Acapulco Laid Back

Mexico City has a town square named Zocalo, so a number of Mexican cities have picked up the word and have their own Zocalos. The Zocalo in Acapulco is in the old section and right on Miguel Aleman. Nuestra Señora de la Soledad church marks the opposite boundary of this traditional market center.
Vendors set up their benches beneath the dense foliage, selling trinkets, hand crafts, honey and other good eats. Vendors with carts sell an assortment of breads and pastries. Ice cream shops and boutiques front onto the square, and some serious restaurants line adjacent streets.
Fred Meulemeester has some restaurant pointers on his Web site at http://www.fredsphoto.on.ca/acapulco2.htm. We picked up on the Restaurant San Carlos, and were not disappointed. The enchiladas verdes were delicious and reasonably priced. It’s hard to beat the atmosphere, too. It’s a mostly open-air establishment with colorful tables and friendly service.
Bring your camera. There is interest and color everywhere, not the least of which is the church. This stark white building is decked out with vibrant trim paint designs. Colorful fruit and breads on sale are great to photograph, but I recommend only the bread. The vendors will dole out your selections for three pesos each and hand them to you in a plastic bag. You can eat yours there or take it back to the hotel for breakfast or a snack.
After a day of shopping, dining or relaxing on a bench, walk to the edge of the square to take your bus or taxi back to the hotel. It’s an afternoon well spent.

There was a time when Acapulco first realized people would like to come and stay a few days by the ocean and enjoy the view and the evening breeze. Tourist hotel construction started about 70 years ago on the rocky finger of land that curves around and forms the protective barrier for Acapulco Bay. Only later did the Golden Zone hotels, located down-coast from the main city, make Acapulco into the Miami of the Pacific.
Alba Suites hotel is on a cliff overlooking the bay, giving visitors a magnificent view of the port, the yacht club and the Golden Zone across the water. There are 250 rooms in this family-friendly resort, distributed through seven white, low-rise, stucco buildings. Avoiding the glitz and convenience of the Golden Zone, Alba Suites offers bargain room rates for those who have made their bundle and intend to keep it.
Now for truth in advertising. Not all rooms have the good view. Six of the buildings are located on the flats at the top of the cliff. It’s not guaranteed you will see the ocean from there. The seventh building has five floors stacked along the cliff side, facing the bay. That’s where you want to be.
Forget about the ADA here. You will need your legs. Entrance and exit are at roof-top level, and the elevator does not go to the roof top. You will need to climb one story up to get to the stairs that lead to the pedestrian bridge that goes up and over the street to the main hotel. On the upside, the view from your room and the breeze off the bay make it all worth while.
Bring your Spanish to Alba Suites. The staff can get out a few words of English, but they seldom find this necessary. Few foreigners stay out on the peninsula, and those that do are not necessarily English. However, the friendliness and helpfulness of the staff are everything you would want. Just be prepared to make yourself understood.
Having basic kitchen facilities in the room is a great convenience. We did not use the stove cook top—the microwave oven was perfectly adequate for making tea for breakfast. There is a coffee maker but no counter top to set it up and no place to plug it in without unplugging the microwave oven. The hotel is mindful of the hazards of drinking the tap water, and they provide jugs of purified water for the guests. Take the plastic pitcher they give you and fill from the supply near the elevator landing. We learned shortly to dial the refrigerator back slightly to keep ice from forming in our water pitcher.
There are seven sparkling pools, and the grounds are a tropical paradise. Palm trees, of course, but also bougainvillea and hibiscus. All very neat and well-maintained.
There is a nice restaurant, a bar, as well. The restaurant has both indoor seating and tables outside, under umbrellas and palms, next to one of the pools. We tried the restaurant and went back a second time for the chicken enchiladas.
Take the elevator down to the ground floor, and you are half way to the ocean. Another 100 feet down the stairs, past the crazy water slide, and you are at the dock and the dock-side bar. You need to do this several times a day to keep in shape and also to get some water level photos.
Family friendly means lots of kiddos. Bring the young ones. They will have a blast.
Now some cautions. As mentioned elsewhere, the Hotel will take U.S. dollars, but they seem to have settled on an exchange rate earlier in the year and printed up a sign. That the Canadian dollar would buy more pesos than the U.S. dollar indicates the sign was printed in a previous era. When exchange houses in town were offering 13 pesos for a dollar, the hotel was giving 9.5. Spend pesos at the restaurant.
Family friendly does not mean quiet. A pavilion at the cliff top is the designated night club. Don’t plan on going to bed before ten in the evening. Sometimes later.
Some age was showing. While our appliances were new and in top shape, a cabinet door was in need of repair.
The hotel may possibly be operating with the original set of bath towels. House cleaning would provide fresh towels of equal quality whenever we indicated we through with one. In order to get bath towels of suitable quality we found it useful to check out beach towels, which were newer, larger and fluffier.
