The Panama Canal Epic # 5: The Nine Bays of Huatulco

Set in a wild and rugged area of Mexico's Pacific Coast, in the state of Oaxaca, Huatulco is a resort area community which has been developed over the space of forty years or so, with development accelerating rapidly in the early 2000s with the opening of the international airport and the cruise pier. The Huatulco area contains nine rocky bays in all, each of which contains a lovely natural sand beach.

Interlude: Language Lesson

Proper pronunciation of those names:  Hualtulco = "Wah-tull-co" and Oaxaca = "Wah-hah-ca."

The main centres of the resort are in Santa Cruz Bay, around the town of La Crucesita, Chahué Bay, and in Tangolunda Bay. The five westernmost bays are reserved as a national park. 

 

 Our ship docked at the cruise terminal in Santa Cruz Bay.

 

 

My tour was again a two-part excursion. The first part was a coach tour. But to get to the coach, we had to walk a considerable distance. The tour ticket said "250 metres." Hah! That walk was 250 metres like Niagara Falls is just 20 metres high. Later on, of course, I realized that the "250 metres" referred to the walking distance at the tour stop in La Crucesita. Nothing said about the walk from the ship to the bus, which was much closer to a full kilometre. Rather sneaky of them! And in the stifling tropical heat and humidity, I was already dripping wet by the time we finally reached the bus.

 

 Don't get me wrong -- I can and often do walk multiple kilometres a day at home, or in other locations with more humane heat and humidity.  And just to reinforce the point, the host in the dining room at dinner that night said -- and I quote: "Hey, I'm Mexican, and I can't take the heat and humidity here!"

 

Our first stop was up a lengthy hill at a lookout point above Santa Cruz Bay.

 

Although it looks like Island Princess is occupying the entire bay, there's actually a fair bit of open water around the ship. The area behind the ship is occupied by the large marina, where local tour boats dock.

 

We then drove back through Santa Cruz bay area and around the larger Chahué Bay, which appears at the far right of the above picture. On the ridge between Chahué and Tangolunda, we stopped at another lookout point, overlooking Tangolunda Bay.

Ranked # 1 in difficulty for travel photographers by Those Who Know is the effort to snag a picture of a brightly coloured destination sign like this, with no other human beings posing in front of it. I almost managed to pull it off. Almost.

The tour coach then returned to Chahué to visit the inland "downtown" area of La Crucesita. It's one thing to ask me to leave an air-conditioned tour coach on such a sweltering day to visit a historic town where multiple styles and cultures are all interwoven into a complex tapestry of human lives. It's another matter altogether when it's a modern, purpose built dormitory community for the staffs of hotels, and when almost anything that looks older than 1980 is a fake. Not to mention that the big Number One Scenic Attraction is the church, built around 1990, with its rather garish ceiling paintings and its chapel dedicated to the Virgin of Guadelupé. I stayed on the bus.

We were then dropped off back at the marina, where our tour stickers gave us our pass to board a single-deck catamaran, appropriately named Tequila, for a scenic water tour of the Bays of Huatulco. That meant, of course, the five western bays, the ones set aside in the national park and barred from any further development.

Helpful Hint: If you are ever in Huatulco, and take one of these scenic cruises on a larger vessel than a small outboard motorboat, get yourself a seat on the starboard (right) side of the boat. Ours, and other cruises, were all going slowly westwards, as close to the coast as possible, and slowing or stopping frequently to let people get pictures and video. On the eastbound trip back to Santa Cruz Bay, the boats went farther out from shore and travelled more quickly.

 

 

 

With that note, here are some of the scenes from the 90-minute cruise. 

No, that's not snow on the rocks -- it's bird poop.

The highlight was the most spectacular blowhole I've ever seen in my travels -- and I've seen a few. What made this one so crazy was the way that the hole shot the water out at about a 45-degree angle off vertical. Our guide assured us that it can easily shoot 2-3 times as high in December and January, when wind and currents conspire to bring the highest tides of the year on this coast.

In this more distant view from the return trip, the spout is visible against the extreme right-hand end of the cliff face,

Sadly I missed a couple of even better shots when an extra large wave smacked against the rock face to the right of the blowhole just as the blowhole itself spouted. Sigh.

Less dramatic but no less beautiful were the nearly deserted beaches, especially at the westernmost of the nine bays. Here, the guide told us, the beach was about a 20-minute hike from the end of the road. If that's 20 minutes like the bus was 250 metres from the ship at the start of this tour, then thanks, but no thanks. But it certainly looked very placid and peaceful.

 

Throughout the boat tour, the bar was dispensing free water bottles, beer, lemonade, fruit punch (regular or spiked), and margaritas. I behaved myself in those departments, and so was still perfectly able to hold the camera steady as we motored back into Santa Cruz Bay at the end of the trip.