Acapulco, la fiesta que nunca acaba

(Acapulco, the party that never stops)

Well this post is way too long, and has taken too long to post so here goes nothing. After 2 months of just sitting in my draft box here it is.

I just want to apologize for this post taking so long to get up here but it's been pretty busy over here with classes, new people, new activities, and another big excursion (Mexico City, warning that post may take a while too). But hey, better late than never right?

So it's a 4 hour bus ride from Cuernavaca to Acapulco so we all met up at the bus at 7am. We after a lively bus ride (thank goodness for Nicci, Carla, Olivia, and Lexie getting that iPod player from the Mercado) we arrived in sunny, humid Acapulco at 11am. We stayed at Hotel Romano, which is right across the street from the beach and perhaps more important to some, across the street from the bars and clubs. Sandra had heard that the elevators were terrible there so nosotros rezamos (prayed) for a low floor. Our prayers were answered as we got rooms on the 3rd and 4th floor. It was a nice setup with the pool on the 3rd floor, a balcony for each room, and two queen sized beds, etc. It was sweet.

Acapulco is really only a one street town. The main drag runs up and down the coast with a bunch of hotels, bars, clubs, taquerias, boutiques, and seafood restaurants. Yet, if you go one block inland, you feel like you're walking into another world. There are some run-down properties and residential areas that are far from the luxury and excess of the beach front strip. I suppose that's the nature of a tourist port like Acapulco.

Anyways, we went to the beach right away after dropping our stuff off in our rooms. The water was warm, the sand felt great between my toes and it was just a pleasure to soak up the sun. We got a shaded table and some chairs out on the beach in exchange for ordering drinks from one of the many beachfront restaurants/bars (that's how it works, you pay to play basically) and proceeded to just hang out for several hours.

Many street (well beach I guess) vendors came by selling arts, crafts, temporary hand-drawn tattoo services, massages, jewelry, sunglasses, food, pretty much any simple good or service you could think of. Occasionally somebody would get something. I fortuitously bought some sunglasses (aviator style). I say fortuitously because at the end of that weekend I somehow cracked the lenses of my original pair of sunglasses so I was lucky to have a backup pair at the ready.

Concerning the beach and street vendors in all of Mexico, not just Acapulco, several people are quite sick of them. I joke that perhaps we should just "hacer letreros que dicen 'No, gracias' para vestir siempre"(make signs that say "No thank you" to constantly wear). On a deeper level though, as annoying as these vendors can be (ranging in age from little children to the elderly), I can't really blame them for trying to make a living however they can. Especially in these tough global economic times, with unemployment and underemployment rampant, every little bit counts. Having studied the demons of the free market and having seen the terrible poverty and underemployment of Nicaragua last year during JanTerm I feel I have a modicum of understanding of the fact that if anyone is to blame, it is all of us who buy into the free market, ultra-capitalist system we live in today, myself included. As one of my Nicaragua professors Michael Barram would say, this system emphasizes what goods or services a person can render for another, not the inherent value of all human beings. This troubling concept that is perpetuated daily in this world is what truly leaves so many little choice but to be what many tourists consider pushy vendors.

On a less serious note, following our time at the beach, a couple of friends decided they wanted to do the bungie jump from the Coca Cola Tower, which happened to be 170 feet tall and stretching over a pool. It was definitely a sight to see. Later a bunch of us jumped from a platform 30 feet or so above that same pool (see below). It was a blast. One of the guys, Rob even did a couple crazy backflips.

Of course neither bungie jumping nor 30 foot drops into a pool can compare with the insanity of the crazy cliff divers of Acapulco. These guys diver over 100 feet into crashing surf with rocks and all on a nightly basis. Perhaps just as impressive is that they don't use any ladders or stairs to get to their diving points. They just climb up and down the rock face of the cliffs where a shrine to the Virgen de Guadalupe sits. Each of them kneels before the shrine before preparing for his dive. It's insane. I was able to catch one of the divers on video pretty well. Check it out below.

To round out the night we went to the world-famous night club Palladium. It was a somewhat expensive cover fee of 430 pesos for guys and 330 for ladies but we all got a 100 peso discount for going with Uninter. I was not crazy about going because I had been told that it was all techno music and that one of the main draws was the open bar, which if you know me, is no draw at all. Nevertheless, I went because almost everyone else was going and I really did feel like going out somewhere. Anyways, I am glad I did go because I had a blast.

So being on the coast had me craving seafood. The first night I'd gone to Pipo's with some people and gotten the almond sauce fish which was pretty solid. One thing about Pipo's is that some of the other people in our group got a little more adventurous than shrimp and fish and it didn't work out for them. So if you're ever in Acapulco and go to that place my advice is to be rather conservative in your choices. Perhaps a better option for seafood is Fisher's which is right on the edge of one of the main galerias (malls/shopping centers) in Acapulco. Some of the items there are probably pricier than you can find elsewhere in Acapulco but the quality and selection is great. The menu is very extensive ranging from things as simple as fish tacos, to seafood pasta, fresh fish, and stuffed shrimp. Honestly I had to pull out a pen and paper to help me organize my options. I ended up having camarones (shrimp) il formaggio con prosciutto a decidedly more italian style shrimp dish but who cares? it was delicious. Suffice to say everyone was satisfied that night (except perhaps Adrian, who only ordered a fish quesadilla which was rather small, but he was there more for the good company and conversation anyways). If you're in Acapulco I definitely recommend this place. One thing I did wish they had was a set of combination plates, because everything looked so good!



The Crazy Cliff Divers of Acapulco



One of the fire dancers at Palladium




Jumping into a pool 30 or so feet below. Threw a toe-touch in for kicks. A few friends bungie jumped over the pool from the 170 foot tower across from the platform I was on. Crazy.