During the Christmas break of my junior year in high school, it was time to go to Mexico and the beach again. I’d gone to Guaymas the previous year and was eager to do something similar again. Mexico was a big place, as far as I was concerned, and I’d just gone to one little piece of it on that trip. Once again, I was excited by the possibilities and the vast array of destination options.
I floated a vague idea for the trip out to various people during the fall, figuring a group of 3 or 4 would quickly come together. Initially, my primary concern was that there would be too many people who wanted to go. But my traveling companion from the Guaymas trip, Jake, was otherwise occupied, and several other people just flat-out said they couldn’t go. I was trying to figure out the flaw in the concept when David Barrow announced it sounded fun to him, and he wanted to go.
We spent several months working on logistics, but I ultimately realized we never developed a thorough plan for the entire trip. Nonetheless, we did plan the initial part of the trip. Barrow was going to be in New Mexico at his aunt/uncle’s house for Christmas. On the 26th, he would take a bus to El Paso. We’d rendezvous there and then take the train on to Mexico City. After spending a couple of days in the capital, we’d take a bus to Acapulco for some tropical holiday beach time before heading back to our homes in Denton. Fortunately, the calendar that year gave us a few extra days of vacation after New Year’s, which meant we would have plenty of time to enjoy New Year’s Eve in Mexico and still get back in time for the start of the Spring semester. In our minds, it was a flawless and thorough plan.
We felt well prepared when departure day arrived. Each of us had a backpack loaded with essentials, including Instamatic cameras, plenty of shorts and t-shirts, and sleeping bags. We also had about $200 in cash between us, which we figured would be enough to cover our food, lodging, transportation, and entertainment costs, while still providing a financial cushion for unforeseen expenses. It’s safe to say our packing was “minimalistic.”
Our travel into Mexico went smoothly. We met up in El Paso and took the train to Mexico City. After exploring the world’s largest city for two days (which included almost getting run over by a subway car), it was time to move on to Acapulco. We boarded our bus around noon, and after several hours, it descended from the mountains and dropped us at the sprawling resort’s central bus station. We got off, grabbed our packs, and headed for the beach. We weren’t entirely sure where we were going, but figured there would be a lot of hostels, hotels, camping places, etc., in the “central beach area” where we could set up base. After arriving at the water’s edge, we began looking for just the right place to park ourselves. Nothing jumped out at us as we walked along, but we figured a good place to stay was a detail we could deal with closer to bedtime.
Watching our funds, we avoided the initial drinking spree we’d been anticipating. Instead, we made a dinner of bolillos, an inexpensive Mexican bread that would become our #1 diet staple in the coming days.
The transition from sunset to darkness to late night seemed to happen quickly, and nothing firm had developed in the way of hotel accommodations during the evening. So, when it became time to bed down, we opted for camping on the well-manicured lawn located on the grounds of one of Acapulco’s finest hotels, the Princess. We’d seen it earlier, noted its layout, and right off the bat decided it would serve our purpose in a pinch.
We selected a spot to camp in the front entrance courtyard, next to a small clump of palm trees, laid out our sleeping bags, crawled inside, and within a few minutes were sound asleep, despite the annoying lighting and the persistent city sounds.
In the early morning, we awoke a bit earlier than we preferred by a coconut hitting the turf with a thud just a few feet away. Neither of us had considered the possibility of being beaned by a coconut while we slept. Initially, we tried to doze off, but the seed had been planted, and neither of us went completely back to sleep.
That didn’t matter, as it turned out, because hotel maintenance/security showed up at about 7:00, rousted us, and sternly told us we needed to pack up our camp and leave asap. We weren’t exactly sure why they were acting so harshly. After all, we were in Mexico, where we thought everything was possible, or at least permissible. Nonetheless, we hastily packed up as instructed and headed out onto the street, a little groggy from lack of sleep but still excited about what lay ahead.
