Dolphin Swimming

Riviera Maya, a glance to mayan history

// January 26th, 2009 // View Comments // Locations, Riviera Maya

The Mayan Riviera is a tourism district, a tourist corridor following the costal highway parallel to the Caribbean coastline of Quintana Roo, Mexico. It starts at Puerto Morelos, a small fishermen village, situated to the north and between Playa del Carmen and Cancun. Playa del Carmen is the heart of the Riviera Maya. The corridor ends in Tulum, where the magic archaeological site is placed facing the Mexican Caribbean Sea.

photo credit: joiseyshowaa

The Riviera Maya is famous for its large scale all-inclusive resorts and a historical tourism base of smaller boutique hotels. It offers visitors an elaborated and varied selection of sports and recreational activities tailored to the tastes and desires of each visitor.

Development plans include establishing a number of medium sized cities within the Riviera Maya. Target areas for urbanization include the towns and villages of: Puerto Morelos, Puerto Aventuras, Akumal, Chemuyil, and Tulum.

Puerto Vallarta: a history full of adventure

// January 26th, 2009 // View Comments // Locations, Vallarta

Bahía Banderas, Banderas bay, is the third largest natural bay in Mexico, and it’s divided almost equally between two states – Jalisco, where Puerto Vallarta is, and Nayarit, which begins an eight-minute drive north of the international airport in the middle of the Ameca River Bridge. The agricultural valley of the Ameca River and the important mining centers in the Sierra have given the town a very interesting past. The tourist destination of Puerto Vallarta, is bounded on the north by Punta Mita and on the south by Cape Corrientes.

Few details are known about the history of the area prior to the 19th century. There is some archeological evidence that the area belonged to the Aztatlán culture. The valley was then named Banderas (flags) after the colorful standards carried by the natives in the large battle between them and Hernan Cortez, in 1524.

During the 17th and 18th centuries the Banderas Valley and its beaches along the Bay of Banderas served as supply points for ships seeking refuge in the bay. In 1851 a boatman from Cihuatlán who used to bring salt to Los Muertos beach, became tired of waiting for the muleteers to come and pick up the load. So he saw it fit to establish himself in this beautiful place he would call Las Peñas. At the time the main port serving Jalisco was located at San Blas, but the inconvenient overland route from San Blas to the Sierra towns made Puerto Vallarta a more convenient alternative for smaller shipments. By the mid 19th century, the town already had its regularly returning population of vacationers. Las Peñas development into a self-sustaining village happened in the 1860’s, and in 1918 was renamed after a former state governor, Ignacio Vallarta.

photo credit: Lisa Andres

In 1942 in the New York based magazine Modern Mexico the first advertisement for a Puerto Vallarta vacation appeared, the page ad offered a flight from Guadalajara to a “primitive place of hunting and fishing”. Reinforced by intense advertising campaigns, Mexicana launched the Puerto Vallarta-Mazatlán-Los Angeles route in 1962.

In 1963, the director John Huston filmed “The Night of the Iguana” in a small town at south of Puerto Vallarta. For the first time received simultaneously big Hollywood Stars, national celebrities and intellectuals. Deborah Kerr, Ava Gardner, Sue Lyon and Richard Burton led the cast that also included Emilio “El Indio” Fernández. Tennessee Williams, author of “The Night of the Iguana,” visited the set frequently. During the filming, the US media gave extensive coverage to Elizabeth Taylor’s extramarital affair with Richard Burton. The subsequent publicity helped put Puerto Vallarta on the map for US tourists.

In the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, Puerto Vallarta was outfitted with the infrastructure required of an urban development and a modern tourist destination. The Mexican government invested in the development of highways, airport and utility infrastructure, making Puerto Vallarta easily accessible both by air and ground transportation for the first time.

It was only after 1973 that the construction of large hotels began. It experienced rapid growth in the number of larger luxury hotels, culminating in 1980 with the opening of the Sheraton Buganvilias. In 1982 the peso was devalued and Puerto Vallarta enjoyed a period of prosperity, it became a bargain destination for US tourists.

By 1985 the flux of tourism and immigrants demanded, on one hand, the building of new hotels and, on the other, the development of residential options for employees and executives. So while more and more workers were arriving in Puerto Vallarta to try to cash in on the booming tourist trade, less and less was being done to accommodate them with housing and related infrastructure. During the late 1980s the city worked to alleviate the situation by developing housing and infrastructure.

By the early 90s development of other destinations in Mexico like Ixtapa and Cancún caused a slump in travel to Puerto Vallarta. The efforts of the trust, of individual hotels and restaurants, free agents, gallery owners, tour operators and guardians of the environment created the miracle needed and Puerto Vallarta began the process of earning a position among world-class beach destinations.

Tortola, the island of european heart and caribbean soul

// January 26th, 2009 // View Comments // Locations, Tortola

The British Overseas Territories are fourteen territories that are under the sovereignty of the United Kingdom, but are not part of the United Kingdom itself. Consisting of the main islands of Tortola, Virgin Gorda, Anegada and Jost Van Dyke, along with over fifty other smaller islands -approximately fifteen of the islands are inhabited and cays- the British Virgin Islands is one of the British territories located in the Caribbean to the east of Puerto Rico.The capitlal, Road Town is situated in Tortola.

The Arawaks inhabited the islands until the fifteenth century when they were displaced by the more aggressive Caribs, a tribe from the Lesser Antilles islands, after whom the Caribbean Sea is named.

