We'd been tipped that the only way to reach San Cristobal was by night bus from Huatulco… and so we made the two hour trip out there… to this place… this resort. Our plan was to dump our luggage for a few hours… take a little swim… return and catch the bus to Chiapas. We soon discovered that the first available seats were the following night. We found ourselves stranded… in this place.
The resort was nothing like Cancun… no high-rise condos, nothing like that. Amenities and lodgings were spread over the coast… little colonies here and there broken up by wilderness. The town of Crucecita acted as a service point, located slightly inland… that was where we stayed… the only place barely affordable. While Crucecita displayed an inkling of real character, it was still overwhelmingly hideous and artifical… something like Disneyland, without the fun… a real dive, what can I say?
We caught a taxi to the nearest beach… Santa Cruz. Some guy was waiting to meet us with a leather folder and unwelcome welcomes. He took us into the resort… this place… showed us all the sights.
"This is the marina," he said. It was all filled up with jet skis of pink and blue… silly little plastic boats. We started to laugh. Then he led us to the 'beach'… some sad and stunted little bay… palapas and tables providing an inch or two of unexposed sand. It was a real family place, you know, and I felt bad that I didn't like where they chose to holiday. The atmosphere was so horribly gentle and sterile… so terribly fake and protective. We'd come to the wrong place… we were embarrassed, but we stayed for a drink anyway.
We decided to walk two kilometres to the next beach… up this hill and past the naval base. All the areas were marked just like the suburbs of Crucecita:
"Sector F, Sector C, Sector G…"
My heart sank at the design.
We never made it to the beach proper. We observed it from high up and found it almost as underwhelming as Santa Cruz. We caught a taxi back and went to sleep.
The next day we did better… Huatulco was not a total loss. Playa Organo lies a few kilometres away and is accessible only by foot. The taxi dropped us by this narrow opening in the foliage… indicated that we should follow the path. It was all quite wild and unkempt… hung with vines and thick with growth. Earlier that day we'd visited the 'ecological park' in the centre of town. It was a dead and dried out forest lain with thick concrete. Not much ecology, plenty of geckos though. This path to the beach made up for it… at last some life and nature to soak… we followed it for 15 minutes until it opened into a clearing… flocks of tropical birds scattered at our approach. The beach itself was calm, clean, clear… devoid of people. We smoked and went swimming… I lay back and moved my eyes over the canopy of vegetation……