The Cruise gig is confirmed and booked

… all the important information here is lifted from www.Wikipedia.com. 
It is official. I’m going to draw smiles on another Carnival Cruise. This one leaves San Diego and meanders its way down to the Panama Canal. I have spoken with the Entertainment Director and I have my flight information. I’m ready to go.
The first stop on my upcoming trip Huatulco. A town and municipality in Oaxaca in south-western Mexico. It is part of the Pochutla District in the east of the Costa Region. The meaning of Huatulco or Guatulco Coatulco is, "where they worship the tree", referring to an ancient legend. "Where they worship the tree”. I think I'm already going to like Huatulco. 
Location of Huatulco in Oaxaca Huatulco (Spanish pronunciation: [wa'tulko]; wah-TOOL-coh), It is centered on the town of La Crucecita, Huatulco is a tourist development in Mexico. It is located on the Pacific coast in the state of Oaxaca. I already know I’m going to love the cuisine. Huatulco’s tourism industry is centered on its nine bays, thus the name Bahias de Huatulco, but has since been unofficially shortened to simply Huatulco. Huatulco has a wide variety of accommodations from rooms for rent, small economy luxury hotels, luxury villas, vacation condominiums, bed, and breakfasts, as well as several luxury resorts standing on or near the shores of Tangolunda Bay. The Camino Real Zaashila (formerly the Omni Zaashila), Quinta Real Huatulco, Las Brisas (formerly a Club Med), Dreams Resort & Spa (formerly the Royal Maeva then the Gala hotel), and the Barceló (formerly the Sheraton hotel) are examples of the most popular larger resorts in the are It sounds like a place where properties change hands often. Like disposable corporate assets. Whatever makes the world go around, as they say.  Huatulco is located in the state of Oaxaca where the foothills of the Sierra Madre del Sur mountains meet the Pacific Ocean approximately 500 km south of Acapulco, Guerrero.[1] The population is 50,000. Interesting.  Legends say the Toltecs (an interesting archaeological Mesoamerican culture) and Quetzalcoatl (even more interesting with their Feathered Serpent God) came from this area. Quetzalcoátl, according to a later legend, set an enormous and indestructible cross. Various people have passed through this area, including the Chatmon, the Zapotecs, and the Mexicas.[1] After the Spanish Conquest, Huatulco thrived as a port under Hernán Cortés's control serving as a vantage point for Spanish galleons and a distribution center for supplies on the Pacific coast. The latter half of the 16th Century saw Huatulco attacked by Francis Drake and Thomas Cavendish—both of whom left their prints on the region's history and legends that continue to this day.[1] A very polite way to refer to massacres, pillaging and pirating. All that activity of discovering a “new world”.  The resort development began in the 1980s, Huatulco was little known except as a coffee-growing area.[1] In 1984, FONATUR (Fondo Nacional de Turismo), a government agency dedicated to the development of tourism in Mexico, acquired 21,000 hectares of land to develop a tourism center, similar to that in Cancún. I’m guessing that came about due to the NAFTA agreement. Seems plausible. Did anyone get anything on that idea?  The existing population was relocated to Santa María Huatulco.[2] The plan resulted in the improvement of roadways and other infrastructure. It also has populated areas mixed with "green zones" to make the area ecologically friendlier.[1] So, it's a new development with a heart. Now I get the “where they worship the trees” thing.  In addition to the beaches, there are small communities of Bahias de Huatulco, such as Santa Cruz, La Crucecita, or old Santa María Huatulco (the municipal seat). Transportation between the communities is available by bus or taxi. The entire area has a "small town" feel about it and is rarely crowded with tourists except for the Christmas and Semana Santa holiday periods.
Huatulco's Cacaluta Bay About 80% of all tourism in Bahias de Huatulco is domestic in nature. Only about 20% of Huatulco's tourism is foreign, mainly because international air access is limited. Bahias de Huatulco has a small international airport just 20 minutes from the main resorts in Tangolunda Bay. This airport has recently increased tourism and helped to popularize the Pacific Coast backpacker route through Huatulco, Zipolite, Mazunte, and Puerto Escondido. Okay, that sounds like a fun group of people to visit with. I have got to find more information about that trip hiking the lower Pacific Coast. The peak season for foreign tourism is typically from December through April. Huatulco was declared a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve in 2006. Well neat. I think I’m really going to like this first stop on the trip. I’ve got my little watercolor travel kit and sketchbooks. I can’t wait. 











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