My USA number is not working anymore so use my British number if you need to call or want to text me:
+44-7775-746861
It is largely switched off to avoid huge data charges but I do check it from time to time.
I may well get another local number at a later stage and will pass that on, if and when it occurs.
It is my last day in Acapulco so I decide to see the sights. I start with a boat trip from Playa Caleta to the Islet of Roqueta where there is a submerged bronze statue called the Virgin of Guadalupe. We see it through the glass bottomed boat but I dont get any decent pictures to show you.
As the only gringo on the boat they make me honorary captain for the journey, however I soon realise it is another opportunity to bleed some more cash out of me. It is a fun picture though so I dont mind the 100 pesos too much.
After the trip I take a taxi though the dust and choking traffic fumes to the beaches in front of the uber hotels lining the sea front at Playa Condesa.
To get to know Acapulco a little bit I start at the southern end of the bay and start walking back towards my hotel. It is my usual plan for getting to know places but it is so scorching hot I am seeking a parasol and some ice cold beers before I got much further than a mile.
Whilst guzzling these I notice something odd in the shallow water. It takes me a while but eventually I realise it is a turtle, but one with a huge humped back unlike the very flat ones I saw in Hawaii.
I have the GoPro with me, so abandon my gear and the beers to race into the water swimming out to it, getting loads of pictures. It didnt seem fazed by me at all and was in fact not doing much so I wondered if it might be tired or just enjoying the warm water to chill out for a while.
I am making such a fuss that an extremely attractive young woman comes over to see what I am going on about. With my encouragement she swims out and is thrilled when the turtle lifts its head and checks her out, much as I had already been doing! When we get back to the shore I ask if she would like to help me finish my beers and am delighted when she accepts my offer…
I have been reliably informed that the Mexican look I have been cultivating makes me look like I am from Guadalajara because of my greenish eyes. Armed with this information and feeling more and more confident with my limited Spanish I am trying to interact more and more with the locals.
I have been having lots of fun with the Receptionist at the hotel called Nayelie ever since I arrived when she put a wrist band on my arm to identify me as a hotel guest. Quick as a flash I asked if that meant we were married much to the amusement of the other staff who jokingly offered to sell her to me, all of which is much to the embarrassment of the lovely Nayelie.
I am planning on going to the Disco Beach club one evening because my Rough Guide to Mexico says it is ladies night and I want to go out and have at least some non surf related fun while I am on the mainland. However Nayelie is kind enough to warn me that it is not at all ladies night on a Wednesday but in fact the gay night for the club, which is about as far removed from my intended goal there as one might possibly get.
I dont really have a plan B because my hotel is quite far from the main area of town and I dont really know it at this stage. Sensing my disappointment though Nayelie tells me she is finishing work in a few minutes and then going out with her friends, and asks if I would like to join them. I jump at the chance and drive off into the night with them in a comvertible.
After check out a few places they take me to a great little club on the first floor of the main street called Terazo de la Contesa. As soon as I get in however and am really hanging out with loads of Mexicans for the first time it is blatantly obvious that any delusions I have been under about the way I look are way off the mark. I am better part of a foot taller than everybody else and feel like Gulliver in Lilliput.
However despite the lack of deep communication all round I have loads of fun in a evening full of salsa dancing, club beats, beers and laughing with new friends. I am shattered by 2am though and leave them to it. They want to come and help me get a cab to make sure I dont get ripped off but once armed with the correct price I tell them I am ugly enough to look after myself and head home, sneakily paying for all the beers by way of thanks for such an entertaining evening. It was only £10 and not to big a deal to me so I hope I did not offend them by doing so. Really, really lovely people.
The Hotel Mirador where I am staying at overlooks the famous cliffs that locals have been hurling themselves off for years. I have to be honest in that I thought it would it would be little different to diving from the rocks and cliffs at Angel Bay near Llandudno where I grew up, which I did personally many times.
However it is breathtaking stuff because not only do they dive but they also add in somersaults, flips, etc. of the quality that Tom Daley would be proud of.
