The most beautiful bay in the world celebrates 500 years of its discovery

The most beautiful bay in the world celebrates 500 years of its discovery | People | America Edition

The bay of Santa Lucía, classified as the most beautiful in the world, located in the coastal city of Acapulco, celebrates 500 years of its discovery as a tourist and commercial reference between Mexico and Asia.

In the Acapulco history books, it is noted that after the conquest of Tenochtitlán, the Aztec capital, in August 1521, Hernán Cortés began exploring the territory of New Spain.

Among other objectives, Cortés wanted to find a point between the oceans that would serve to reach what is now known as the Moluccas Islands, an Indonesian archipelago that in the 16th century was called the Spice Islands due to the large number of aromatic plants in the area. . From then on, the islands became a strategic point for the spice trade between Asia and America.

Cortés put Francisco Álvarez Chico at the head of the expedition, who, following routes known to merchants and tax collectors, arrived on December 13, 1521 at the port of Acapulco and named the bay Santa Lucía, following the custom of the Catholic holy book that honors that day to Santa Lucia de Siracusa.

The Spanish expedition members verified that the bay of Santa Lucía was a perfect place to unload merchandise from the ships due to its deep waters compared to others in the area.

Those very special conditions of the bay allowed the commercial route that connected Asia-Spain, through Mexico, to begin, being El Galeón de Manila, better known as La Nao de China, the ship that established an extraordinary commercial and cultural exchange.

THE PEARL OF THE PACIFIC

However, the local historians of Acapulco do not agree on the exact dates of the beginning of the history of the port, recognized worldwide to the point of being considered the pearl of the Pacific both for its commercial importance and for its unique, golden and beach beaches. warm waters.

The writer Tomás Oteiza Iriarte has defended that the date of the commemoration of the beginning of the history of Acapulco is this month of December.

“We follow the historical data that we believe to be more consistent because there are different opinions, but Tomas Oteiza in the book” Acapulco: Ciudad de las Naos de Oriente and modern mermaids “, maintains that the group of explorers led by Captain Francisco Álvarez Chico arrived to this bay on December 13, 1521, “said the pastor of Acapulco, Juan Carlos Flores Rivas.

Juanita Lobato, in charge of the municipal newspaper library of Acapulco, prefers, however, that the bay be known as Acapulco, following the opinion of the local historian Leonardo Flores.

In any case, and despite the commercial significance of the port of Acapulco, it was not until the early 19th century that the first official maps of the bay were drawn up thanks to Alexander Von Humboldt, the German explorer and geographer.

With 8 kilometers of blue and gold color and located between two mountains belonging to the Sierra Madre Sur, the bay already became in the 20th century a tourist reference in Mexico and the Pacific.

Its beaches and luxury hotels were visited in the 1950s by personalities John F. Kennedy, who, before winning the presidency of the United States in 1960, spent his honeymoon in Acapulco with his wife Jacqueline.

Elizabeth Taylor, Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, Sylvester Stallone, Bono, Julio Iglesias, Rod Stewart, Michael Jackson, among others, were also able to enjoy these beaches, until they made Acapulco a true tourist pearl of the Pacific.