We made the most of the situation and soon realized that getting an early start on finding indoor accommodations could help us be out on the beach by midday. After a short walk, we stopped at a small cafe and had some more bread, this time with eggs and coffee. After breakfast, we began trying to decide which hotel to choose, and after only a few tries, we realized there didn’t seem to be any vacancies anywhere. Who would’ve thought Acapulco would be busy between Christmas and New Year’s? We certainly hadn’t. We went from hotel to hotel, becoming less picky all the while.
Finally, in the late morning, we found ourselves at Langosta Beach and walked into a smallish, white-stucco hotel called Los Virelles. An older lady greeted us in the office and said there was indeed a room we could have. We didn’t think long or hard. The price was right, the location was decent, and a nearby beach was calling our names. We took it. She showed us to our room. After leaving us there, we put our packs down on the twin beds and eagerly changed into our beach attire. By this point, it was just after lunchtime. We walked down to the beach and suddenly found ourselves claiming our piece of paradise among a group of older Canadian tourists, who, by tradition, seemed to have staked out this less well-known section of Acapulco. It was a tranquil place, with only small, gentle waves. And compared to my experience in Guaymas the year before, I was excited to note that the water was warm and relatively clear.
Within an hour, we’d swum, sat in beach chairs, and had exotic drinks with fruit juice and umbrellas. After surveying the scene, we concluded things would likely start hopping more once the younger people woke up from their naps. And so, we had our own– right there, sprawled out on the sand. “Hopefully,” I remember thinking as I dozed off while lying there roasting, “we can at least get some color.”
We awoke and re-energized ourselves in the early afternoon. We waded out into the surf, had another drink on the still-tranquil beach, and decided to go back to the hotel to check on our stuff. We reasoned that after completing the room check, naptime would surely be over, and the beach would be crawling with international young people.
It seemed, however, that afternoon siestas never ended for the Langosta Beach crowd. Even later that afternoon and for the next several days, we chased but never caught our vision of what we thought Acapulco, beach, and Christmas Break would be. But we did see the cliff divers jumping off the rocks, walked by our first unconscious person lying on a city street, got to see Johnny Mathis perform live, and tiptoed our way across a beautiful section of coastline covered with human feces.
Suffice it to say, things didn’t always go precisely as our teenage minds envisioned, though we kept holding out hope. In retrospect, I can see that we were experiencing a real-life adventure of the kind that happens everywhere and always. The realities we encountered were more complicated than our fantasies. We didn’t fully appreciate this at the time, but the collision with reality left its mark, changing our perspectives permanently. From that point forward, I became open to the uncertainties and complexities of whatever would come next.
The week wore on, and eventually, New Year’s Eve arrived. By that time, we’d become determined to find a party. The scuttlebutt was that Pie de la Cuesta was where we needed to be. It was a happening place with endless beaches, big waves, and a bunch of beachside bars. And it was located only a few miles up the coast from Acapulco.
So, we loaded our backpacks with everything we needed to enjoy an overnight New Year’s Eve on the beach, including sleeping bags, cameras, and party clothes. We put a good bit of our remaining $65 into our pockets to pay for the festivities, although we figured we’d spend way less than that. We were excited about what awaited us and anticipated that our “side trip” would be a fitting way to end our Acapulco adventure.
As we prepared for the excursion, the motherly hotel manager got wind of our plans. Perhaps, this was a stroke of good luck, positive juju, or some other kind of intervention. I’m not sure. But whatever the case, she was honestly concerned about what we were up to and offered some free advice.
She made it clear that Pie de la Cuesta was not a safe place to go and initially suggested we stay in Acapulco and Langosta Beach. But she quickly realized we’d already made up our minds and were going to go. So, she shifted from pleading with us not to go to insisting we leave some of our essential items behind at the hotel. Fortunately, we heeded those words.
