Acapulco

David and I took the “Estrella de Oro” bus to Acapulco last weekend.  For those who need a translation – “Gold Star.”  We left after classes on Thursday and “matamos” (literally “we killed”, figuratively “we skipped”) our Friday classes.  The bus was luxurious! We had so much room, huge seats with touch screens full of movies and games, a bottle of wine (haha) and snacks.

Our View

We stayed at the Fiesta Americana which is right in the middle of everything.  Initially, we were upgraded from a room to a junior suite the first night.  It was fine, there were two double beds and I would have prefered a king.  We were on the sixth floor, much closer to the street than the sea.  I aksed if we could something higher and closer to the ocean and the desk attendent said to check back in the morning.  David was satisfied enough and our belongings were scattered everywhere by morning, so I was happy to leave well-enough alone.

Us in Aca

Next morning we headed to the beach, had a lovely afternoon on chaise lounges drinking those frozen drinks and swimming.  David swam out a bit further than me and returned with a food wrapper, whatever.

Later, he went up to the room to grab something and the air conditioner was leaking all over the bathroom floor. Well, that was that.  We got moved to the 15th floor, with a way-better view, a king sized bed in an all-around better quality room! Yay!

The next day we spent on the beach again under an umbrella, drinking beers and enjoying our time away from the city.  The ocean seemed to contain a bit more trash, or maybe we were just noticing it more.

Clavadistas in Speedos!

That night we went to see the clavadistas (cliff divers) dive into the ocean from dare-devil heights.  This is a tradition of  “Glamorous Acapulco” that I clearly remember from my childhood.  There are 4 shows a night.  We caught one at sunset, paid 40 pesos to stand really close, and it was gorgeous.  There were about 10 young divers who marched through the crowd before jumping into the ocean.  Next they scaled a rock face about 8 stories high, pumped up the crowd and proceeded to take turns diving in fabulous form into the ocean.  Some did flips, dove backwards or went 2 or 3 at a time!

Scaing the Wall

After the first show, we made our way to the very front.  At this time it had gotten completely dark.  Before climbing up the rock face, a few divers were stuffing a ton of newspaper into the rocks at the bottom.  David and I tried to figure out why, I thought it was for traction

because the rocks were slippery.  David thought it was promotional material.  After a few dives, the divers whistled for the lights to be turned off, the newspaper was lit aflame and the last few divers dove by the light of burning newspaper.  Gorgeous!

The next morning we snuck in some beach time before our late-checkout.  The ocean was officially filthy, including a bloated pufferfish belly-up body-surfing towards Condesa Beach. Although I had a great time, I won’t be returning to Acapulco for the beaches.

As we waited in the exclusive “Sala Diamante” executive class waiting room for our bus a woman checks our tickets.  Guess what, our bus left at 1:30 am, not pm.  We missed our bus, how embarrassing!  We were able to change our tickets and get something for 2:00.  Whew!