooking over fire on the town's seafront, according to the figures given at its presentation. The same Saturday, the town opens Mar de Almas, its Janal Pixán festival, which takes to the water again on November 1 and 2 with processions of decorated fishing boats. Between them, they fill the ten days from October 24 to November 2 on the old town's calendar.

Both events happen in the same few blocks. The festival fills Ventana al Mar, the open lookout where the main square meets the sea, and Parque Fundadores beside it, in the Casco Antiguo. Mar de Almas works the stretch of water in front of them, where the fishing boats tie up at the pier. For a town that most people still know as the quiet stop between Cancún and Playa del Carmen, it is a good time to see it busy.

The festival

Mayor Blanca Merari Tziu Muñoz presented the program on September 22. According to 24 Horas Quintana Roo, which reported the presentation, the 22 grill specialists come from Quintana Roo, Mexico City, Nuevo León, Querétaro, Jalisco and Spain, and the organizers expect 4,000 visitors and estimate that about two tonnes of protein will be cooked over the two days. Chef Luis David Sánchez Orea, the festival's director, said there will be 40 stands: 22 on the grill, serving cuts of beef, fish and seafood, and 18 given over to drinks and other experiences.

Those experiences make up most of the program. There are 18 activities across the weekend, among them master classes and grilling lessons, and tastings of wine, craft beer and chocolate. Quinta Fuerza reports that some are free and others carry a fee, and that general admission covers entry, live music, some tastings and the activities open to each ticket. The gates are open from 1 p.m. to 10 p.m. on both days, and tickets are sold through the festival's own website. Elena Gutiérrez Briceño, the town's secretary for economic development, said local entrepreneurs and craftspeople will have a corridor of their own.

The music runs to DJs, local bands, a group from Chile and Daniel Gutiérrez, the singer of La Gusana Ciega, who plays on the Saturday. Quinta Fuerza lists the Chilean act as Sonora Barón, from Valparaíso, alongside Black-Bombo, from the Italian speaking part of Switzerland, Diego Numa y Los Últimos Románticos, from Argentina, and the emerging local acts Altilium and Sonora Cancunense. Municipal traffic police, civil protection and the fire service will be on duty. For the second year running, a share of ticket sales goes to DIF Quintana Roo, the state family welfare agency.

From 14 chefs to 22

The growth is the story here. When the fourth edition was announced in October 2025, the town's tourism secretary, Raúl Guadarrama García, described seven tents in Parque Fundadores and 14 "chefs of fire" from Playa del Carmen, Puerto Morelos and Cancún. The organizers said then that every edition except the second, which was held on Isla Mujeres, had taken place in Puerto Morelos, and that they hoped to pass a thousand visitors a day. The municipality reported more than a thousand on the opening day. This year the cooks come from five states and from Spain, and the event has moved out to the seafront as well as the park.

A little care with the numbers is in order. The 22 grill specialists are the figure given at the presentation; Quinta Fuerza, reporting the same event, speaks of more than 25 chefs, grillers and exhibitors, a count that seems to include people who are not on the grill. The 4,000 visitors are the organizers' hope rather than a count, set against the roughly 3,000 that Quinta Fuerza says came last year, and the two tonnes of protein is their own estimate. Nor has anyone said how large the share for DIF Quintana Roo will be; the festival describes it only as a percentage of ticket sales.

Mar de Almas

Janal Pixán, "food for the souls" in Maya, is how the Yucatán peninsula keeps the Day of the Dead, with altars laid with food for the family's dead. Puerto Morelos gives it a fishing town's twist, and has done since last year, when it first invited boats to take part. Its festival, Mar de Almas, runs on October 24 and on November 1 and 2, and the municipal program announced on September 17 includes processions of boats, a procession on foot, the town's canoes, concerts, ceremonies and a cultural evening. "Mar de Almas is a celebration for meeting our roots, keeping our traditions alive and sharing with new generations the pride of our identity," the mayor said.

The contests are where the town takes part. Fishing cooperatives and water sports operators can enter a decorated boat, judged on creativity, folk art and tradition, provided the decorations do not get in the way of navigation or the crew's safety; the prizes are 19,000, 13,000 and 8,000 pesos. Shops and institutions can enter their façades, for 10,000, 5,000 and 3,000 pesos. There are prizes too for handmade catrinas and alebrijes, which are judged partly on the use of recycled or natural materials, and a costume contest for catrinas and catrines with children's and open categories. Entries close on October 23 at the Instituto Municipal de Cultura y las Artes, open from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.

The municipality has not yet published the hour by hour schedule for this year. Last year's gives a sense of it: the decorated boats gathered at the fishermen's pier at dusk on November 1 and sailed in procession along the shore, with members of the public invited aboard, while the shops of the old town lit their decorated fronts and a procession of souls walked the streets around Parque Fundadores.

What it adds up to

Neither event is large by the standards of the coast. A few thousand visitors over a weekend is small beside the crowds of Cancún or Playa del Carmen, and the mayor's claim, made at the presentation, that the festival has helped make Puerto Morelos a reference for food on the Mexican Caribbean is a hope as much as a fact. But the direction is plain. A festival that had 14 regional cooks last year now draws them from across Mexico and from Spain, and a Day of the Dead festival that added boats only last year now puts the fishing fleet at the center of it.

For anyone spending the autumn in the town, or thinking of making it home, these are the two weeks to see Puerto Morelos at its most itself. Earlier this month we reported on the town's first decade as a municipality. For more on Puerto Morelos and its homes, see our Puerto Morelos page.

Sources: 24 Horas Quintana Roo, presentation of the fifth Festival Parrillero del Caribe, September 22, 2026. Quinta Fuerza, Carlos Espejel, September 23, 2026. H. Ayuntamiento de Puerto Morelos, Comunicación Social: Mar de Almas Janal Pixán 2026, September 17, 2026; fourth Festival Parrillero del Caribe, October 22 and 25, 2025; Janal Pixán 2025 program, October 28, 2025. Main image: Puerto Morelos from the air, photo by Harold Alcocer on Pexels.