Mexico to Host World Environment Day

PLAYA DEL CARMEN -- The Riviera Maya will host World Environment Day on June 5, 2009. The location had been in doubt following the recent swine flu outbreak in Mexico and elsewhere.

The event will take place at the Xcaret Eco Park, just a few minutes south of the resort town of Playa del Carmen. Attendees will include California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, World Wildlife Fund president Carter Roberts, renwoned entrepreneur Carlos Slim Helu and more than 400 environmental experts, business leaders, academics, governors and UN staff.

The event will be broadcast via satellite to more than 180 countries. The conference is important to Mexico because it gives a clear signal that the country is still open for business and was able to overcome the recent health emergency.

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Cancun Turns 38 Years Old

Cancun -- On April 20, the resort town of Cancun will turn only 38 years since established, but is currently the most important tourist destination in Mexico and one of the most important in the world.

It is a successful reality that no one would have ever imagined when the island of Cancun – Kaank’uun in the Mayan language – was inhabited by only a small group of Mayan fisherman. Back then, no one dreamed that in just 38 years it would offer international tourism 146 hotels with over 28,000 rooms, approximately 453 restaurants, 12 shopping centers and 13 golf courses.

Cancun’s story began in 1968 when Bank of Mexico was looking for new ways to bring foreign currency into the country. It commissioned a group of economists to explore 11,000 miles of the nation’s coasts to find the most attractive location in which to develop tourism, based on climate, water temperature and beautiful scenery. The computer picked Cancun as one of those special places.
During the 70s, there was hardly any international tourism in Mexico. With Cancun came freeways, airports, ports and the entire country’s tourist attractions moved to the next level. International investors and tour operators set their sights on the new territory and transformed it into the phenomenon that it is today, making it the favorite destination of more than three million national and international tourists each year.

Cancun annually brings a considerable amount of foreign currency into the country and it is a direct or indirect source of employment for approximately 800,000 people. It has the second largest airport in Mexico with 54,729 annual flights and it has become one of the hubs with the highest number of direct international flights in Latin America.

Cancun aims to continue elevating the quality and diversity of its tourist attractions, by adding sports, ecological and adventure attractions to its white sand beaches, archaeological attractions and famous 15-mile boulevard.

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History of The Riviera Maya

The following is reprinted with permission from "Great Destinations: Playa del Carmen, Tulum & The Riviera Maya," by Joshua Eden Hinsdale.

“In the beginning all was invisible. The sky was motionless. There was only water, the quiet ocean, the silence, the nights. Then there came the word.”
—From The Popol Vuh, sacred Mayan scriptures

Playa del Carmen owes its growing popularity to the nearby resort town of Cancún, just 40 miles to the north, and Cozumel Island, just 12 miles to the east. The influence of these two towns has helped shape Playa since the days of the Mayans.

Playa del Carmen is named for Our Lady of Mount Carmel, who is the patron saint of Cancún. She was known as Our Lady of Mount Carmel, a town in Italy, which was the first place where a chapel was built in her honor, in 1263, before her ascension into Heaven.

The first recorded visitors to the beaches of what is now Playa del Carmen came during the Early Classic Period (A.D. 300–-600) of the Mayan civilization. Then called Xaman-Ha, or “waters of the north,” Playa was a rest stop of sorts for travelers making their way from the great cities of the Mayan world to the island of Cozumel. These travelers readied their dugout canoes and prepared for the journey across the straits on the same shores that now house the restaurants, hotels, and nightspots of modern-day Playa del Carmen.

Cozumel, called Ah Cuzamil Petén, meaning “island of the swallows,” by the Mayans, was a sacred site and home to Ix-Chel, the goddess of fertility and wife of Itzámna, the god of the sun. Young women across the Mayan empire, from present-day Yucatán, Honduras, Belize, and beyond, journeyed to Cozumel on a sacred pilgrimage to pay homage to Ix-Chel and pray for fertility and healthy childbirth.

In return for the dozens of shrines and temples that the Mayan’s constructed, Ix-Chel is said to have gifted the people with the graceful swallow, or Cuzamil, which led the Mayans to give the island its name. Many of the temples for Ix-Chel have survived, including San Gervasio, which can still be visited today.

More information about the history of The Riviera Maya can be found in Joshua Hinsdale's, "Great Destinations: Playa del Carmen, Tulum & The Riviera Maya," published by Countryman Press and available at amazon.com or your local bookstore.

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