Acapulco

Arriving to Acupulco is everything I dreaded and more! Ghastly dominating hotel after hotel and beaches so crowded you are tripping over people. It reminds me of how I felt about Las Vegas when Andy and I hitch hiked into that city 14 years ago.
We left the untouched wide open spaces and landed in similiar suffucating artists of scam city. Both have been necessary hubs and there is a fascination and disgust with it all. I hate the way we are preyed upon, its really the first time I have experienced this being here. People practically chase after us to give us taxi, restaurant or something else we dont want. Everything is way overpriced and the quality of goods is down from what it has been. Cut throat capitalism is thriving here. Funny because people flock here as a vacation retreat and it is the most stressful toxic place I have been. The hotels crowd the tame Acapulco bay you can hardly see the best part....the ocean.

So we found a dive of a place that was overpriced and haggled with the guy at the desk he made us pay extra for a TV that we DIDNT want and turned out NOT to work. Welcome to Acapulco.

Andy is remembering places he stayed here when he was 12 years old. He had a summer exhange with a mexican family and the father was a wealthy, overprotective (the norm here) father. They stayed at this fancy resort that we revisted today. Its plush!
it has a circular pool with a bar in the pool and amazing views ocean front. We took some photos and checked the prices. One night at this place is about 5 nights at our budget level rates.

We are heading out soon, we mostly just used this place as a practical layover. Easy access to internet, wash and hopefully a post office. I have been draging post cards around this whole time, unable to send them. We want to get to the beaches south of here less developed and less chaotic. We ought to be in Oaxaca Monday to start our Spanish class if that all works out.

The weirdest thing of all here is the big metal statue of Gandhi! He is walking in robes his gauntly legs, bones showing he has fasted and renounced longer than anyone could and still survive. This hindu saint is here in the country of excessive devout catholics, strolling down the most hectic consumeristic place in all of Mexico. I am trying to figure out why. i like that he is here. and that we are leaving soon.

We got our wash done finally. we will not be such stinky dirty Americans. we had 26 pounds of wash, i only had 3 items, and it cost 20 bucks.
oh all the taxis are VW beatles here, which seems impractical for travelers with lots of luggage.

Talk to you from Oaxaca.
love
d