Acapulco: Part Deux

On top of Palma Sola - The bay of Acapulco in the background.

So I last time I left you all, we were at Palma Sola, with their crazy smiley faces. But that was only the first half of the day, our second half of the day included a visit to to Old Acapulco, and the clavadistas de la quebrada, which are the world-famous divers that climb, and then jump from a sheer cliff into a narrow patch of water. Before going to Acapulco, I asked my home-stay family and co-workers at the hospital where I'm doing my internship at what they would recommend to me, and almost unanimously I was told to go see the divers at la quebrada, which in Spanish means gully. After Palma Sola, and before la quebrada, my friend and I headed over to downtown Acapulco and visited the main town plaza (zocalo) and then from there, headed over to the beach in Old Acapulco.

As I said last time, we had heard that Acapulco was really dangerous, though we didn't really know what to expect. One thing that me and my friend Lily both heard was to stay away from the zocalo. But after two days of relative security and not dying, we decided to test our odds and head on over to the presumed killing grounds, or so we were led to believe. We took a bus down from the archaeological site of Palma Sola to the zocalo. Just the bus ride itself was an experience, riding this HUGE vehicle as it delicately weaved its way past cars, children and puppies down the mountain into the main city. When we arrived at the zocalo, we found that the zocalo was not in fact actually strewn with dead corpses and bullet shells (we didn't think we would). The zocalo was actually really pretty, and spoke a little to its colonial, though albeit tropical history. Giant palm trees and ferns dotted the zocalo, which led way to colorful colonial-era church:

Pascual chillin' in the zoc.

Colonial-era church 1

Colonial-era church 2

Adentro de la iglesia

Downtown Acapulco

Cortes y La Malinche

Viva la revolucion!

After the zoc, we headed over to the  packed beach, where we found people with platters on their heads selling fresh oysters, fried platanos, and other deliciously unhealthy goods as cumbia and salsa music blasted from a stage from behind:

We stayed there until night, and then walked our way back to La Quebrada to watch the divers do their thing. I was surprised by how many people were there, I didn't know that it was THAT popular. We got our tickets and headed down the steps to the best viewing spot. Before the divers took to the cliff, a video was projected onto the cliff (it was really neat) detailing the history of La Quebrada and Acapulco in general. The history of La Quebrada goes back hundreds, if not thousands of years ago, and was a long tradition of the indigenous Yope people of present-day Acapulco. The divers are chosen as children and train rigorously all year long to stay in shape. One of the traditions of the divers is that they would pray to Tonantzin, who was a major female deity in the Aztec religion and pre-Hispanic society at large. Today her image has been replaced by the Virgen Mary of Guadalupe, who is basically a Christian reincarnation of Tonantzin. I could write at least a who blog post just on syncretism of the Catholic and Mexican indigenous religions. Anyway, after the video, the divers descended into the water, and then climbed up the sheer cliff, just to jump off of it. To top it off, all of the divers were young, from 12 to 20-something. A lot of people in the crowd gasped in horror as these young men and even children climbed the cliff. People straight up screamed when then dived into the water. I'm happy to say that all of them survived, and the experience was really cool. Here are the pikchas (and video):

 

The day after was pretty chill. We visited a little port town just outside of Acapulco called 'Puerto Marqués', which is a popular destination for Mexican tourists. Me and Lily were the only 'lighter-skinned' people there. Haha. It had a lot of boats in the harbor, but the water was so crisp, clear and beautiful. It was packed with people, but didn't have the tourist feel to it. Pictures proceed:

The rest of the day was comprised of chillaxing more on the beach, watching the Super Bowl at a restaurant/bar that shot off confetti and played Queen's 'Will We Rock You' every time a team got a touchdown, and out night ended with my friend almost getting a public urination citation after relieving herself behind a rock (but in front of the police, yikes!). We did the Mexican thing, and just paid them what we had in our pockets, which wasn't that much. Haha. The next entailed even more sloth and skin cancer bathing, and then finally to Pie de la Cuesta, supposedly one of the most beautiful places to observe the sunset in Acapulco. To get there is about a half hour bus ride from the downtown area to chiller, more relaxed part of Acapulco. The sunset was gorgeous, amazing, beautiful and wonderful. Definitely worth the trip. The only thing was the waves were death machines that day. The beach on Pie de la Cuesta isn't really bay, so there's no protection from Mother Nature's fury. I like playing in waves, but I quickly stopped after I was tussled a few times in the water, getting a lung's-full of delicious sea water. Here are the pictures!:

