Cancun Today

From “Travel” Magazine

Officials hope to convince tourists that travel there is now safe

TULUM, Mexico – The last time Bud Olson visited Mexico, he ended up in a hospital with kidney stones and missed the ancient Mayan ruins in the seaside town of Tulum. So when he heard that swine flu was sweeping through Mexico just weeks before he was to return this year, the 43-year-old Seattle resident and his friends threw all caution to the warm Caribbean breezes and went anyway.

His reward? No lines, great service, empty beaches –- and lower prices.

“There was no one at our resort,” said Olson’s friend, Penny Moeller, 44. “The service was spectacular. But it’s a shame for the economy.”

Some of the promotions being advertised:

Flu-free guarantee: Several hotel chains in Cancun are offering a free vacation a year for three consecutive years if guests come down with swine flu within 14 days of their departure and can produce the blood tests to prove it.

Free insurance: Mexico City is offering tourists free health insurance.

Package deals: Expedia Inc. says average price of vacation packages to Cancun in which a flight and hotel are booked together has dropped 26 percent compared to last summer.

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Armonia, Calle Quetzal number 4, in the hotel zone. Gabriela Ortiz opened this yoga center in October of 2004. Classes are offered mornings and evenings in exceptionally peaceful surroundings. The yoga salon looks out on Laguna Nichupté, and is situated directly behind the shops of Plaza Quetzal on Boulevard Kukulcan. Yoga classes for kids aged 5 to 9 are held on Wednesday afternoons. Armonia has an excellent supply of mats and support materials on hand. Telephone: 883 22 40.

Photograph by Anita Brown

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 Melissa Dahl, Health writer, MSNBC

Debbe Geiger has never been one for tattoos. But when her daughter Kim begged to get a henna tattoo on a family vacation to Cancun a few years ago, she thought it couldn’t hurt. After all, it’s only temporary, and Kim would have something to show off to her friends back home.

But just two days later, the tattoo of a cute little bug had swelled into an itchy, bubbling blister on Kim’s upper right arm.

The American Academy of Dermatology recently issued a warning that a chemical found in black henna tattoos can cause a severe allergic reaction, causing the skin to redden, swell and blister — but only where the henna is applied, leaving people with bubbly blisters in shapes like suns, stars and flowers. Continue Reading »