Day 20 - Romana Palace, Acapulco

The number 1 attraction for us on our rest day, was to see the cliff divers of Acapulco. Everyone knows about these guys, bloody nutters, and we wanted to get the full experience. However, it was still super-hot and whilst we were happy to ride the bikes over to the location where they do the diving, we were not that keen on watching the earlier shows during the day, as it was just too hot to be out and about. We wanted to be at the beach, or by the pool, with a frosty beverage. From our experience the day before we knew the main beach wasn’t great for swimming as the water was a bit dirty, although the beaches themselves look fabulous. But before setting out for the day, we wanted to take a ride around town in the morning before it got too hot to see what we could see. We rode up to a high point across the bay from the hotel to get a great vantage point to look down on to Acapulco Bay and from that height, it looked great. It was only when you looked closer and went down onto the main drag along the beachfront when you could really see the damage. It was still very pretty, but just a bit tired and in need of some attention. We were also quick to notice that we were the only gringos we had seen the whole time the day before. It is clearly not the tourist destination it once was, but we made do and headed for the opposite end of the main beach than we had spent time at the previous afternoon. It was very nice, and again, we were offered a seat under an umbrella, very nice. We ordered 2 beers, which should cost around MXN75 each, but when we wanted to leave, the chap said we owed him MXN250 for the chairs and the umbrella, as well as the beers. I had a bit of a struggle with this as there was no clarification from him that we would have to pay for the umbrella and the chairs and that he should have explained that before he offered them to us. Another chap come over and tried to mediate, but in the end, I gave him MXN200 (because that’s what I had), and we settled on the fact that I was just some dumb gringo who didn’t know how things worked.

We were aiming for a different part of town where we hoped we might find some small coves and beaches to chill out before the cliff diving started at around 7pm. However, these little coves and beaches were not only absolutely rammed with people, but they were dirty, and little appeared to have been done to tidy up after the hurricane. There were still trees lying around and boats smashed up in car parks, and just a general sense of decay. We both started to get a little frustrated as riding around in the heat and then not finding anything was becoming disheartening. We hadn’t eaten lunch yet and as it was getting well into the afternoon, we decided to pack in our exploring, which was pretty disappointing, and head back to the hotel for a swim in the pool, before cleaning up and heading out for the cliff diving.

We had found that there is a restaurant called Le Perle, which has a fantastic view of the divers, right from your table. It cost MXN200 per person and that got you 1 local beer, so not too bad, and the food was pretty good too. It got quite busy, and we stayed for around 2 hours, so got to watch 2 sessions of diving. It is mad impressive what these guys do, and not something that I think I would ever have the gonads to try. Jorik even managed to get some drone footage of the area, which was great, but used up too much battery before the divers started, so we didn’t get any drone footage of them diving. It was a great evening and probably saved our experience of Acapulco, which until then had been shear disappointment. Back at the hotel, we popped down to the local bar to see if Paco was about for a nightcap, but as he was clearly not working, we headed back to the hotel for a good night’s kip.