Hindustan Times
Cape of Good Economic Hope (snippets from Los Cabos)
1 . Los Cabos, translated as “the capes” in English, is the tip of Baja California, a long dangling peninsula that hugs the western side of Mexico. It is an arid scrubland for the most part, but some excellent planning and careful regulation have made it a major tourist site. Among the most sensible things to be done was to build desalination plants north of the tourist area to give the place its only missing ingredient, allowing the exploitation of its long beaches, blue seas and mildly torrid history. The history includes pirates and the US adventurer, William Walker, a self-promoted “grey eyed man of destiny” who tried to carve of bits of Central America for himself.
Baja California, with its expensive hotel rooms and natural wonders introduced through artifice, has excellent planning. It perhaps isn’t of the same level as mature Cancun but it’s so much better than anything than India’s tourism ministry could devise.
2. Mexico is nowadays full of news about the Zea versus Sinaloa drug cartels’ war. The cartels routinely commit mass murder and pile up decapitated bodies on roadsides. Each massacre is followed by a government crackdown on the cartels which then go out for bloody revenge. But the good people of Los Cabos were unconcerned. Los Cabos is one of the safest places in Mexico. It was chosen for the G20 because it has water on three sides and is accessed by a road which is easily defensible. Squardons F5 jets and a couple of US warships added to the sense of security. Cannes residents went to Monaco when their city hosted the 2011 G20 summit. Pittsburgh seemed emptied out during the 2009 G20 summit. Not here: Los Cabos was inhabited and quiet, even at the height of the summit.
3. G20, do thy work: Los Cabos residents were impressed with the G20 but viewed its performance record as patchy. They understood that the US wasn’t helping the Europeans and that was what mannered. Were they interested in Spain’s economic troubles? Despite history, no.
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