Our back-to-back cruise on Holland America’s ms Zuiderdam started in San Diego, cruised many ports in Mexico then stopped in Guatemala, Panama City, transited the Panama Canal, to Cartagena, Columbia , Half Moon Cay, Bahamas and finally finished in Miami, Florida.
As we sailed south once again from San Diego to our next port of call Puerto Vallarta a serious incident happened in that location with the killing of a head member of one of the Mexican cartels resulting in large scale riots in Puerto Vallarta with buildings and cars being burnt and many people killed. Due to this serious uprising in Puerto Vallarta we aborted the planned visit to Puerto Vallarta. This was the port where the relief captain and some crew members were due to board so we actually sat out about 1km from the port and a tender boat was dispatched into the port where the relief captain and crew members had been escorted to by military personnel and got them safely on board our ship. We then headed south along the coast to the port of Huatulco.
Huatulco, formally Bahías de Huatulco, centred on the town of La Crucecita, is a tourist development in Mexico. It is located on the Pacific coast in the state of Oaxaca. Huatulco’s tourism industry is centred on its nine bays, thus the name Bahías de Huatulco, but has since been unofficially shortened to simply Huatulco. Huatulco has a wide variety of accommodation from rooms for rent, small economy hotels, luxury villas, vacation condominia, bed and breakfasts, as well as several luxury resorts standing on or near the shores of Tangolunda Bay. The Camino Real Zaashila (formerly the Omni Zaashila), Quinta Real Huatulco, Las Brisas (formerly a Club Med), Dreams Resort & Spa (formerly the Royal Maeva then the Gala hotel), and the Barceló (formerly the Sheraton hotel) are examples of the most popular larger resorts in the area.
Huatulco is located where the foothills of the Sierra Madre del Sur mountains meet the Pacific Ocean, approximately 400 kilometres (250 mi) east of Acapulco, Guerrero. The population is 50,000.
Stuart Taylor of HighlanderImages Photography has been making images for over 40 years focusing on Asia with a documentary/photojournalistic style.
Stuart is available for a variety of assignments in subject areas of photojournalism, commercial, architectural, real estate, industrial, interior design, corporate, urbex, adventure, wilderness, and travel.