Leaving the compound on the weekends was pretty much unappealing when you feeling beaten to a pulp, having to study and maybe, just maybe, relaxing a bit. Other than a handful of dinners out, I never saw anything here other than the hotel. Seems lame, I know. Hard to explain, really. (For anyone planning to come: More reason to learn your dialogue ahead, then you and the two others who know it before you come can go and play ☺)Kudos to my lovely girl Jill who got us ‘out of the house’ today. We had room service breakfast and a leisurely morning (yes, I opted out of the yoga class at 9:30 and the advanced class at noon) we headed out around 11:30. The smartest $50 we could spend was dropped on Ruben, a lovely cabbie whose services we rented for 4 hours (along with his cab) to take us around Acapulco. Jill did the research and the two of them blathered on in Spanish working out the route for our touristy day.
We started with the uber-famous cliff-divers. Now, I’d had mixed reviews, and in the end, we were glad we did it the way we did. It’s way on the other side of Acapulco, so it takes a good while to get there (50 minutes). There were two options - $40 for two, or $7 for two. We paid $7. It started at 1 p.m. and around 8 guys dove each one getting higher and higher on the cliff. It was pretty amazing to see – and for $7 and 20 minutes of my time, it was a good spend of energy. At night, apparently, torches are involved ☺
Next stop was the throwback Flamingo Hotel, built by Red Skelton and some other Hollywood bigshots with a focus on Johnny Weismuller of Tarzan fame, who had a big round room/suite, which is still there today. It is touted as the “Hollywood gang hideaway” from 1950 – 1984. Ruben walked us around and showed us the bushes shaped like jungle animals, various views, helped us pick mangos off the tree and gave a good overview of the kitsch that abounded. It was a fun stop, just a few minutes past the cliff-divers.
After that was the town square, a flea market and then a veggie/fruit market. We were started to feel a little spent but had fun walking around and seeing the weird foods and other goodies. We didn’t buy anything, but it felt fun to be in “old” Acapulco and see local people doing their thing.
We got back to the Fairmont around 4 and had some pool time. Greg was walking around pouring tequila out of the bottle into the mouths of many yogis; I partook if only for the photo op – it was truly just a splash. Jill and I ordered snacks and relaxed by the pool for a bit before dinner. Packing ensued, and we had dinner at the ‘fancy’ place onsite with Todd & Christian - what fun to order a glass wine with the steak! Our server took a ton of Bikram classes, 72 of the 94 we did! All workers at the hotel were invited to take the yoga for free. He loved it, hadn’t ever done yoga before, and now plans to take training in the fall. How cool is that?
We fly out at 11:35 a.m. tomorrow!!! YAY!
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Photos: Cliff divers in action; Flamingo Hotel; Old Acapulco; and my poser shot of me with a splash of Greg's tequila (I'm not exactly a drink from the bottle kinda girl!)... :)
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