For Some Residents Of Mexico's Cancun, Beach Seems World Away

Cancún, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 11th May, 2024) The sun-kissed beaches and turquoise waters of Mexico's Caribbean resort of Cancun attract millions of visitors, but schoolteacher Yazmin Teran is lucky if she enjoys them a few times a year.

Like other Mexicans living on the fringes of the major tourist destination, she feels her working-class suburb and the luxury hotel zone are worlds apart.

In 2023 alone, 32.7 million visitors touched down at Cancun airport -- 63 percent of them foreigners, according to official data.

Few are likely to visit Villas Otoch Paraiso, where Teran lives.

A quick internet search shows that the housing development, established in 2007 and home to about 40,000 people, is considered to be "Cancun's most dangerous neighborhood.

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Teran remembers how excited she was when she arrived in Cancun 15 years ago from the southern state of Oaxaca so her husband could work in the tourism sector.

"You see the beaches, the tourist places and the hotel zone on television and you say 'wow!' the 41-year-old said.

"But when you come here to Cancun you realize that it's not all like that," Teran said.

"Those of us who live and work here hardly have time to go and enjoy the beach and sea," she said, adding that such visits happened "about five times a year."

Families without cars must make do with limited public transport.

And although the beaches are public, in practice access is restricted to hotel guests.