Cancun Today

The Mexican state of Quintana Roo, home of Cancun and the Riviera Maya, last week banned the use of non-biodegradable plastic bags.The move, which will benefit the Quintana Roo real estate market, follows a similar bag ban in Mexico City in September and will be implemented with a 180 day transition period.The law was put forward by Mexico’s Green Party and unanimously approved by the government of Quintana Roo.

via Investment Property News from Mexico: Quintana Roo Bans Plastic Bags.

QUINTANA ROO, Mexico, June 4, 2009 (ENS) – To establish Mexico as a global model for conservation, a new alliance today announced an initial investment of US$100 million for the promotion of sustainable development and protection of biodiversity in six priority regions. The global conservation group WWF, along with the foundation established by telecommunications tycoon Carlos Slim, and the Mexican federal government, launched the initiative to support conservation in areas of exceptional natural richness. Continue Reading »

We woke up to the bed shaking before dawn this morning and wondered WTF was happening. Now we know. An earthquake!

Powerful quake strikes off Honduras

Shacks collapse in Honduras and Belize. But no injuries are immediately reported. A tsunami warning is canceled.

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (AP) — A strong earthquake struck early today off the coast of Honduras, collapsing shacks in Honduras and Belize and sending people running into the streets in their pajamas as far away as Guatemala City. No injuries or deaths were immediately reported.

The magnitude-7.1 quake struck at 3:24 a.m. at the relatively shallow depth of 6 miles, according to the U.S. Geological Survey in Golden, Colo. The epicenter was 80 miles northeast of La Ceiba, Honduras, and 200 miles from the capital, Tegucigalpa.

Noted right wing savants such as Glenn Beck and Michelle Bachmann seem to think the White House inflamed the swine flu crisis in order to fast track Kathleen Sibelius for Secretary of Health and Human Services. Maybe they are on to something, but not in the way they think.

A lot of this just doesn’t seem to hang together very well. First of all, although travelers from Cancun (where I live) have been diagnosed with swine flu, there is one confirmed swine flu in Cancun. I will repeat that. There is exactly one confirmed swine flu in Cancun. One case. Is that just aporcalypto (as Mexicans are now calling it), or what? In fact, despite being called a pandemic, there really aren’t a lot of cases anywhere in the world, not even in Mexico City. So it would be understandable to wonder why total hazmat anti-terror precautions have been unleashed.

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Interestingly, no cases have yet been reported in Cancun, raising the question of how the visitors who were diagnosed with the virus on returning home contracted it. Perhaps they got it from travelers visiting here from other destinations in Mexico, such as Mexico City. Despite this, the Cancun Hotel Zone is now almost completely tourist-free. In town, an occasional person is seen with a surgical mask. All taxi drivers are required to wear them, but I haven’t seen them on bus drivers yet.

As in the rest of the nation, public events and facilities will be suspended from May 1-6, except for vital services such as food and transportation. Many government offices are already closed or offering only restricted service, such as emergency tourist card replacements. Business people I talk with here feel (understandably) that authorities are overreacting in an excess of caution, as very few cases of actual swine flu have been identified, especially given the population of Mexico City. Let’s hope they are right.

Yahoo! News Alerts feed

CNews, Thu, 30 Apr 2009 02:32 AM PDT
Swine flu victims unaware of exposure
Three young Port Perry women who are Ontario’s first confirmed cases of swine flu returned from Cancun on Friday with symptoms but spent the weekend at the local casino and visiting friends because their local hospital never advised them to stay home.

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By Kat Morgenstern, Sacred Earth Travel

Tourists are often accused of leaving their mess everywhere and adding to local waste management problems. Garbage is unsightly no matter whether it happens to lie around on our doorstep or outside the hotel room, or on the beach. Some tourists around the world have started initiatives to clean up after themselves.

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The beach from Punta Cancún (Camino Real) to Punta Nizuc (Club Med) has “disappeared,” Virgina Prospero reports today in Novedades de Quintana Roo.

Below, Playa Delfines (also know as Playa Mirador).