Acapulco

We’ve had no satellite for several days, so here goes the long update.

Day 1

The first day we got into town we were bowled over by the heat and humidity. It’s been cold on the ship (extra air conditioned and also the ocean is colder than the coast). When we left the ship the heat hit us like a Mack truck. We were drenched in sweat almost instantly. Which actually feels good because once you’re wet, the breeze feels nice and cool.

We’re docked directly across from the 17th century fort. So first stop was a tour of the fort and its museum. The fort wasn’t much in comparison to the forts in Puerto Rico, but the museum was really cool. They went into a lot of detail about the trade with Asia because Acapulco was the jumping off point for the Manila Galleons. So there were several rooms about the trade. Plenty of Chinese export porcelain for me! And silk, spices, armor, ivory. Something for everyone really.

After the fort we went to a restaurant called La Chilapeña. We ordered just about everything on the menu (largeish group) and it was all divine! The pozoles (which Guerero is famous for) were delicious, spicy and rich tasting. The enchiladas were phenomenal, and the chalupas had the perfect sweet salty spicy kick.

After our meal, we made our way to the ubiquitous Sanborns for some ice cream and a stop in the air conditioning.

Our next stop was a water park called CiCi. Tons of slides, a wave pool, a kiddy pool with little slides and mushrooms and things. The highlight of the rides was something called a tornado. So you know the things where you roll the coin along the edge and it goes in ever tightening circles until you hit the bottom, where it spins and drops straight down? OK, so imagine instead of a coin, it’s you. Needless to say I did not go on this, although Ricardo went twice.

Day 2

This morning we went on a tour called the Historical Route of the Nation. It was perhaps a complete misnomer. The historical part was fragmented and funky to say the least. But the drive was spectacular and the villages were lovely.

Acapulco is set into the cliffs around a harbor on the Pacific coast of Mexico. What this tour did was take us up into the hills above Acapulco to a series of small villages that were important to the history of Mexican Independence (mostly as birth places, hence the lack of detail etc in the historical part). We visited several small chapels which were stunning in their color and decoration. We also had beautiful vistas to appreciate along the way as well.

The trip ended with a visit to the bakery in a small town. This consisted of a clay oven and fresh baked bread for all of us. Literally, she had just taken it from the oven. It was the best bread I think I’ve ever had.


Later that night we went to see the cliff divers. You may remember this, as I do, from watching the Love Boat in the 1980s. It was absolutely breathtaking. We were there at sunset so the view of the sunset, the cliffs, the ocean was terrific. What the divers do is they climb down one side of the cliff, dive into the water and then scale the high cliffs in nothing but their bathing suits. Then they dive into 11 feet of water from a height of 30 meters (almost 100 feet). I totally had thought it would be cheesy as hell, but it was the coolest thing! Some of the divers were no older than 14 years old. The Kid announced rather vociferously that he did not think he’d be doing this in his future. No kidding!

Most of the pictures didn’t come out because of the darkness and the slow shutter. So these are someone else’s pictures.