Inca Empire Cruise - Day 6 Huatulco, Oaxaxa, Mexico

This morning we arrived in Huatulco, which is in the Mexican state of Oaxaca, and it is at the southern end of Mexico.  Huatulco is located on a beautiful bay and was built for tourism and cruise ships during the 1990’s.  There are beautiful beaches right off the cruise pier so it is very easy to walk to them.  There are also all sorts of water activities available, so besides the ship excursions, there are plenty of things to do.  The Huatulco area has nine different bays and there are boats running in an out of the harbor all the time.  We will be in Huatulco for two days so we will have ample time to explore the area.

Huatulco Bay with the long ship dock to the right.

The beach beside the ship dock.

We make our way to the taxis.

Our plan for today was to take a taxi into the nearby town of La Crucecita.  We were off the ship by 9:30 AM and made the long walk down the pier and through the various shops to get to the taxis.  It was about a ten minute drive to the town plaza of La Crucecita, and it only cost $3.00.  The day was warm and humid, but not too bad.  As we started to walk around town Val realized she had left her hat in the taxi.  We continued walking around and about 20 minutes later we saw a taxi at the curb in the distance and a man waving at us.  It was our driver with Val’s hat, now that was service.  Mucho gracias Mr. Taxi Driver!!!

We continued to explore the town and visit some of the various shops.  There were plenty of restaurants and shops for the tourists, but there were also markets where fresh produce and meat were sold for the locals.  One thing I noticed that seemed out of place in the shops were the blankets and shirts with Canadian hockey team logos on them.  I finally asked one of the shop keepers why they were there and he said that during the winter months there was a very large influx of Canadian tourists escaping the winter.  Evidently many stay for three or four months.

A load of pineapples is delivered at the market.

 

Hard at work making tortillas.

The central plaza in La Crucecita

The Catholic Church across from the plaza.

After exploring the town for a while, the heat and humidity was getting to us so we grabbed a taxi and headed back to the ship.  Once we were back in the ship area we sat down at one of the many restaurants on the beach and had a cool drink.  It was very pleasant to sit in the shade of an umbrella with a cooling breeze blowing and a beautiful beach in front of us.

Val enjoys a cool drink on the beach.

And I do the same.

Finally we made our way back to the ship and spent the afternoon relaxing in the cool of the air conditioning.  We had intended just to relax in our room, but they were repainting and varnishing the wood on our balcony so we made our way to the Crow’s Nest where we spent much of the afternoon reading and looking at the view.

Tonight we had booked a ship excursion for dinner and folkloric show at the Castillo Huatulco Hotel Beach Club, so we got ready for that and were on our way by 6:30.  This turned out to be a very nice evening.  The setting was an open air “palapa” right off the beach with a cool ocean breeze making the temperature perfect.  There was a very good buffet of food specialties from Oaxaca.  Before, during and after dinner we were entertained by local dance group, La Guelaguetza, performing the local dances of the area.  You never know what to expect, but this turned out to be very nice.  We had a very good dinner of local specialties and really enjoyed the folkloric dancing.  We were back on the ship by 10:00 and called it a night as we had another ship excursion tomorrow morning.

Val at the entrance to the Castillo Huatulco Hotel
where we had dinner and watched the show.