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Published: June 29th 2017
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Geo: 15.85, -96.32
Mexico had never really been a high priority as a potential tourist destination. I didn't really know much about it. A naive uninformed stereotype portrait of Mexico hung on the wall of my mind. In it a short, stocky man with huge moustache, wearing a sombrero rides a donkey, on a handcrafted patterned saddle, equipped with a bottle of tequila, rides across the arid desert, past various cacti, as tumbleweeds blow by. This couldn't be much further from reality, based on our experience of Mexico so far. Okay, we've seen a couple donkeys and cacti so far, but if you had shown me a picture of todays tropical beach and seaside town, surrounded by endless lush, dense, green tropical forest, I would never have guessed its location to be in Huatulco, in Mexico. Its a relatively new city, founded 20 years ago, a picture perfect beach resort. A beautiful sandy beach, modern little hotel, resorts, palm trees, bars on the beach, green all around, gentle warm waves lapping up on the shore, and aside from our cruise ship, not much evidence of excess tourism. A relatively hidden paradise.
First up today, a short tour, leaving the pier around 10am. It
was a small group, divided again to give us just 7 people. We headed out in a mini-van, through the jungle, to a couple of scenic locations, equipped with binoculars and telescopes for some bird watching. Overall, it was a pretty good experience. We spotted all sorts of tropical birds, tropical kingbirds, parrots, jays, hummingbirds, wrens and much more. My favorite was a red headed woodpecker, furiously pecking a tree for goodies. With telescope, you could see them right up close. We also saw many butterflies, squirrels and very small crabs. We had some great sightings, but overall it was a little stagnant and slow paced, Id hoped for a more mobile, jungle exploring experience. It only took a few hours though, and gave us plenty of time to explore on our own. We headed to the beach, for a beer and wifi (or attempt at wifi, being uselessly slow). The beautiful scenery here was just too good to not fully utilize, we had to go swimming. We headed back to the ship, changed into swimwear and headed back to the beach for a couple hours. The water was awesome, not too cold, perfectly warm, soft sand, gentle swell, and
a picturesque setting.
Its here, again heroism called. I should perhaps consider a career as a pirate, salvaging underwater treasure. For the second time in as many days, I had to rescue valuables from the water. I spotted an elderly Indian man, looking distressed and panicky. He declares hes dropped his glasses, and is lost without them. The water at this beach gets relatively deep quickly, being neck deep where we are, 15 or 20 metres from the shore. I can barely touch the bottom here and the water is cloudy and more wavey than yesterdays pool. I shuffle around the ground with my feet, and soon a frame strikes my foot. Gentle, I manouvre the frame onto the top of my foot, and carefully balance, lifting foot to hand and retrieving the lost glasses. The mans overwhelmingly grateful, and again Ive saved the day. I fear I'm using up all my luck in quick succession.
Back on board, we spent a couple more hours in the pool, as our ship heads back out to sea. Again the weather has been perfect. Incidentally, we have been warned of a hurricane just a few hundred miles ahead. We have a full day
at sea tomorrow, and the captain has adjusted our trajectory to avoid close proximity or impact of the storm. I trust we will be fine. Thursday, we arrive in Puerto Villarta.
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