Swine flu down, bargains up in Mexico

Eva Litwinowich, 25, of Vancouver Island, Canada, arrived in Isla Mujeres, an island near Cancun, just before the epidemic broke out in April — and decided to remain even after her friend left early.

"I'm so glad I stayed because it's not what it was built up to be," she said as she trekked through the Mayan pyramids of Chichen Itza on the Yucatan Peninsula. "We met tons of people who also have come. I realized that not everyone was panicking."

Phyllis and Stephen Comparato, of Houston, Texas, were among only about 120 guests at a 1,000-room resort last month.

"We feel bad about the impact on the local economy, but it was a once-in-a-lifetime chance to be there with only a few people," said Phyllis, 52. "They took really good care of us."

At the Aqua hotel and spa in Cancun recently, eight pools of varying temperatures glimmered tranquilly in shades of deep and aqua blue.

Total number of guests bobbing in the round infinity pool overlooking the white-sand beach and crashing waves? Two women — one who said she felt like she was relaxing in her own private mansion.

The hotel's restaurants required no reservations and four waiters who had nothing else to do hovered constantly around the few occupied outdoor tables each night.

With the number of flu cases falling in Mexico, more international tourists are returning to the country's vacation spots, airlines and travel agencies say — but it still shouldn't be too hard to find a spot on the beach to lay your towel.

Fifteen of 39 Cancun hotels that temporarily closed at the height of the crisis have reopened, but overall hotel occupancy rates in the first couple weeks of June were hovering around only 55 percent, according to the Cancun Hotel Association. At the height of the crisis, occupancy dropped to as low as 10 percent to 15 percent at some hotels.

Museums, archaeological sites and other attractions that were shuttered for five days in May to stop swine flu from spreading are also up and running and desperate for visitors.

Dozens of vendors stood idly behind their displays of hand-carved wooden masks and ceramic Aztec calendar replicas during a recent visit to Chichen Itza, the Mayan pyramids that in 2007 were named one of The New 7 Wonders of the World.

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But little by little, life has returned to normal across Mexico. And some businesses, including the souvenir shop where Manuel Acosta works, have turned the crisis into a marketing opportunity.

Acosta's store offers T-shirts that travelers who risk the trip can use to prove their courage when they return home: "I survived swine flu — but I'm still a pig!"

The shirts sport a racy graphic of two pigs in compromising positions and a drawing of a syringe over the words "Cancun, Mexico."

"We Mexicans have a knack for these T-shirts," said the 36-year-old employee, chuckling in a store notably absent of customers.

"We've made them after hurricanes and other disasters. It's a way of saying, 'OK, it happened, and it was ugly. But we're going to survive.'"

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