View from suite at Coral Baja
Worldmark Coral Baja
View in
mexico
West Coast: ° Cabo San Lucas
° Puerto Vallarta ° Sea of Cortez
East Coast: ° Playa del Carmen
° Cancun and the Mayan Riviera
Cabo San Lucas
Cabo San Lucas was designed literally from ground-up by the Mexican government to be a tourist destination resort a couple of decades ago. Its sole purpose is to generate tourism, jobs, and to send 90% of the tax revenues back to Mexico. It’s been wildly successful. It’s flashy and new in parts and quiet in the old colonial town.
For hundreds of years, the area was the only community at the tip of Baja California. It supported Indian communities and hundreds of species of wildlife for thousands of years before colonization by the Spanish. During the pre-colonial period it was a watering and provisioning stop for Spanish galleons. Heavy ships laden with treasure, silks and spices for pirates such as Sir Francis Drake sailed in seeking goods for Queen Elizabeth. San Jose del Cabo was finally settled in 1730 with a Jesuit mission and fort to help stabilize the region against these marauders.
A key to relaxing in a tropical resort is to find one with a bar you can swim up to and order a beverage. Many high-end resorts now have those bars; few experiences will make you feel more spoiled than sitting on a bar stool, legs floating in warm tropical water, beverage with the requisite umbrella stuck in a slice of banana, papaya or pineapple.
This is where timeshares come in handy; we were low on cash that year and our timeshare trade for a week at the WorldMark Coral Baja cost $40 (taxes, I think), plus the airfare and it's generally easy to find low airfare to Mexico. Some of the resorts are not really walking distance to anything, but public transportation is generally a block away, inexpensive and acceptable as the busses are utilized by Cabo's working residents. (If you are timid about public transportation, by comparison, we found subways in Chicago and New York to be absolutely frightening -- and we are world travellers!). We took the local bus into the colonial town (San Jose del Cabo) and down to the waterfront. Absolutely the best restaurant we found was Captain Morgan's in the old town which is built around an open-air courtyard, superb food, very pricey, but worth the one meal we had there.
~ WorldMark Coral Baja, December 2006.
We opted for a Sailing and Snorkel Cruise in the Bay of San Lucas past the Los Cabos Arch and Lover's Beach. It was an enjoyable day. Also, if you've never kayaked, this would be the place to learn. Kayaking out of Los Cabos would be one of the easier ways to learn kayaking. It's not only a wonderful sport, it is a means of transportation in some areas of the world.
An environmental note is warranted here: People moving to Baja want their golf courses . . . golf courses DO NOT belong in dry places. Developers in this area claim to be "green," citing they are "desalinating sea water" rather than using fresh water. There is no fresh water to use, and desalination is not "green." Desalination will ultimately destroy the Sea of Cortez and everything in it, which means they will be destroying great beauty and a replenishable food source.
Building Supply Chain Excellence in Emerging Economies
Editors:
Hau L. Lee and Chung-Yee Lee
The rapidly developing new economies in China, India, Hungary, Vietnam, Costa Rica, Mexico, Brazil, etc., are at the crossroads of almost all major supply chains. These emerging economies are growing faster than the established industrial economies of the world. However, given the physical, social and cultural characteristics of emerging economies, managing supply chains is challenging. The book considers: How can we manage supply chains well, coordinate information flows with multiple partners, diversify risks and increase flexibilities, be efficient AND at the same time contribute to the social and environmental developments of these economies, by using supply chain concepts and practices to improve the economic welfare of these countries, such as basic infrastructure developments and disaster relief?
Changes in Latitude, Changes in Attitude