Mexico Tourism Weblog / Category / Cancun Mexico

Monarch butterflies are worth the hike

Posteado el Febrero 6, 2008 - Categorizado en Cancun Mexico

If you’d rather see butterflies on a mountaintop than slather yourself with sunblock on a tourist-packed beach in Cancun, Mexico is an ideal winter destination (see Cancun night fishing). Acording to suntimes.com, ecotourism is drawing fans in the central states of Michoacan and Mexico, thanks to the spectacular yearly migration of millions of orange-and-black-winged monarch butterflies.

In delicate swarms, the butterflies head south from the United States and Canada to Mexico, where they drip from pine trees and coat mountainsides from November to late March. They gather in such astonishing numbers that cars passing the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve sometimes have to slow to speeds of a couple of miles an hour to avoid splattering the delicate creatures on the windshield as they fly across the road.

”I have on many occasions seen Spaniards, Italians, Americans, Canadians, Mexicans come into the butterfly colonies and literally weep,” said Lincoln Brower, a monarch expert at the University of Florida and Sweet Briar College in Sweet Briar, Va. ”It’s such an overwhelming emotional experience to realize that you’re actually looking at these tens of millions of monarch butterflies that have come into this tiny, little area of Mexico.”

The 2007 Riviera Maya Jazz Festival: Almost Free For You Today

Posteado el Febrero 5, 2008 - Categorizado en Cancun Mexico

A free trip to a jazz festival near Cancun, complete with luxury trappings. All I’m expected to do in return is write something about it.

What could possibly go wrong, aside from a few meddlesome skeptics questioning my objectivity? To them here’s my assessment of the 2007 Riviera Maya Jazz Festival: Greatest. Festival. Ever.

Just kidding. A three-day, six-concert festival featuring headline shows by commercial stalwarts Marcus Miller, Tower of Power and George Benson doesn’t get that honor unless the junket includes first-class plane tickets. Also, with Mexico’s population historically indifferent or hostile toward jazz, the Americanized fusion played by the three regional bands was hardly ideal for capturing the country’s underestimated role in the genre’s development.

Finally, while the rest of the media on the public relations tour mostly raved about the all-inclusive resort and daytime tour activities, I was a magnet for a comedy of mishaps confirming I’m as suited for such places as a milk bucket under a bull.

So this isn’t the unabashed puffery our truly hype-worthy hosts are hoping for, but the Riviera Maya festival is a pretty good experience in a pretty good winter destination. In fact, my recommendation for people interested in unveiling the obscurity of Mexican jazz is to stay longer and go beyond the cushion of familiar luxury, something that may be aided by a longer festival in future years.

It all started with an e-mail in my spam box, alongside the impotence and weight loss ads, inviting me to the festival from November 29 to December 1.

“The Riviera Maya is emerging as one of the premiere jazz music events in the Americas. Hosted by the Riviera Maya Tourism Promotion Board, press trip participants will have the opportunity to experience a first-rate line-up for one of the most important musical events. Headlining the Festival will be legendary jazz artist George Benson along with Tower of Power, a group known for their combination of R&B, soul and jazz.”

“This fully-hosted trip includes airfare from your nearest gateway city, hotel, stay, all meals and entry fees to attractions in accordance with the itinerary.” The festival location, it added, was “named a Top Destination in Mexico two years in a row by Travel Weekly…and is also one of the fastest growing destinations in Mexico.”

I’ve gotten similar pitches before. Last year an invitation to a festival in Cuba turned out to be a chance to pay my way there (and probably get arrested, thanks to U.S. restrictions) like any other visitor. But the Mexico invite was intriguing enough to invest three minutes on an e-mail, since my global tour of unusual jazz spots generally avoids tropical beach areas, which I don’t particularly like. I got a response almost immediately from Stephanie Worth of the New York PR firm Adams Unlimited, and a couple of days and a few messages later I was booked for four days near some town called Playa del Carmen.

A little Web research reveals Playa del Carmen was a small fishing village that’s now a tourist mecca of about 100,000 about an hour’s drive from even more party-hearty Cancun (see Culture Playa del Carmen). Featured attractions for the booming number of cruise ship and resort visitors include a lengthy pedestrian mall, lively nightlife scene and, of course, vast turquoise-water beaches.

