Huatulco, Mexico

April 10^th, 2024

When we woke up this morning, Brian said he could smell smoke. Hoping that the ship wasn’t on fire, I went out onto the balcony to see if I could see any evidence of the cause of the smoke. A pale pink haze hung over the hills outside the window, obscuring the view, and the strong smell of smoke permeated the air.

This was exactly similar to how the Pacific Northwest has been looking and smelling for the past few summers. Wild fires. Sure enough, the neighboring Oaxaca region has been devasted by wild fires in the past couple of weeks. We were close enough to experience the effects of the fires.

It had felt rather warm when I had been on the balcony, so I thought I should check the weather forecast. It was 95 degrees in Huatulco, and 40 degrees back home.

The sea breezes were rapidly dissipating the smoke, and by the time we were ready to head out it had cleared completely. It was still very hot, but it looked like it would be fine to go ashore and explore Huatulco.

To get to the entrance of the port, there is quite a long walk along the dock.

There are 2 little electric cars that can take you from the ship to the port entrance so you don’t have to walk. 2 little cars and 3000 passengers? Luckily a lot of passengers had chosen to stay on board due to the heat, so transport to the port entrance wasn’t too much of a problem.

There are many shops at the port entrance – mostly jewelry and souvenir shops – and it is all very touristy. Still there is a lovely long beach and several bars and restaurants, so you really don’t have to go any further to enjoy the day ashore.

There is also a church.

You can even rent sun loungers and umbrellas and have a great beach day.

We decided to go further afield than the port. A mile and a half away up a hill is La Crucecita which is more of a real Mexican village and less of a tourist trap. On both sides of the path from the port to the village there is apartment construction going on, so I imagine that in a few years the tourist area will have spread all the way to the top of the hill.

The town itself feels much like any other small Mexican town,

There was a very pretty church with a beautifully painted ceiling

And lovely carved wooden doors.

We found a great outdoor café where we could sit and have a much needed soft drink, and watch the goings on in the nearby main square.

On our walk back to the ship

we noticed that there were several slides, which I suppose could be used as an alternative to walking down the stairs. The concrete in the slides was extremely hot, so we chose to negotiate the stairs instead, but they did look like fun!

Apart from shops and restaurants there really wasn’t much else at the port, so we decided to go back to the ship, and spent the rest of the day by the pool, enjoying the view of the beach.

From the pool you get a good view of the path to La Crucecita in the area between 2 hills.

Everyone was back on board in good time for our sail away. The captain said we would have to negotiate a narrow channel to get us out of the bay and into the open waters. It didn’t look like too much of a squeeze, but I suppose it was quite windy and with no tugs to hold us steady if need be, it was quite a challenge keeping our large ship off the rocks.

I think Huatulco is my favorite Mexican port. It is safe, very pretty, and delightfully low key and unspoiled. I hope it can stay that way, but with all of the construction we saw going on I fear Senor Frog’s can’t be too far away.

We had dinner at Planks, the BBQ special restaurant. I thought the food was better than in the main dining room – I mean BBQ brisket with coleslaw and fries is my kind of meal, and it was hot. I think it was with the extra charge 🙂