These photos aren't 25 or 50 years old, but they picture the vintage Isla I fell in love with eight years ago. So much has changed in a short period of time. Our last trip to Isla in May 2008 wasn't one of our favorites. It should have been relatively slow on the island, but we were shocked by the traffic and development. The traffic on the streets has doubled, tripled, quadrupled? Huge concrete structures have appeared, obscuring views and marring the quaintness of the village. And God knows when at least one of them will ever be finished. The municipality tore out the old zocalo and replaced it with a new one -- ugly and poorly designed. And Playa Norte's been ravaged by nature the last few years. Hopefully, the restoration projects will help bring it back to its former glory. Please don't shoot me for saying it, but Isla seems to have suffered the 'perfect storm' in the last few years -- a combination of the ravages of nature and man. Definite growing pains. But it's the age old story. Paradise gets discovered and then overwhelmed by development.
You don't know what you've got till it's gone,
They paved paradise to put up a parking lot . . .
Here's the old arrival skyline. No large ugly frog!
Remember the big angels and the clear background view in the cemetery before it was marred by condo construction?
And I loved the old wooden paned gates.
Playa Norte circa 2004! Look at the expanse of white sand and all the palms. A clean beautiful stretch of sand!
I also loved the old Hotel Garrafon dock. The last time I was there, it was stubbed off at the end of the concrete. Hurricane Wilma was the final straw for that dock.
And the old Fisherman's Cantina was one of my favorite buildings. I was shocked to see it torn down in December 2005, post-Wilma.
