Puerto Escondido to Acapulco
Trip Start
Jan 04, 2008
1
18
27
Trip End
Apr 01, 2008
Acapulco,
Mexico
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
We finally left Puerto Escondido on Tuesday, March 4th. We had planned to break the trip to Acapulco into two days, but Terry drove on through directly, arriving about 6:30 pm, only taking about eight hours.
I had been feeling lousy, with some sort of bug, not full on "tourista" but I basically couldn't stay vertical for more than a few minutes and had to lie down. I mostly survived on ginger ale and saltine crackers for about 4 days (by the time I felt any better).
The trip had been hot and tiring and I really wanted to soak in the pool of a RV park. We chose El Colosso from the Church RV book (having heard some not so good things about the Diamonte RV Park) and by the time that we were parked and set-up it was dark and I really didn't have the energy to go to the pool. Rats!
We only went to Acapulco for me to pick up my new passport and to do some shopping at WalMart and Costco. We hated the location of El Colosso, although the park itself was okay. They also wanted to charge $300 pesos per night (in the book it was only $150 pesos). Terry didn't like that, so in the morning he drove over to Diamonte and paid for a night at the rate of $200 pesos.
Meanwhile, the Colosso lady came down in price to $200 pesos when I said I was going to put it out on the internet that they were over-charging at $300 pesos. So I went on over to the Diamonte and got Terry's $200 pesos refunded.
Then I went to WalMart quickly (planning to come back later and to go to Costco, too) but I was concerned about getting my passport, so I didn't linger. The place, where my passport was waiting for me, was in the center of Acapulco and it took a bit of searching to find. Once I did, it was quick and easy.
I still didn't feel well, so I decided to drive back to the RV at El Colosso. Terry had meanwhile taken the Blue Ox hitch (that connects the SUV to the rear of the RV) to get straightened out again. One of the arms had gotten bent on the drive to Acapulco.
Thank you Bob and Mike at the Alba Yuri RV park on the Costa Esmeralda for showing us that such a repair can be made. When it happened during our crash last year, nobody seemed to know how to straighten it, so we landed up buying a whole new system because the price of replacing just one arm was almost as much as buying the whole thing.
Anyway, by then, both of us had had enough of Acapulco and it's horrendous traffic and bad roads, so we gave up the idea of going back to WalMart or Costco. The few things we wanted there didn't merit the headache of going there and back.
However, our bad taste for Acapulco was still to get worse. The next morning, as we're driving out of town, to get on the highway going up the coast, we went over an overpass that apparently we weren't supposed to (no towed vehicles allowed), but needless to say, we didn't know that. So, the local police waved us over and wanted to charge a fine of $200 US dollars!!! Terry finally got them down to $1000 pesos (a little less than US $100) and I'm sure even that was too much and went right into their pockets, but sometimes it's better, or at least easier, not to argue too much. Plus, we just wanted to put Acapulco behind us.