We took a cab out to Pie de la Cuesta and arrived midafternoon. The place was perfect, at least at first glance. Biggish waves crashed onto the sand. Young people in cut-offs or bikinis screamed when someone spotted big swells coming in. It was body surfing heaven. Beachfront bars lined the shoreline for as far as you could see, and only a few older people were sitting around tanning. Finally, we’d found what we were looking for.
Our only break from being in the surf that afternoon was an occasional beer as we sat shaded from the tropical sun beneath a palapa. Everywhere we looked, there were beach vendors with parrots on their shoulders and scores of young people moving in and out of the surf, all to the sound of Santana blaring from 8-track players. The setting was perfect.
Eventually, the sun sank onto the edge of the sea, and live musicians began taking over from the tape players in the beachside bars. Workers collected the chairs, and the beach emptied as people either headed back to Acapulco or into the bars for the night’s festivities. We staked out our campsite on the beach under a palapa, not far from the open doorway of what looked to be a particularly fun bar, an apparent hot spot for the partying soon to come.
We left our gear packed up, sat down on the beach, and leaned back against a post while the bar and its chosen band got organized. “No point in rushing to the party,” we reasoned. Besides, the sunset was magnificent, and the warm breeze kept us sitting under an ever-expanding star-filled sky. At some point, however, the sounds of the nearby party became irresistible, and we decided to join in.
Given the hotel manager’s words and our many years of beach travel in Mexico, we were especially wary of the various weird things that could happen. So, we carried our backpacks, stuffed with most of our belongings, up to the bar. We set them down against a wall, just inside the door, and in plain sight, where we could keep a close eye on them. At that point, we felt comfortable with the situation and went in and joined the party.
There was an open table in the middle of the room, so we walked over to it, sat down, and began ordering drinks. Our plan worked as envisioned until it didn’t. I think it was Barrow who was facing the doorway and supposedly watching the packs (or was it me?). At any rate, several drinks into the evening, one of us looked up and saw that both of our backpacks had disappeared. We almost levitated to the doorway, looking for any sign or indication of what had happened. Our first thought was that maybe a bar employee had just moved them somewhere. We asked around, and nobody knew anything. They were just gone.
We sprinted out through the doorway onto the beach and began looking in both directions under a now brightly moonlit sky. We saw nothing particularly suspicious- certainly no one running off with our packs. We were panicked and knew we needed to do something quickly if we wanted to rectify the situation. Just at that moment, an official-looking guy carrying a rifle and wearing a uniform of some sort showed up to help. “Thank goodness,” we both thought, “a policeman.” He would know what to do, we reasoned.
In our best Spanish, such as it was back then, we explained the situation. The uniformed man responded by turning on his flashlight and pointing it down at an apparently hot trail. He began running to the north, and we followed. There was an Air Force base not too far down the beach in that direction. And since the suspect(s) were apparently headed that way, it was just a matter of time till base security and local law enforcement took him/her/them into custody and solved the crime, we figured.
The cop (he was actually a paid vigilante who’d just bought the uniform to look official) led us running across the beach, following a set of footprints. Thousands of tracks crisscrossed the sand, left by the throng of beachgoers that day, and the tracker seemed confident we were following the right trail. To our untrained eyes, one set of sandy footprints seemed much like another, but we kept assuming the “policeman” knew what he was doing.
About 100 yards down the beach, our enthusiasm waned as we realized the folly of tracking anyone or anything on the footprint-covered beach. Besides, running on the sand was physically strenuous, so we finally came to a halt, told the “policeman” he was on his own, and turned back toward the bar. We didn’t completely abandon the idea that he would succeed in whatever he was doing, but we decided he’d need to do it without our help.