When you order beer at the restaurant you need to make the waiter understand what brand. Else it will be assumed you want Corona.
A word about Mexican beer: When Americans think beer, what mostly comes to mind is Milwaukee or even Germany, The Netherlands or Belgium. Think Mexico. This country has some of the finest brews on the continent. Here are my choices: Carta Blanca, Dos Equis, Tecate, Oso Negro, Modelo Especial, Bohemia. Corona is supposedly the most imported beer around the world. But I do not like it.
I need to remind travelers they are trading location for convenience. The neighborhood is quiet, the view is spectacular, but the bus does not stop at Alba Suites. It’s a quarter mile walk down the hill to Miguel Aleman to catch the bus and a quarter mile back up the hill at the end of the day. Else you can catch one of the VW taxis that run by the lobby door about once a minute.
Spectacular Caleta beach is a half mile walk away, down the hill, of course. Caleta is lined with dining, both casual and serious. It’s also great for lounging and sunset photos.
We booked our room on-line and paid in U.S. dollars. Compared to other locations the rates are a bargain—less than $80 per night, but not during prime weeks. Go to the Alba Suites site at http://albasuites.net.

The name comes from the Aztec "Tlacho," meaning "the place of the ball game." The game involved two teams, each trying to get a ball through a hole. The game often took the good part of a day, and the first team to score was the winner. The winning team captain was sacrificed by having his heart cut out with a jade knife. For some reason the game never caught on, but the Spaniards incorporated the city of Taxco in 1532. It is preserved today as a historic colonial city.
In later years director John Huston took his crew there to film scenes from the 1948 classic "Treasure of the Sierra Madre." It is here Humphrey Bogart, Walter Huston (father of John), and Tim Holt outfit themselves for gold prospecting in the nearby mountains, and it is here the three bandits are executed by federal police after they try to sell the mules they have taken from Bogart after killing him on the trail. Sometimes modern times are no less grim than ancient ones.
When you say Taxco (closest pronunciation: tasko), you should think silver. There are seven silver mines in and near the city, and Taxco has over 2000 shops retailing silver products. Take the roofs off, and this place would glitter in the sunlight.
Taxco is not close to anywhere. It’s several hours from Mexico City or from Acapulco. In this case, getting there is part of the fun. Taxco is about 5900 feet up in the Sierra Madre del Sur (approximately "mother mountain of the south in my Spanish). I have taken the tour previously from Mexico City, and my foremost memory is a lurching bus ride over switch-back mountain roads. Coming up by passenger van from Acapulco was much more enjoyable, and the scenery was memorable.
Visitors are treated to the spectacle of a city of 75,000 clinging to the mountain slopes on all sides. Historic preservation requires the traditional clay tile roofs and absolutely no sidewalks. The center historical attraction is the Baroque style Santa Prisca Church. The church was constructed in the 1700s, funded entirely by Jose de la Borda, a Frenchman who made a fortune mining silver. The design and execution of the construction of the church attest to the lavish wealth expended by its grateful benefactor.
We booked our tour before leaving home in Texas—about $100 per person. Lunch was included. Our actual experience attests to some financial realities of 2008. We later learned what we already suspected: tourism was way down, and tours were not even close to filling up. The tour driver showed up on time Monday morning, noting his other passengers had canceled out. I suspect the reality was they had not been able to book a full van, but in the event, the driver was fully prepared to take the two of us for the tour. Instead, we elected to put off the tour until Wednesday so they could make up a full van.
On Wednesday four American tourists set out for Taxco in an assembly that made more economic sense.
Another aspect of economics became apparent in Taxco. There is little doubt these tours are subsidized by the silver industry. Our first stop in Taxco was a silver shop where we were given instruction in the history and the mechanics of silver production. We were also given ample opportunity to make purchases. Besides the historic and scenic attractions we got to see in Taxco, we were treated to two additional silver retail facilities.
So, it turns out that a trip to Taxco is really about silver. I will give you the benefit of my experience and wisdom:
Silver in Taxco is high quality. Taxco’s reputation is based on the industry, and there is a strong interest in maintaining public confidence. Supposedly all articles are hand crafted, which can mean the process does not involve automatic machinery. The standard of quality in Taxco is 92.5% silver, alloyed with zinc (no longer copper). It is said not to tarnish.
Do not buy on a tour. Are you going to spend 15 minutes in a shop and purchase a full silver set? Not a good idea. Purchase a silver bracelet or necklace or some ear fobs, but if it’s a serious purchase you plan, then prepare in advance. Know what you want, know the equivalent value, and be prepared to comparison shop. And to bargain. When you find what you want, pay cash or use your credit card. The shops will ship back to the U.S., but you will have to deal with customs.
