Nine bays of coral and sand on the Oaxacan coast, developed as a resort with unusual restraint.
Huatulco is Mexico's planned resort that did not get out of hand. The development agency took the coast in 1984 with the same powers that produced Cancún, but kept the building heights low, the hotel zone small, and some seventy per cent of the land as national park. It shows.
The point of the place is the nine bays — Santa Cruz, Chahué, Tangolunda and six more, several reachable only by boat — strung along a coast of coral-headed coves. The snorkelling and diving are the best on this stretch of Pacific: visibility is decent most of the year, the reefs are shallow and easy, and La Entrega bay can be swum from the beach.
La Crucecita is where people actually live and eat, a few minutes inland from the hotels, with a plaza and a market that keep normal Oaxacan prices.
Inland the Copalita river runs down from the sierra for rafting, and the coffee fincas of Pluma Hidalgo are an hour up the mountain.
Huatulco is a long way from Oaxaca city — seven hours by road over the sierra, or a short flight — and most visitors come straight in by air.
Guide
Activities
Huatulco is nine bays and thirty-six beaches on a stretch of coast that was planned as a resort and then mostly left alone, with a national park covering both the land behind and the water in front.
The bay tour is the standard day: a boat or catamaran out of Santa Cruz or Marina Chahué, stopping at La Entrega for snorkelling, then Maguey, Cacaluta and San Agustín. Several bays can only be reached by water. The reef at La Entrega and San Agustín is modest by Caribbean standards but alive and shallow.
From December to March humpback whales calve offshore and the whale-watching trips are genuine rather than hopeful. Dolphins, turtles and rays are around all year.
Inland, the Copalita gives the best rafting in southern Mexico, class III through the dry season and harder in summer. The sierra above the coast grows coffee at altitude and the fincas take visitors, and the Copalita archaeological site at the river mouth is quiet and worth an hour.