You can just see the diver stood at the top of the cliff here in the spotlit show I watched, but also the streak at the bottom which was his mate who had just launched himself into the night sky. It should give you some idea of the scale, but also how far out it is necessary to hurl yourself.
Local diver Raoul Garcia was the most famous of them, having dived from the cliffs nearly 25,000 times. His skills were called upon by Hollywood many years ago when he was asked if he could dive from the Brooklyn Bridge in New York for the Johnny Weissmuller film ‘Tarzan’s New York Adventure’. He did it successfully but anybody who knows how high that is will find it hard to believe it is possible.
Things didn’t end well for Raoul though. He showed a little too much bravado in his seventies saying he could still do the dive even though he had not done it in more than 15 years. He was dead two weeks later!
The current bunch of nutters are always hanging about in the foyer of my hotel to keep warm.
However I do still think that going off the big rock at Angel Bay into a shoal of Mackerel swimming in the chilly waters of the Irish Sea would be an experience they are not ready for yet!
To be honest after two and half months of almost non stop movement I am shattered and have decided to stick around at the hotel all day today. I have a comfortable air conditioned room and fridge I stocked with beer so spend most of the day doing my best to empty it and sunbathing on my balcony to try and even out my truckers tan a wee bit (i.e. alway with my left side always away from the sun.) This is the view down to the tidal pool from there.
I am way behind on the blog at this point, but didn’t have much enthusiasm for it and need a day off everything. (This is written well after the events.) After baking for several hours I go down to the tidal pool which floods and drains with each tide. I take the GoPro down and chase fish around for an hour to cool off.
The hotel is very quiet because it is low season, but has a rich history of being visited by the great and the good because of its location next to the famous cliff divers (more on that to follow).
The La Perla restaurant there has a wall which they ask the celebrities to sign when they visit. The picture above shows Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardner.
Big Clint is in the middle of this one.
My surfing connection is made because Gary Busey who starred in both Big Wednesday and Point Break has also been here.
I am not sure if they will ever carve my own graffiti into the woodwork like they have one with the stars thougn
There are so many birds of prey in Mexico and in just about every terrain.
I snapped this picture of a Turkey Vulture from my balcony in Acapulco, but have seen them in the desert, the jungle, on the road and at the beach.
The vultures are everywhere and in such big numbers. I nearly had a crash in the car the other day when I came whizzing around a corner to see about twenty of them picking at the carcass of a dead dog in the road. I had to slam on the brakes to avoid butchering the whole scene.
However I have also seen many kestrels and eagles too.
To be honest I am surprised it has taken this long but I am a tad stricken with Montezuma’s Revenge, which is named after the Aztec Emporer who was killed during the Spanish conquest of Mexico, after he was captured by Conquistador Hernán Cortés
Think Delhi Belly, but wearing a Sombrero!
Enough said.
A universal plug costing £3 back in the UK is turning out to be the best investment I have made for this trip.
Hardly anywhere has a plug for the sink. Even some of the better hotels I have stayed in are often without one.
Washing of myself, my clothes, crockery, cooking equipment and culery woulld have been a nightmare without it.
Whilst staying at San Blas I ripped a huge chunk out of my thumb on one of the many rusty nails sticking out of the shack I was staying in. I had a tetanus booster before I left but am not worried about it.
However the locals insisted that I clean the wound with a freshly cut lime which is the closest thing to antiseptic that they usually have at hand.
Owwwwwwwwwww!!! and then more Owwwwwwwwwww!!! and then even more Owwwwwwwwwww!!! My thumb is however healing nicely.,
After Zihuatenejo I kept pushing south driving over a hydroelectric dam which looked like this one side.
And this the other
I arrived in Acapulco just as it was getting dark and traffic is a nightmare. All the roads are being dug up so a tram system can be put in and I am diverted this way and that trying to get to the hotel I have chosen to stay at.
It is really humid the fumes from the cars, and the crazy driving from the locals do not make this a right kind of warm welcome.
Upon arrival at the Hotel Mirador I am told to park my car so close to the front I am nearly in the lobby at the reception desk!
The security want it close so they can keep an eye on it, which I dont mind at all. However I realy have had enough of driving and decide that I am not getting back behind the wheel for at least two days.
