Mexico has many many travel and vacation spots. And even 40 years ago many of them were famous get-away locations featuring Sun, Food, Music, Entertainment and The Ocean. One of the more famous ones is Acapulco. All the movie stars from the USA went there and the magazines were full of their doings and escapades. It was THE HOT SPOT to go to and getting reservations for hotel rooms was almost impossible.
Acapulco is located about 200 miles southwest of Mexico City on the Pacific Ocean and has beautiful beaches surrounded by steep hillsides and cliffs. The La Quebrada Cliff Divers are famous for their plunges from the high cliffs surrounding the bay, timing their dives with an incoming wave. The temperature is generally hot all year round and the tropical climate is totally different from that of the high altitude of Mexico City: hot and steamy.
One day Mom came in with great news! She'd managed to snag a two week reservation for the both of us at an inexpensive hotel near one of the beaches and just a short drive up a steep winding street. We started celebrating our good fortunes and planned for a wonderful vacation on a shoe-string-budget. I wondered if I would see any Hollywood Stars and we planned sight-seeing and other activities for our trip to the famous spot.
We packed and planned and finally the day of departure came and we loaded up the van with all the things we thought we would need for our stay. And off we went. It was a long drive through jungles and flatlands and finally we came over the top of the mountain and saw Acapulco Bay. It was fantastic! We went to our hotel, checked in and started unpacking the van.
[Of course, you know an adventure is about to happen don't you?]
As we unpacked for our stay, Mom began to look for the box of books she had planned to read on our stay. But it was no where to be found and after much searching there was only one conclusion: We had left it behind. We found one old paperback and that was all there was to read. There was dismay at the thought of nothing to read for two weeks. Books were our primary source of entertainment. We had no money to go to the nightclubs and as I was only 11 years old, I couldn't go even if I wanted to.
We talked about making the long drive back to Mexico City to get books but the cost of gas would prohibit us from returning to finish our vacation. Mom was in a quandary about "What to do Percy"? At last, it was decided that we would stay and enjoy what we could and if things got too boring we would leave early.
Our hotel was perched high on a steep hillside and though we could not see the ocean we could smell the salt air and if we listened carefully we could hear the faint sounds of the waves crashing on the cliffs nearby. We had a very nice room with no air conditioning but a nice big fan and there was a hotel restaurant that served simple standard Mexican cuisine. There was a swimming pool that was shaded by large trees and during the day most of the hotel guests hung out there.
During the day it was so hot that all we wanted to do was sleep thru the heat. I discovered that most of the hotel guests left the pool around 5:00 pm to go nightclubbing or pursue other interests and I could have the pool all to myself. The water was warm from the heat of the day and it wasn't long til I persuaded Mom to come swimming late late at night. We got the hotel manager to let us keep the pool lights on and we would swim from 10 pm to 3 am. When we were finally tired of swimming and lounging we would turn the lights off as we headed back to our rooms.
Our fellow visitors were friendly and we would often be offered fresh made cold lemonade when we came out to the common patio areas. The food in the restaurant was good and I enjoyed eating many many meals there.
But the problem of the missing books was soon resolved in an unexpected manner. Because we had nothing to distract us, Siesta Time became Prime Time and boy, did we enjoy our siestas! We slept all day long, only getting up for a meal at the restaurant before it closed for the evening then napping until the night came when we went for our swim.
Sleep, Eat, Swim, Sleep, Eat, Swim, Sleep, Eat, Swim.
That was the mantra for the entire two weeks of vacation. We did make a few forays down the main boulevards and along the beaches but we didn't stay away long. The lure of our warm pool and nighttime swims was too strong.
I didn't see any Hollywood Stars but I had a wonderful time swimming in our “private pool” pretending that the hotel was our "personal villa". Mom, slept and slept and never even read the one old paperback we'd found. She had not realized how exhausted she was from all the painting she'd been doing. And after the initial shock of not having books, we both relaxed into a wonderful mental state where nothing was more important than: Sleep, Eat, Swim.
Our two weeks passed quickly, more quickly than we imagined when we first arrived. And we were both sorry to leave behind our magical experience. As we drove over the top of the mountains we stopped and looked back one more time at the beautiful landscape and bay.
Mom said, “This has been The Best Vacation Ever!”
And I couldn't have agreed with her more!
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| Acapulco Bay |
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