Columbus came upon the entire string of Virgin Islands on his second voyage to the New World, in 1493 and named them after the 11,000 virgins of 4th century martyr St. Ursula. Tortola is the largest and most populated of the British Virgin Islands. The local belief is that the name was originally given to the island by Christopher Columbus, meaning “land of the Turtle Dove“.

Air travel is the only way to access the British Virgins Islands, however, long-distance direct flights are unavailable. Connections are readily available through Puerto Rico and Antigua. Some travelers opt to fly directly into St. Thomas and then travel to Tortola by ferry.

Tortola history took on a distinct European flavor in the 17th century when the British established a permanent plantation colony on Tortola and the surrounding islands. The sugar industry dominated Tortola history over the next 150 years, faltering only in the mid 1800s with the abolition of slavery.

Tortola is governed by a British-appointed leader, but many of the island’s affairs remain controlled from London. Financial services are the main source of income to the island. The hugely popular International Business Companies Act, passed in the early 1980s, led to huge growth in government revenue. Even though the British Virgin Islands are under the British flag, the U.S. dollar is the official currency. The island is home to many offshore companies that do business worldwide.

Grand Cayman, a british territory touched by the Caribbean Sea

// January 26th, 2009 // View Comments // Grand Cayman, Locations

The Cayman Islands were first sighted by Christopher Columbus on 10 May, 1503, and named them Las Tortugas after the numerous sea turtles there. But it was only about three hundred years ago that people began to settle permanently on these islands.

photo credit: Fevi in Cayman

A 1523 map of the islands referred to them as Lagartos, meaning alligators or large lizards, but by 1530 the name Caymanas was being used. It is derived from the Carib Indian word for the marine crocodile, which is now known to have lived in the Islands. This name, or a variant, has been retained ever since. It is believed that the first people to actually land here were sailors from Sir Francis Drake’s 1585 expedition to the West Indies.

The first recorded permanent inhabitant of the Cayman Islands, Isaac Bodden, was born on Grand Cayman around 1700. He was the grandson of the original settler named Bodden who was likely one of Oliver Cromwell’s soldiers at the taking of Jamaica in 1655.

Spain recognized British possession of the Islands in the 1670 Treaty of Madrid. A variety of people settled on the islands: pirates, refugees from the Spanish Inquisition, shipwrecked sailors, and slaves. The majority of Caymanians are of African and British descent, with considerable interracial mixing. Following several unsuccessful attempts, permanent settlement of the islands began in the 1730s. The first settlers brought with them the scourge of slavery that was to last until emancipation in 1835. However, life was not easy for these pioneers, even for freemen, who made a living from subsistence farming and fishing, turtling and woodcutting. At that time, mahogany, in particular, was in great demand for the furniture industry in Europe.

Though Cayman was always regarded as a dependency of Jamaica, the reins of government by that colony were loosely held in the early years, and a tradition grew up of self-government, with matters of public concern decided at meetings of all free males. In 1831 a legislative assembly was established comprising two houses: the eight magistrates appointed by the Governor of Jamaica and ten elected representatives or vestrymen.

In 1953 the first airfield in the Cayman Islands was opened as well as the George Town Public Hospital. Barclays ushered in the age of formalised commerce by opening the first commercial bank. In 1959 Cayman received its first written constitution which, for the first time, allowed women to vote. Cayman ceased to be a dependency of Jamaica. The Islands opted to retain its links with Britain, a decision that continues to lend it political stability and has aided the growth of the financial sector. Following the lead of Bermuda and the Bahamas, the Cayman Legislative Assembly passed the Banks and Trust Companies Law of 1966, which laid the basis for offshore finance services.

In the late 1960s, the first cruise ships called into at George Town, but these visits were rare and in the first half of the 1970s, no more than eight arrived in one year. However, in the 1990s, cruise ship tourism exploded, and in 2007 more than 1,700,000 passengers entered Cayman waters.

Cozumel, the diver’s turquoise paradise

// January 26th, 2009 // View Comments // Cozumel, Locations

Cozumel is an island in the middle of the Caribbean Sea in southeastern Mexico. It is a popular tourist destination due to its coral reefs and water sports such as diving, deep-sea fishing, snorkeling, and more.

photo credit: jchessma

Around the classic period 300-900 B.C. Cozumel became one of the most important sanctuaries in the Yucatan region. The Mayans considered the island a sacred shrine. The name of the Island from the Mayan Kùutsmil, land of swallows. The temples here were a place of pilgrimage, especially by women who were either pregnant or wanted to get pregnant.

Also, it was on this island where all kinds of merchandise arrived from many places for storage before being sent in canoes to other locations. The first Spanish visitor was Juan de Grijalva in 1518, who proclaimed the land as property of the Spanish Crown. A year later, Hernan Cortez visited the island, it was the first site touched by his army. The Mayans accepted their domination peacefully and the conqueror proceeded to destroy many of the Mayan temples. An outbreak of smallpox devastated the population, and by 1570 only 30 Mayan were left alive on the island. Mayan trade was nullified so the inhabitants were forced to depend only on agriculture for their survival.

Several pirates used Cozumel and Isla Mujeres as an operations base. The island was not resettled until 1848. During Mexico’s Independence many Mayans escaped to Cozumel, Holbox and Isla Mujeres. From mid-19th century to the beginning of the 20th, Cozumel economy flourished becoming an important port in Mexico. During World War II, the U.S. built an air base for planes hunting U-boats in the mid-Atlantic and an airport was built.

Around the year 1960, Jacques Cousteau discovered the richness of the coral reef surrounding the island and made underwater enthusiasts aware of Cozumel’ existence. This, together with the construction of a much larger airport in 1970, boomed Cozumel tourism.