Aboard the MS Ryndam

In the Pacific Ocean, just west of Santa Cruz-Huatulco, Oaxaca State, Mexico

April 30th, 6:45 pm Central Time

We are currently heading into the open ocean on our way to Acapulco. We had a good day in Huatulco and adjacent Santa Cruz, Oaxaca, Mexico, taking a boat tour around five of the nine bays of Huatulco, and then a bus trip around the area.

Huatulco is another project of Fonatur, the Mexican government tourist development organization that developed Cancun, Cozumel, and other resorts. Fonatur identified the nine small bays, each with its own secluded sandy beach, about 30 years ago as an area for possble resort development. They acquired what land they needed, drew up a master plan, put in the basic infrastructure, and then slowly brought in the developers under tight review procedures. Fonatur claims it is applying all the “lessons learned” at Cancun to make Huatulco better and more environmentally sensitive. And if you want heat and sun and beautiful uncrowded beaches, this is your spot. We found it very dry (it rains only from July through September) and hot. It is basically a desert and a great change from Chiapas, where everything was green and lush.

Twenty years ago this area was still a poverty-stricken fishing village without electricity, potable water, or a land connection to the rest of Mexico. Today, it has all those things, an international airport, beautiful parks and plazas, fancy hotels and golf courses, expensive homes and condos, new housing, schools, and hospitals for the locals, no poverty or even unemployment, and of course a cruise port. It also has a Mexican Navy base, from which several gunboats constantly kept an eye on us. Marines with automatic weapons also walked the pier where the Ryndam was moored. When we asked our guide about all the hardware, she said there had never been any violence against a cruise passenger and the government wanted to keep it that way.

Tomorrow, Acapulco.