Town Banking on the Eclipse

Kathy Vanzella’s husband has been planning to see this century’s last solar eclipse ever since she met him six years ago.

“We’re going all the way to Mexico to sit in the dark for seven minutes?” the Edmonton, Canada, native has asked him skeptically.

But here they are, along with a potpourri of scientists, amateur astronomers and adventurers from as far away as Japan, waiting for Thursday morning when the moon will block out the sun for several minutes.

Hotel rooms and airline flights have been booked since January, with hoteliers charging $200 a night, for rooms that normally cost half that, and requiring six-day minimum stays with full payment in advance.

The eclipse has provided a second season for Baja California Sur, the southern half of the Mexican peninsula south of California. Normally a popular wintertime destination, it became a favored site to view the eclipse because its desert climate will offer the best chance of clear skies.

The eclipse has been lucrative for the lodging industry and tour operators. But some other businesses have been badly stung by high expectations of masses of free-spending tourists. Early predictions of a $37-million midsummer bonanza--equivalent to an entire year of normal tourism in Baja--now seem less likely.

Due in part to sky-high hotel prices, eclipse watchers such as Vanzella and her husband are not spending money beyond what they already paid for accommodations. And warnings that visitors without reservations would be turned back at the border seem to have backfired, driving away prospective tourists who planned to camp out.

Accordingly, by Tuesday the deluge of visitors that state authorities had predicted--50,000 in an area that has accommodations for only 35,000--had not yet appeared.

Campsite operators such as Raul Castro have been especially hard hit by the disappointing crowds. He and his brother bought seven large tanks of water, expecting a huge influx of campers. However, only about 30 people out of an expected 100-plus had appeared by Tuesday.

Away from the Castro’s campsite, a group of northerners eschewed both the high-priced hotel rooms and the campgrounds. They came on the Green Tortoise, the intrepid San Francisco-based economy bus line that had a reputation during the 1970s for its $59 cross-country trips.

The 30 Green Tortoise tourists, who sleep in the bus, gathered around a wooden table to eat California roll sushi, while Gardner Kent, company founder, expressed his surprise at how pleasant the trip has been.

“I really didn’t think it was a good idea,” he conceded. “I thought it would be too hot and that we would have problems. But we got waved through all the check points. It’s been fine.”

The Green Tortoise crowd has never been known as big spenders. And many others in town for the big event also seemed to be preserving their cash.

Along the main boulevard here, few tourists were buying souvenirs. The owner of a new disco called Eclipse said he has been highly disappointed with the opening, which he had expected to be attended by many tourists.

Similarly, merchants here stocked up on food and souvenirs, using two-week credit advances. “Now no one knows how they (merchants) will pay,” said one pharmacist who declined to give his name.

In fact, most of the money on the eclipse seems to be made in Mexico City, where the National Autonomous University of Mexico is selling commemorative coins at $52 each. Souvenir hawkers are offering $15 T-shirts along with other mementos at the capital city’s airport.