Once back at the bar, we stood in the doorway and surveyed the room, with the idea that we still might see something or someone suspicious. The band was going from one song to another. Servers scurried around, taking food and drinks to tables filled with young people, and the bartenders were working their butts off. In our absence, a couple had sat down at our table, and there appeared to be nowhere for us to sit. But then we noticed a lone gringo sitting by himself at a four-top. Our seventeen-year-old imaginations, fueled by multiple beers, decided he was somehow involved in stealing our packs, and since we needed somewhere to sit anyway, we thought, “What the heck,” and headed his way.
As we walked up to the table, we could tell he had a good, but not entirely believable, “slightly drunk” act going on. But he couldn’t fool us for even a moment. After a few strategic comments, he invited us to sit, which we did. A waiter immediately showed up, and the perp (he was somehow now a perp in our minds) ordered a round for the table and then pulled out a sizeable wad of cash to pay for it. He was obviously a man of means (probably due to his various criminal activities, as we ascertained), and since one of our immediate hopes was to get him to pay for some of our food and drinks, we were pleased to see him do so. “Paying for our night out is the least he can do,” we reasoned.
He bought the first few rounds, but inevitably, it became our turn. So, I stepped up and ordered, not wanting to alienate the stranger until we got to the bottom of the robbery. Before the waiter arrived with our order, I prepared to pay. I figured the total for the drinks would be about 20 pesos. So, I reached into my pocket and pulled out what I thought was a sizeable wad of pesos, but it turned out to be a single 10 and a single 5. Realizing I would likely need at least another 5, I got up and headed for my pack, where I had the rest of my pesos stashed. But then, part of the way across the room, I remembered that the money and the bulk of my belongings weren’t anywhere I could even pinpoint. “Whoa,” was all I could think.
I made eye contact with Barrow. He got up. I motioned for him to come near, and I said, “Do you have any cash?”
He nodded, yes.
“Thank God,” I thought.
Then, he said, “Twenty.”
I immediately did the math. I thought Barrow meant twenty dollars, which was about 150 pesos. At that point, I concluded we were rich. But then, he finished and said, “pesos,” and my heart sank. My 15 and his 20 made a total of 35 pesos. The drinks would probably be 20, and we needed to keep some cash for the trip back to Acapulco because we could no longer comfortably camp. Assuming the drink bill did indeed amount to 20, which would leave us with 15. Right off the bat, I concluded there would be no tip. And then I ciphered a little further and speculated that our transport would cost 16 pesos, which was one more than we had.
About that time, the aroma of burgers cooking on a nearby grill began filling the room. We hadn’t eaten since early afternoon, and the smell got our teenage mouth juices flowing. But we realized we had no money to spend on that sort of thing, or as it turned out, on anything other than the drinks we already ordered, and so we began resorting to alternative methods for dealing with our hunger. We tried suggesting nachos or something to the perp, hoping he’d order some food, and then we’d eat most of it. But he wasn’t hungry and didn’t take the suggestion. Nothing we tried worked, and we just kept getting hungrier by the moment. I’d never been in a situation like that before. It was becoming dire, but just as I began reasoning that at least it couldn’t get much worse, it did.
As I was bringing my hunger shakes under control, the waiter arrived with our drinks.
Diez y ocho (18),” he said, speaking Spanish of all things.
That was better than I’d projected, and I motioned to Barrow to pay with his 20, which he did. But then, he told him to keep the change. He tipped him. I was aghast as I considered the possibilities once again. “What if the bus is 8 pesos each and we only have 15?” I wondered.
Doing the arithmetic made my head hurt, so I decided not to think about it for a while. At least we had the Mai Tais, I reasoned. For the moment, all was good as we sipped on the drinks and swayed to the Santana knock-off music. But then, the cooks threw some fresh fish and chicken on the grill, and the band took another break. Suddenly, there was no band or dancers to look at, and the bulk of the patrons left their tables temporarily unoccupied as they took their own breaks. And to top it all off, the smells of cooking filled the air.
