Acapulco

I wrote this post almost two weeks ago but it got stuck on my iPod (I couldn't find any wifi to send it):

Well I managed to make it from Mexico city to Acapulco in one day. I've just pulled into this huge city in the passenger seat of a milk truck. Of course, I had no plans whatsoever to come to Acapulco...here's how it happened:

I took a bus to a small town about an hour south of the city for 5 pesos - about 40 cents. I debated just taking a bus all the way to Oaxaca but that would have cost about $40...cheap by US standards for a 6 hour trip but I'm on a budget and I keep hearing that hitchhiking is easy here.

So about an hour outside Mexico City I caught my first ride with a guy transporting wood. After about 30 miles he dropped me' off in a chilly mountain town covered in fog. My second ride was a man named Jesus in another work truck. Both men had three children, were around my age and had never traveled far from their region. Then a third short ride with two elderly men in an unbelievably old VW bug and a 4th on the back of a pickup truck filled with sheet rock and no tailgate. Three of us were in the bed, holding onto the detachable sides as sheet rock dust whipped our eyes. Finally I ended up at a place where lots of trucks stopped and I caught a ride (after a record hour and a half of thumbing) all the way to Acapulco with a guy named Alfredo. He drives a semi filled with milk for a huge company called Lala - their milk is everywhere in Mexico. Alfredo was great conversation. He spoke no English which was really nice, it meant we had to speak Spanish and had lots of patience. Several times he followed me' into lengthy digressions just to help me' understand a word. He wanted to pay every time we stopped and even pulled the truck over when we hit an especially breathtaking vista to show me the view. And we stopped several times to visit friends he had at familiar trucking rest stops, each time he introduced me as his Iranian friend. We had lengthy conversations (most of which I understood) about family, politics (he liked joking with me about weather I had bombs) sex. food and where I was going to stay that night. I think it troubled him that I didn't know, so he brought me to a crappy and overpriced hotel on the side of Acapulco where his delivery destination lay. I gladly stayed there and enjoyed a nearby meal of tacos al pastor - BBQ pork with a slice of BBQ pineapple, "verdurita" (means "a little vegetables" but is always diced raw onion and cilantro) lime and salsa.

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I'm writing this post in two parts; now it's the next day.

I Got a good night's sleep and hopped on a bus for Acapulco. It w as a long ride and the bus didn't stop for me' to vet on,e and an elderly man sort of jog-stepped our way on to the steps. It was a long ride and we crossed several tolls and tunnels before getting to the tourist section of town. Immediately upon stepping off the bus a man offered to help me find a hotel. I've been practicing my bartering and managed to get the extremely hot and cave like room for cheeper than a hostel. It has rained almost the whole day and was super hot. I occupied my time with sitting on the beach under a palm frond umbrella (in the pouring rain), walking the length of the boardwalk, seeing the movie Salt (which was really a pretty good spy movie) and I just finished chilling m with a bunch of folks I met at the youth hostile and now Im having a bite on a rainy sidewalk with a man playing a really great rendition of "dust in the wind" (Chris Dunkle, are you out there?) on the guitar. His accent makes it that much more fantastic. Tomorrow I'll head south down the coast.

Sent using my big thumbs on a tiny iPod

(Travel log at http://poetofthewastes.blogspot.com/)