Cancun Today

Remember Cancun is a website geared toward people who traveled to Cancun in its earlier days. It is a place for people to gather to share their photos from past trips and enjoy those of others. Currently its content is mainly geared toward the 1980s and early 1990s but earlier content is also welcome. In addition to the photo section there is also a forum and a blog. The blog area is really more a compilation of short stories and experiences from Cancun in the 1980s and 1990s.

Walking along Boulevard Kukulcan yesterday and looking at the reconstruction of another hotel, I recalled a study about cancer patients’ drawings. It analyzed drawings created by patients in advanced phases of the disease. These visual studies showed a marked flatness and lack of texture. Very little detail was included in the picture. Almost a threadbare view of the world, as that slips further away.

As each new hotel and condomium complex in Cancun nears completion, I look at the flat texture of the walls, the lack of detail. Later on, swirls and signs are added, but the poverty of design leaves one visually desolate.

Although there always is a glimmer of hope. When I stopped to photograph a crew in action, one of the welders waved to me and called “Hola, mi amor!” from atop the steel framework.

Rabbi Mendel Druk blows the Shofar in the Cancun Hotel Zone

Photograph by Anita Brown

Photograph by Anita Brown.

La Via Laktea, the Milky Way, consists of eight over-sized luxury cabañas on secluded Punta Piedra beach, about two hours south of the Cancun airport by car. A short drive from the world-famous Mayan ruins of Tulum, this boutique hotel nestles between the jungle and the Caribbean among dense palms and verdant tropical foliage right where the Sian Ka’an Biological Reserve begins. It is one of the few guest facilities on the almost undeveloped southern tip of the Rivieria Maya.

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Photograph by Anita Brown

Nautical neighbor wafts past my window in the evening.

Since Hurricane Dean, tourism has dipped in Quintana Roo, so the almost-empty boats float by at a whisper. Usually I know it’s almost 8:30 p.m. because strains — and the live band does strain — of tunes blow briefly into my living room.

The musicians valiantly race a second behind the beat of rock-and-roll oldies imprinted on my memory.