All that aside, touring some of the major shops is a thrill to take home. While many of the craftsmen are home grown, others come to Taxco to study and to work. Many exquisite works in precious metal are on display to admire and to purchase. Linda de Taxco is proud to display a magnificent collection of award winning pieces, and they allowed me to photograph them. See the photos. If you can’t make it to Taxco, Linda de Taxco has outlets in Acapulco, Mexico City and San Antonio, Texas.

Starting with the construction of the Hotel El Mirador in the 1930s, the fishing and seaport city of Acapulco has been a growing tourist attraction for Norte Americanos and other tourists from Mexico and around the world. From the 1950s through the 1970s it was the vacation resort in Mexico. Since then, the blossoming of tourism in Cancun, Puerto Vallarta and Mazatlan has eclipsed some of Acapulco’s shine. Which was something that brought me there in late 2008.
Newer hotels line the Bay in the Golden Zone, and the shore further down the coast beyond the mountains is becoming a vast city of glitzy resorts. My own choice was Alba Suites in the "traditional" section, out on the peninsula. English is a second language here, where most of the guests are from Mexico or nearby countries. The streets are mainly residential, and time share vendors hardly ever venture to come. It’s Mexico.
There’s a lot to offer in Acapulco. Nightclubs abound, and there are fishing cruises, parasailing and diving. We skipped all that. After a non-stop year our plan was to kick back for a week, do some photography, catch up on some reading, sleep and togetherness.
We did take the day trip to Taxco. Having been there 20 years ago, we wanted to revisit and see what had changed. See the related article. Also see the movie Treasure of the Sierra Madre.
The advantage and the disadvantage to being out on the peninsula is the isolation. It’s a bus or taxi ride to the Golden Zone or even to the city center. Casa de cambio (exchange house)? What’s that? Everybody out on the peninsula already has his own pesos. And that is the end of the disadvantages.
Five pesos (about 40 cents) gets you a bus ride into town. Waiting for a bus? You don’t even need an egg timer. The privately owned and operated (and government subsidized) buses sometimes seem to come down the street nose to tail. No need to buy a ticket. Just hand over some pesos and get change on the spot. More comfort? Take one of the VW taxis for a few pesos more. Stick out your hand and flag one down.
Walking distance (about a half mile for us) from the hotel is exiting Caleta Beach with its booming restaurants and marvelous sand. Be prepared, however. Alba Suites is on a cliff overlooking the bay, and the bus does not go up this hill. Burn of a few calories from your Caleta Beach meal.
The view from Alba Suites is absolutely stunning. The view from our balcony took in all of the bay, including the adjacent yacht club and nearly the entire city on the opposite shore.
Grandfatherly Advice
The Web site Acapulco.com is an excellent source. Prior to our trip we booked the Taxco trip and airport transportation through companies listed there. See also Fred Meulemeester’s site at http://www.fredsphoto.on.ca/acapulco2.htm. Fred heads down to Acapulco on a regular basis and likes to share his experiences and tips.
If you want to get away from that mid-west blizzard, this is the place. The tour salesman in Acapulco told us December is too cold. We begged to differ. T-shirts were soaked with sweat after a few minutes of afternoon walking. Good news: Evenings in Acapulco are invigorating. Our balcony at Alba Suites was ideal for breakfast, a late night snack and even lunch.
Get some pesos. American money is good, but cash register drawers want local money. If you stay out on the peninsula you will need some pesos for the bus to get into town to get some pesos. We solved this problem on arrival by hiking down to the hill to the main street and buying groceries from a local store. They took dollars at a reasonable exchange rate and gave pesos. The many casas de cambio in the Golden Zone give varying rates, but the best we found was Consultoria Internacional. It’s right on Costera Miguel Aleman toward the down-coast end of hotel row. There are Oxxo stores (Mexico’s answer to Seven-Eleven) everywhere, and they take dollars. However, Oxxo’s business is selling stuff and not changing money. Be reasonable and buy a bunch of stuff.
The hotel will change money. You do not want to do this. When the official rate was 13.5 pesos to the dollar, Alba Suites was giving 9.5. Consultoria Internacional was giving 13.0. Oxxo was giving 12.8. Rates (except at the hotel) updated daily as the dollar settled in for a long winter’s nap.
Take the bus. Nobody lives forever. The route is marked in tempera on the front window. You want the Caleta, Hornos, Zocalo route. You do not want the route that includes "Rio." This takes you on a detour through narrow city streets. Fares vary. I once gave the driver ten pesos (for two people), and he gave me a peso change. I saw another bus charging 5.5. One bus was air-conditioned. Most are not, except for the special tourist buses.
Regular shared-ride airport shuttles do not go out to Alba Suites. It’s an extra charge, and it’s not a shuttle. We booked two round trip fares in advance for a total of $90 plus Texas sales tax.
We booked our hotel, airport transportation and the Taxco day trip on the Internet and paid in U.S. dollars.