DAY SEVEN: NEW AND OLD MEXICO, HUATULCO -- Our last stop in Mexico (last, that is, until we head home and move up the east coast) was at the interesting city of Huatulco. It’s an old town, for several hundred years a small, remote fishing village in the poor and sparsely populated state of Oaxaca, until it all began to change about 15 years ago.

It was then that the Mexican government made a conscious decision to develop the area in an environmentally sensitive manner. Only 40% of the Bay of Huatulco will
be permitted to develop, and even that is under strict supervision. Called Tangolunda, all of this is a Mexico that we’ve never seen anywhere else on this side of the border: wide and well paved, tree lined streets with equally wide sidewalks, street
lights with buried wires, attractive shops, no high-rise hotels, the works.

All very nice, except that it looked more like Naples, Florida or our Landfall resort in Wilmington rather than Mexico. The Mexicans who worked there all lived in the old town, La Crucecito, where we spent over an hour wandering through shops and stores on this lovely Sunday afternoon.

We first went to the local church for a few moments, packed wall to wall with citizens of Huatulco who made us feel right at home: a young girl stood up and offered her seat to Ann, we joined in with our Anglo version of the Lord’s Prayer, and then we shared the Peace with folks all around us. A nice experience, even if we didn’t understand a word of what was being said!

Funny but true story: later, as we wandered around the town square exploring shops and markets, I spied a pharmacy where I could get some prescription strength Naprocin for Ann’s pain. She also wants to work on her scrapbook, but needs some glue to do that, and tried very hard to communicate what she needed to the clerk, who asked Ann to draw a picture of what she wanted.

The clerk took one look at whatever it was that Ann had sketched, smiled and said, “Oh, si!”, and she returned with a large package of condoms! We’ll never know what the clerk saw in that Rorschach sketch!

Being a Sunday, the square and adjoining streets were filled with families in their
Sunday finest, and it didn’t feel like the usual tourist stop. We particularly enjoyed the music that filled the air, and took a picture of a family playing “Celito Lindo” over and over on a home made marimba.

Soon it was time to go, and with some reluctance we boarded our bus to take us
back to the ship for an early afternoon departure. From here to our next stop, Puerto Quetzal in Guatemala, we’ll be sailing through the Bay of Tehuantepec, a place notorious for high winds and rough seas. The ocean lived up to its reputation, so we quietly read in the library for the rest of the afternoon.

Dinner tonight was a special treat as the regular dining room crew was joined by the ships singers and dancers in a gala presentation of the meal! The entertainment
made up for the fact that our evening meal is served beginning at 7:45, an hour or more later than our back-home eating schedule. All in all, a festive ending to a delightful day.