 

Overall, Acapulco is one of my favorite places in Mexico. It has beaches, culture, a city vibe and remnants of their indigenous cultures in tact. The people are friendly and the food is delicious. It's a pity that there is so much violence going on there. The tourism industry has visible been hit hard by the negative press; there were less than 10 guests in our two-story hostel. I didn't see as many foreigners as I had anticipated. To me, the city was safe, and well protected by both police and army soldiers. I felt safe, and didn't see any bloodshed whatsoever. So if you're feeling like having a truly amazing Mexican adventure and have the balls, go to Acapulco. You won't regret it. :)

- Bryce

Heads will roll: ACAPULCO

 

Welcome all, to my first adventure of 2011 being back in Mexico! Knowing that this is my last semester here in Mexico, I want to make sure that I get the most out of it and travel as much as my fund permit. In light of this fact, a friend and I decided to start to the fun early in the semester by taking the fullest advantage of our first academic holiday (Mexicans love celebrating holidays) which commemorated the signing of the Mexican constitution which meant that we had a Monday off, plus I don't have classes on Friday either, so BINGO, four-day weekend!!! My friend Lily and I decided to visit the beach resort city of Acapulco in the state of Guerrero, which actually has a reallllyyyyy bad reputation when it comes to narcotics-related violence and decapitations. In fact, so tidbits of information that I pulled from the State Department (fortunately after I had already come back from Acapulco) state that in early January of this year 31 bodies (many decapitated) were found within a 48 hour period in the city and two police officers were shot to death in front of tourists on the main boulevard where all of the resorts are located (and where we stayed).

A little macabre fun on the beach...

Anyway, besides the reports of beheadings, these facts were not known by us before hand and we went there blissfully ignorant of the apparent danger lurking in the city. The thing is though, I didn't see ANYTHING potentially dangerous or life-threatening during my 4-day stay in Acapulco besides the army caravans and machine gun, locked-and-loaded police officers that roamed around town. I actually found their presence a little comforting, in light of the ambiguous danger I had heard about. I found the city to be absolutely beautiful and is in fact one of my favorite places that I have visited in Mexico thus far.

Yes, the city is dependent on tourism just like my town Las Vegas, but also like Vegas, there is a city there and cultural things to do. I didn't find this type of atmosphere in the surpassingly beautiful Huatulco in the state of Oaxaca. Cool fact: Acapulco was founded as a port city and was used to transfer the riches the Spanish found in China and the Philippines to Spain via Mexico during the Colonial era, and one of the cool things we got the chance to do was visit the San Diego fort that protected the bay from pirates during Colonial times. The government has converted the fort into a museum of the city and had lots of cool artifacts from the Chinese riches that passed through the city. I also found out that the ever-popular-in-Mexico mango is from the Philippines. It's cool how cultures fuse into one another. Here are a few pictures:

Oh look, there's Pascual popping up again! The museum was nice and I got to try the soda drink exclusive to the state of Guerrero known as Yoli; it's like Squirt but better, not as sweet and syrupy, its actually really refreshing and tried it a few more times during my stay there. So after the museum we headed up, WAY UP, to the ancient petroglyphic site of Palma Sola, named so after the neighborhood it borders. Another cool fact: The city of Acapulco is situated in the basin of a mountain range, thus, much of the city climbs up the side of the mountains. We wisely decided to take taxi up to the site because didn't know exactly where it was, and good thing we did, because to say that it was a climb is an understatement. Lily and I were half anxious half dumbfounded as the Taxi careened up the side of the mountain, blowing by neighborhood after neighborhood, and at times, I swear our vehicle was complete vertical. Let's just say that it would suck majorly to live on that side of town hike up / drive to your house everyday. We finally made it to the site and I was amazed by what I saw:

Most of these petroglyphs represent different spiritual ceremonies where the indigenous people of the Acapulco area, the Yope, danced and sang to please the gods so that the rainy season would come. Believe it or not, many of the petroglyphs also depict individual people, like elder tribesman and others who held power. I was taken aback by the smiley faces and the strange jellyfish-pokemon looking thing. Haha. Most of them were created around 850 - 200 BC, and I get super excited when I see things that are so old!

Anyway, that's enough for now. I'll update you all with a second part in a few days. Today is my birthday, holler!