The jazz festival is on one of the more popular beaches and organizers estimated more than 10,000 people a night might attend the free performances. Each night featured an opening concert by a regional band, none known to me, but one of which has been among the country’s premier groups for more than two decades.

“Riviera Maya” refers to a 40-mile tourism district along the main highway from Playa del Carmen to Tulum pueblo, consisting largely of vast all-inclusive resorts, villa rentals, and recreational facilities offering things like scuba diving and jungle ATV riding.

“The resorts are generally secluded, and prevent one from experiencing the sights, sounds, and tastes of the city, and to some extent Mexican culture as well, since you will be surrounded by Western tourists and amenities,” Wikipedia’s travel guide notes.

No matter, I figured. I was told the city had a jazz club or two, and I figured I could scope out the local scene and learn about jazz in Mexico in general by wandering the less touristy streets during the day, which would also be the perfect opportunity to savor brain tacos and other cheap street food.

But, to quote the ominous forbearing of the awesome $7,000 action flick El Mariachi, I was completely wrong.

‘Jazz Is Music For And Made By Savages’

Mexico’s first jazz musicians were exiled with one-way tickets to New Orleans, setting the stage for more than a century of local hostility and global indifference toward subsequent players.

The outcasts were the national military band, sent north by the government to the 1884 Cotton Fair, said Alain Derbez, a saxophonist and author of the book “Jazz In Mexico,” during a lecture at the 2002 Guelph Jazz Festival in Ontario. They made a major and generally overlooked contribution to the birth of jazz there.

“Some of these ’soldiers’ had to stay there and work and never went back,” he said, “some of them taught music to young guys that would turn, with the years, (into) jazz protagonists.”

Tourism in México: Say ‘hola’ to Mexico’s wild side

Posteado el Febrero 5, 2008 - Categorizado en Cancun Mexico

Going wild in Mexico doesn’t have to mean a tequila-fueled beach vacation dancing on tabletops surrounded by carousing spring breakers. The big party destination of Cancún is a short distance from lush parks hosting wildlife of another sort.

Neon pink flamingos, howler monkeys, brilliant toucans and mysterious sea turtles are just a few of the locals you can meet by trading la vida loca for a more nature-friendly trip.

Cancún and its surrounding area of the Riviera Maya are Mexico’s top destination for international travelers, drawing more than 3.5 million visitors a year. The beach was the lure for the first visit my wife and I took six years ago. But since then, we’ve returned to explore the Northern Hemisphere’s largest barrier reef off the coast, natural springs pocking the Yucatán, mangrove swamps, salt marshes and thick jungle.

Much of the Yucatán is a flat limestone slab, topped with low jungle and scrub (see Yucatan scuba diving). There are no real rivers; the heavy seasonal rain seeps into sinkholes, known locally as cenotes, that have eroded over the millennia into the porous stone. The fresh water travels underground and percolates into the sea from natural springs.

Hotel Secreto remains Cancun’s secret treasure

Posteado el Enero 31, 2008 - Categorizado en Cancun Mexico, Mexico Tourism

Peaceful Isla Mujeres lies just 8 miles off the coast of bustling Cancun, with its towering resorts and nonstop action, but Isla might as well be on another planet (see Cancun tarpon fishing).

This tiny fishing village boasts powdery beaches, turquoise Caribbean waters and a laid-back mind-set that invites you to turn that quick stop into days of languid relaxation. And our home-away-from-home was Hotel Secreto, a luxurious, boutique hotel nestled on the island’s Half Moon Beach.

Lauded by Conde Nast Traveler as one of the 50 best new hotels in the world when it opened in 2003, Hotel Secreto is still a secret treasure: serene, quiet and luxurious, but just a few minutes’ walk from cafes, shops and the pristine, powder-soft bathing beach on the other side of the island — the very beach featured in all those Corona ads. Come nightfall, the main shopping street turns into a procession of outdoor restaurants, open-air entertainment and friendly faces.Source: contracostatimes.com