Acapulcazo

My co-workers were nice enough to plan a trip to Acapulco for my last full weekend in Mexico. Acapulcazo is a word made up by the Chilangos (DF residents) for a trip to Acapulco. Acapulco is the closest beach to the DF, so it's where most people from the city go for short vacation trips.

Clau, Valeriano and I left right after work for the 4-5 hour trip through 2.5 states. After surviving the city traffic it was smooth sailing to the beach....actually it was more like riding roller coaster through Club Five for 3.5 hours. Yes, the trip which should have taken 5 hours was only 3.5...if that gives you any idea of how fast we were going. I didn't dare look at the spedometer, but I was praying for the majority of the trip. I tried to sleep, telling myself that if I'm going to die I'd rather not see it about to happen, but I was too nervous to sleep.

Obviously, I'm ok and we got there "safely" but that is one thing about the rules of the road here, there aren't police to enforce them and the ones that work in the provinces that aren't Federal Police are the ones that are known for making deals anyway. What was really cool was seeing the change in terrain during my trip and feeling the change in weather. The DF is quite cool because of the altitude, but as we drove further down the mountains, the weather cleared up and it became warm. There were also a lot of mountains and valleys that we passed through. I wish I could have taken a better picture of mountains...but we were driving too fast =)

We arrived in Acapulco and immediately went to eat at this all organic restaurant called 100% Natural. It was pretty amazing. They had a menu just for all the various health/fruit drinks they have. I had fish stuffed with cream cheese, pecans, and spinach with tomato sauce on top. It was delicious. Acapulco is very commercialized along the main strip--it reminds me a lot of Ocean City in that respect, so I was lucky to have people with me that could take me to a nice restaurant.

After dinner we road in a horse and cart. That's one of the local businesses in Acapulco, you rent a buggy and they take you up and down the strip. What's interesting about this situation is that the horse and buggy are on the same road as the taxis and other cars...which doesn't help the congestion along the strip. But it was fun. Poor Valeriano had a motorcycle accident a week prior, so we tried to avoid walking too much, hence the horse and buggy.

After dinner I retired for the evening and got up early the next morning to take advantage of my day on the beach. Acapulco is very much like Ocean City, but with a better view and lots of Mexicans . I walked onto the part of the beach that's considered "public" and all of the sudden the difference between Acapulco and OC became much more apparent. First, the beach is like an open market with people selling tropical drinks, food, umbrellas, braids, coconut oil, fake tatoos, jewelery, clothes, massages, and boat rides. However, they don't wait for you to look at their merchandice, they come to you. It would be like taking the scope guys (less attractive though), giving them different items to sell, and multiplying the number of them by 20. Seriously, I don't think I've had to repeat "no gracias" so many times in a row in such a short period of time. Most of the time it was just annoying because all I wanted was to relax on the beach and people were constantly approaching me. When I had my eyes closed or was listening to my ipod it subsided a bit, but what was really difficult was to see children selling things. They were mostly adults, but I saw a lot of kids between the ages of 7 and 15 walking along the beach. There was one child I remember specifically because he came to our umbrella selling gum, but he couldn't have been older than 3 or 4...i swear he looked like he had just learned to walk. He stopped in our tent, tried to sell some toys, and then when we said no thank you asked if he could have my water. I felt so bad I just wanted to hand him my wallet. Fortunately, I had only brought enough money to pay for the umbrella, or I probably would have. I don't know, things like that are really hard to see. I also see a lot of young children selling things on the streets in the DF--but this was by far the youngest child I have seen yet.

This situation sparked an economic debate among our group. Mexico has a large informal commercial sector--basically people running businesses that are regulated or registered through the government. Which is why everything is so cheap. Unfortunately, this causes everything from tax deficits, to child labor issues, and health problems. Samuel was explaining to me that the people running unregistered businesses are not paying any income taxes (they practically don't exist), therefore the people who have official jobs and businesses get over-taxed to make up for it. However, if you were to regulate all these businesses prices would go up and there would be many people that couldn't afford to go through the process of registering their business. Samuel seemed somewhat bitter about this. What he does to make up for this "injustice" is every time he spends a certain amount of money on food, or the hotel for instance, he asks for a "factura" or invoice that shows how much he spent there and the taxes he paid. He submits all his facturas on a quarterly basis and uses that as a deduction for his taxes. This process is a real pain the ass--I know from having to wait for the factura to be processed. Apparently a receipt isn't good enough for the MX government. Everything here is a process and sometimes I think it's to purposefully make life more difficult.

Anyway, after a couple hours on the beach we hung out in the pool and then got ready to have dinner. Clau insisted on going off the beaten path and into the outskirts of Acapulco to find a seafood restaurant. It took us about an hour, but it was worth it. It was definitely what you would have expected, like something out of the movies. An open cabana sort of look to it, which tables and chairs, but no walls. I had a Michelada (beer mixed with lime juice and salt on the rim) and shared a couple different foods with my friends. We had sopes (they look like little round disks made out of fried tortillas with seafood and cheese on top), empanadas and a huge grilled fish.

When we got back we headed out for a night of dancing. We found a place that played all kinds of latin music. It had a dance floor, but we mostly danced around our table. We hung out there for almost 3 hours and then returned home to crash.

Although I was tired from the previous night, I got up at 9 am to go back to the beach. I was there by myself b/c no one else go up early enough to go out. I found myself a spot where I was between two umbrellas and decided to go for a dip in the water. Within 5 minutes of being in the water I turn around to see a huge wave break and drag all of my things into the ocean. Of course, I'm already in the water so I can't do anything. There were people running around picking up their things and my things...I was so anxious to get back to shore that instead of waiting for the right moment to get out of the water I rushed and ended up having a wave crash on me! That was scary--even if it was only 5 seconds that I couldn't breath and was out of control, it freaked me out. I got out of the water, ran to my stuff and made sure my camera was ok; I was lucky, that camera has been dropped and drowned and is still taking pictures. Everything else needed to dry out.

Anyway, I mentioned earlier how everything here is a process, well so is getting a towel. First, to get a beach towel, you have to leave your credit card with the front desk so that if the towel gets lost, they can charge you. They then give you a voucher that you have to turn into the pool boy to get a towel and you only get it back when you turn back in the towel. So, after having been almost drowned and all of my things, including the towel, are sopping wet, I decide to get a new one. Well, they don't accept towels in that condition (that condition being wet and sandy), so she tells me I have to take a hose to it and rinse it out. Last time I checked, the hotel was on the beach, there are going to be accidents like this, what kind of BS is that? Here I am looking like a drowned rat, sand all up everywhere and you won't give me a new towel?! Yeah, I was pissed. Luckily, with a little conversation and flirting with the pool boy, he cleaned it off for me and got me a new towel. I decided after that to just hang around the pool for a while. I'd had enough of the pool-market-place anyway.

At around noon I headed back up to the room to shower and prepare for check out. After the "check out--factura--I have to eat as slow as possible-valet parking" show we finally left at around 3:45 pm (check out was 1 pm, fyi). I arrived "home" and was grateful to be there safe and sound. This weekend was definitely an adventure...but hopefully the next time I go to a Mexican beach, it will be a more peaceful experience.

For more pics, click here.