Acapulco

I rejoined the adventure in Acapulco almost exactly 2 weeks later.  I missed a town that everyone loved, Zihuatenejo.  I would love to see it sometime if I get a chance, very clean, great fresh fruit/veggies, clean bay, etc.  I was pretty excited to see Acapulco after having grown up watching “The Love Boat” stop there.  I don’t remember any details or attractions, just that it was great!

The boat met me in Puerto Marquez since this was closer to the airport.  We took a cab that dropped us off at the pier.  I could see the boat, but they couldn’t see us.  They were planning meeting us at 6 pm and it was only 4:30, so we walked the coast, then went to a beachfront restaurant for dinner while we watched the luggage and boat and could see when the dinghy headed in.  It was nice to see everyone again when we finally got back together. 

We had a nice beach to play on in the morning and evening, it was pretty hot in the afternoons.  I flew back with a tarp to cover our back cockpit area – WOW what a great difference that makes.

The air flows through there and with the shade it’s such a great usable space.  It doubled our living space for sure!  We now have hammocks hanging in there and spend a fair amount of every day out there, including most lunches and dinners.

There were many tourists here and the beaches were pretty crowded.  The kids met up with a couple of local girls who were gathering shells, starfish and sea urchins.  In my limited Spanish I gathered that they were collecting them to sell.  They shared the sea urchins with the kids, which they loved.  Language was no issue to them, they figured out a way to play anyway. 

There was a new marina being built in the bay.  The outermost pier was built.  Apparently when the drudger came to dig out the marina, the beach sand backfilled it.  This made the beaches more narrow and caused the sea wall to collapse in front of the many restaurants that were beachfront.  The drudging ceased, so now they have no marina, minimal beach, and a collapsed sea wall.  They have some figuring to do.  With Acapulco so full – 2.5 million people, it seems a marina would do well there if they could put it in and maintain what they have already.

                  We went into Acapulco proper.  It is a huge bay filled with high rises all along the beach.  Initially there was a red tide where we anchored, so we moved to the midway along the bay.  There was a beautiful rock island with stairs up to the top.  Gorgeous rock formations along the shore.  We would come in in the dinghy to land between the rocks.  Nice swimming, lots of people along the beach though, and there was garbage floating in the water.  Could be such a beautiful and neat spot, but definitely some issues of population. 

Courage and I aimed to go out on date night in Acapulco on Cinco de Mayo.  We walked and walked and walked.  We were let off at the marina dock, but security tried to walk us back out since we weren’t docked there.  The dinghy had already left and was nowhere to be seen.  He finally let us pass.  Then we walked a long way to town.  We never saw a restaurant that looked appealing.  We walked through the flea market, past some older couples dancing in the street with a crowd watching, up a very long hill until we saw a crowd.  We stopped to see the excitement.  Apparently we had come to the famous “cliff divers of Acapulco” show.  Just in time.  You could pay to be closer, but you’d be in the back of that crowd, so we walked down to the far side of the mountain along a winding road and watched what we could.  There were even busses parked here that came for the show.  It is quite a production to watch 4 dives.  There are vendors as far as the eye can see selling ceramics, ships made of string, flan, donuts, and everything you can make out of seashells.  There were 3 boats hovering just outside of the landing zone.  That was by far the best seat in the house.  Most other seats were hard to see the landing in the water.  The divers then came and worked the crowd that didn’t pay for the show for tips.  We then walked down the hill and stopped at a restaurant that was acceptable by the time we were starving!  The entire kitchen was in a small storage locker sized room that during the off hours was closed behind a garage door (Mexican strip malls are small cubicles with garage doors, not unlike a mini-storage).  The tables were plastic set out on the sidewalk, again, not unusual.  Our table with right next to the cook, so we watched him prepare all the meals.  Didn’t look like a great work environment, hot, no space to even lay out the plates he was preparing, dishes hand washed in a sink, etc.  But the “waiter” also came and helped him laying out the food on the plates to help keep things going quickly and they spent a little extra time on each making sure the presentation was good.  Food was OK, we left a nice tip, definitely good effort.  I was surprised at how hard it was to find a good place to eat in Acapulco.  Maybe we were in a more local neighborhood, which would be fine, we didn’t want chain restaurant or something, but wanted clean and good food.

We then went and anchored near the marina.  There is a nice resort, but they wanted $30/day for day use of their facilities without even a docking.  This seems very overpriced for the use of a pool that was empty.  We went and played at the beach with the kids while others looked for provisions.  The tiny beach was surrounded by industrialization.  We had just passed Cinco de Mayo, but that beach was covered with bottle caps and freshly broken glass.  Not at all pleasant.  The water was dirty and filled with people, then they wanted to rent you an umbrella for $4./day to sit on that beach.  Just not welcoming or great.  But it was a day in Acapulco with the family, not a day at the office!!!