At that point, our attention turned toward the vacant tables, where half-eaten hamburgers, taco pieces, and big hunks of fish were left, sitting on partially empty plates, completely unsupervised. “What a waste,” I rationalized while flirting with the idea of eating some of the leftovers. But thankfully, I didn’t give in to my cravings and stayed in my chair. So, at that moment, the band was taking a break, a lot of people were taking bathroom breaks, and the two of us were getting hungrier.
Eventually, the band came back for another set, and the crowd returned to their tables. The perp ordered another round, and we let him pay once again. Then, the waiters started setting up serving tables on the dance floor. They covered them in white cloths and suddenly began bringing out platters of fish and tacos, along with various cheeses and bowls of chips. It was just cruel. Within moments, they’d set out a wonderful-looking New Year’s buffet, and we couldn’t even pay for it. Once again, we tried to get our perp/friend interested in some food, but, as before, he wasn’t hungry, and that didn’t work.
People got up, filled their plates, and headed back to their tables. Barrow got up and walked over to see what was on the buffet and what the cost was, as if that mattered. I didn’t want to torture myself, so I stayed put and went back to thinking about our packs.
Barrow asked the waiter stationed at the buffet what it cost, and he answered, “nada, gratis.”
My friend’s face lit up, and he motioned for me to come. So, I got up, walked over, and he said, “It’s free.”
Free food saved us, I decided. We grabbed plates and filled them with shrimp, the little tacos, hunks of cheese, and chips. We were only at our table eating for a short while before we headed back for seconds. After a few platefuls, we finally satisfied our hunger and went back to finessing the perp into ordering and paying for more drinks.
The band played Auld Lang Syne as the new year finally arrived. Our bellies were full, and we raised a glass of something as fireworks went off out over the water. By 12:30 pm, the place started clearing out. Some buses went back to Acapulco, but the last one left at 12:35, and we missed it. “What to do?” we wondered. There were plenty of cabs out on the street, but the fare was way more than we had.
As a last resort, we knew we could always lie down on the beach or in an alley in our clothes, sleep till morning, and catch the first bus to Acapulco the next day. Or… we could share a cab with the perp and let him pay for it. Given the circumstances, it was a no-brainer, so we opted to do the latter.
Back in the bar, the perp/friend was still seated at the table. But he’d begun to feel under the weather and was a little woozy. We helped him up and outside, where we hailed a cab and arranged for the three of us to return to the city. By 1:00 am, we were in a ’61 Buick sedan driving toward Acapulco. As we entered the city’s outskirts, we told the driver to first take us to Los Virelles, which he surprisingly knew about, and then drop the other guy off at his hotel. He agreed, and within 10 minutes, we were pulling up to our hotel. By then, the perp was fast asleep, so we spoke for him, instructing the driver to take him to the Ritz and that he’d pay for the three of us whenever they got there. With that settled, we got out, the cab sped off, and we walked up to the office to wake up the office lady to get our key.
It was good that we’d left spare clothes, some cash, and our Tourist Cards in the safe. Finally, in the security of our room and with some of our belongings within reach, we quickly fell asleep. We slept late the next morning and had a much-needed day of rest on New Year’s Day.
But the day after that was different. By that point, we didn’t have much time left for the return to Denton, so we took a New Year’s night bus straight from Acapulco to the border at Nuevo Laredo. It was a “directo,” so there wasn’t much stopping or diversions along the way.
We slept on the bus and arrived in Nuevo Laredo early the following morning. We made our connection and arrived at the Dallas bus station early in the evening of January 2, on a particularly blustery winter night. Our parents were there waiting for us, and we hugged. After our ten days of adventure, Barrow and I had only $5.00 between us. During our 30-mile drive up to Denton, there was plenty to talk about, and we did—although the two of us didn’t tell the whole story.
During those couple of weeks in Mexico, we learned some eye-opening lessons about both the good and bad of being out on your own. My most valuable takeaway was the realization that things are seldom what they outwardly seem. And I began learning that most situations are fluid and that plans should adapt to whatever happens.
