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 Travel & Outdoors | December 2005 
Canucks Love Mexico's Charms - and All That Jazz
 Heather Greenwood Davis - Toronto Star
Manzanillo, Mexico — If you can't find a Canadian jazz artist in any of your favourite haunts this winter, blame Mexico.
Five of Canada's up-and-coming artists will be alternating headlining nightly at the Karmina Palace Resort and Spa in Manzanillo.
The "visiting Canadian jazzists" series features Torontonians Peter Katz, a folk/rock guitarist with jazz influences and winner of 2005 CBC Galaxie rising star award, and Dylan Murray, a soft reggae and folk/rock guitarist and singer.
Also on the roster are Vancouver-based acoustic guitarist and singer Marnie Mains and Halifax native and jazz vocalist Hazel Walker, who pairs with Toronto pianist Graham Howes.
If you're not the type to blame a country for supporting Canadian talent, you have an alternative: Danny Depoe.
He's the Toronto crooner and jazz trumpeter who spent last summer wooing Barbra Streisand and other visitors at Karmina which led to Karmina patrons looking for similar talents way north of their borders. He too is back this winter.
And if you can't blame Depoe, then blame Manzanillo.
With its temperatures in the mid-20s throughout December, its friendly local culture and good value for the Canadian dollar, it is easy to understand how they were seduced.
Add to that the AAA four-diamond Karmina Palace resort that offers minimum 800-square-foot rooms, an all-suite, all-inclusive model that includes buffet style and a la carte fine dining restaurants among its offerings and eight heated, interconnecting pools and it is even more clear.
If that combination has you considering heading south yourself, you wouldn't be alone.
Every year more and more Canadians come to this city nestled between the Sierra Madre Mountains and the Pacific Ocean and roughly halfway between Puerto Vallarta and Ixtapa.
According to Karmina Palace marketing supervisor Janet Martin, herself a Toronto native, Canadians make up at least 60 per cent of the winter visitors.
"There's just something about this place that feels like home," she explains.
"Canadians like places that are not so busy like Cancun or Acapulco. Here, the hotels aren't lined up on the beach one after another — the hotels are spread apart so there's lots of privacy and space for everyone."
There is little flash to Manzanillo and you can forget about finding the golden arches. In fact, there is nothing Cancun-like about it. Located literally on the other side of the country from Cancun, they are equally as far apart in what they offer their visitors.
For Manzanillo's visitors it means a vacation destination that is family-friendly, understated and subdued.
For years it managed to keep a low profile among international tourists while quietly catering to a domestic market.
Now, while Mexicans continue to flock here on national holidays, Canadians are joining them in the months when the temperature dips back home.
The result is that Karmina Palace Resort and Spa has become a Canadian winter refuge.
It is not an exaggeration to suggest that if there were an award for Canadian Content in a foreign hotel, Karmina Palace would be hard to beat.
Walking through the halls of the hotel built to look like a Mayan palace, you are as likely to hear "ehs" as "holas."
Sometimes the Spanish comes tinged with a French accent, courtesy of a former English teacher here who hailed from Quebec.
Many of the staff at the resort are Canadian as well.
Treisha Dinsdale made the trip out here from Brampton in 2002 and says she has no plans to leave.
She appears six times a week in one of the nightly Las Vegas-worthy entertainment shows put on at the Palace.
"I have also worked in Cabo San Lucas and Puerto Vallarta but Manzanillo has captured my heart," says the 25-year-old.
"There are lots of beautiful beaches in the area and it hasn't lost its unique Mexican touch."
It's a sentiment that is offered over and over again by visitors to the area and many cite it as their reason for returning.
From the market stalls just outside the city centre to the streets of nearby Colima, Manzanillo feels, smells and acts like Mexico.
"There is great shopping downtown or you can catch the sunset with someone you love," adds Dinsdale.
If history repeats itself, it is highly likely that the visiting Canadian jazzists will lead to even more Canucks heading way south for the winter.
Martin doesn't mind.
"I think we're going to have an especially big wave of Canadians now that people are turning to the Pacific side after the hurricane in Cancun," says Martin.
Transat Holidays offers charter flights to Manzanillo from eight Canadian cities including Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal throughout the winter months.
Karmina Palace Resort is a family friendly AAA four-diamond resort and spa.
For more information visit http://www.karminapalace.com |
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