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After leaving Puerto Vallarta, we made the four-hour journey south to the seaport town of Manzanillo. Due to the difficulty in finding a suitable bus time out of town, we ended up staying for just two of the three nights we had booked in order to take the onward bus to Zihuatanejo. This was our first overnight bus journey in Mexico and we had read that they can be precarious due to the long distances involved on poor quality roads. One of the hazards is driver fatigue but we were lucky in that respect as ours had brought a mate along for the ride who kept the driver entertained by showing him YouTube videos. It’s a questionable tactic that this is the most sensible way to ensure his mind was sharp and alert. It did keep drowsiness at bay, although his concentration on the road became less of a priority. As we weaved our way through the jungle, feeling every twist and turn, pothole and speed bump, Laurel and Hardy upfront had decided to crank up the air conditioning as high as possible to make sleep almost impossible. On top of that, the bus was frequently stopped at security checkpoints where
the Federal Police conducted on-board searches that obviously required their torches to be shone in everyone’s faces. The inspections are part of increased security measures on this particular highway as it took us through the heart of Michoacan state, a notorious drug trafficking route.
We arrived in Zihuatanejo at 5 am, and as the reception at our accommodation didn’t open until 8 am, we were forced to wait in the arrivals hall of the bus station, which are wonderful places to kill some time at that hour. The town’s main beach Playa La Ropa has achieved fame as the destination that Andy and Red were heading for at the end of the Shawshank Redemption and most of the local businesses have cashed in on that particular gold mine, despite the fact that none of the film was actually shot here.
From Zihua, we continued south down the coast to the city of Acapulco. We had been debating the decision of whether or not to include it as part of the trip as the crime statistics provide pretty grim reading and again, the US travel advisory places it alongside Afghanistan and Iraq on its threat level. The reputation of
the authorities in the City has been tarnished in recent years, notably when 40% of the police force was dismissed after failing anti-corruption tests; the fact that Acapulco recently topped the table of homicide rates in a country that had 30,000 murders last year was something for us to consider, but the reality is that unless you have come over to Mexico to establish yourself in the drug trade, it’s unlikely to affect you. Mexico is experiencing a tourism boom at the minute yet whereas the likes of Cancun, Playa del Carmen and Puerto Vallarta are flourishing, Acapulco – formerly known as the ‘Pearl of the Pacific’ - seems to have been left behind. The drug wars of the previous decades have taken its toll on the flow of international visitors and, upon arrival, it was clear that the city’s tourism industry has been drastically affected. There were signs of its former glory dotted around with oceanfront hotels and restaurants once frequented by the likes of Marilyn Monroe, Frank Sinatra and Elvis, that have long since gone out of business. The beachside properties are now overgrown and abandoned with a forlorn, eerie atmosphere around the whole place; we seemed to
be the only guests staying in our hotel. The strange thing was that the remaining cafes and restaurants insisted on charging some of the highest prices we'd encountered so far in Mexico, despite being deserted. Nevertheless, it’s impossible not to have sympathy for the locals who have had their livelihoods taken away through no fault of their own as a result of the troubles in the region. The city doesn’t have the same vibrancy of the rest of the places we have visited in Mexico, everywhere we went the mood seemed muted; the people are as friendly as anywhere else, but the atmosphere was very low-key in comparison. The scarcity of international tourists in town became apparent one day in particular when a kid chased us down the beach to ask if he could interview us for a school project; explaining that he needed to include English speaking tourists in his assignment which were evidently in short supply. One of the biggest attractions in Acapulco is watching the famous cliff divers of La Quebrada who put on three daily shows, the origins of which dates back to 1934. The four divers scale the cliffs before plunging 35 metres into a
narrow cove that measures just 14 metres wide, they even put on a night performance where they complete the dives using torchlight. On one of the evenings, we signed up for a sunset cruise that took in Santa Lucia Bay and the cliff side villas once owned by the likes of John Wayne, Hugo Sanchez and the mansion in which JFK spent his honeymoon. The Sierra Madre del Sur mountains form the stunning backdrop of the bay and, viewed from the water, the jungle-green hills contrast with both the high-rises lining the shore and the 11km of crescent-shaped beaches and coves in the foreground - it reminded us of Copacabana in Rio and Waikiki in Honolulu – that view alone completely vindicated our decision to visit.
Continuing south down the Pacific coast, our next stopover was the surf town of Puerto Escondido. The length of the drive was extended to seven hours, courtesy of a series of speed bumps on the highway; someone had posted on trip advisor that there are 157 in total, I don’t know how they came about that information, but I'll take their word for it. PE is a laid-back town populated by Aussie surfers
who mainly visit to experience the ‘Mexican Pipeline’, a nickname it has inherited due to its resemblance to the famous Banzai Pipeline of Oahu’s north shore, which routinely tops a poll of top ten surf spots in the world. Our hostel was lively, an atmosphere that was perpetuated by the pool bar offering a Happy Hour that stretched the meaning of the phrase, running from 11 am until 6 pm - not that anyone was complaining. On one evening, we were watching the sunset from the roof-top palapa with a couple that we met from Charleston, South Carolina - a place that is now firmly on our list of future places to visit. The sky was filled with parachutists making their descent onto the beach when two collided. One of the parachutists suffered the worst of the impact and dropped fifty feet to the ground. The noise it made sounded almost like a thunderclap, which as we discovered later, was the noise of the parachute collapsing. We subsequently found out that the victim was a tourist from Mexico City and she had died at the scene; it was a story that made its way into the news back in England
and created a sombre mood around town. A couple of days later we were on our way into the centre when we passed two blokes with machine guns who got out of a car and walked into the office of the skydiving company, as people frantically scatttered from their path to the other side of the road. We’ve no idea what was going on but they didn’t look like the Police, and they definitely didn’t look like they were potential skydivers.
Mazunte was our last stop on the Pacific Coast, another small beachside town that caters to backpackers, and here we spent most of our time in hammocks reading and familiarising ourselves with the Mexican culture of siesta time. This idle existence was shattered when we moved to our next accommodation on the outskirts of town and found ourselves living next door to a travelling circus that sprang into life at 8 pm every night - the ultimate noisy neighbours.
Our only option to get to our next destination, which was Oaxaca City, was another seven-hour minibus ride. We departed at 9am and in true Mexican style, by 11 am everyone on board was asleep; as I was
about to point this out to Melissa, I realised that she’d nodded off. After covering 885 miles of the Pacific Coastline from Puerto Vallarta to Mazunte, we left the ocean behind to head inland, knowing that the next coast line we’ll see will be the Gulf of Mexico in a few weeks’ time.
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D MJ Binkley
Dave and Merry Jo Binkley
Amazing cliff divers
We've been to Acapulco and watched this.... famous yes, a bit crazy... probably... but great to watch.