The bus dropped us near to the centre of Chihuahua and we picked up a taxi for 50 MXN for the short ride to the Quality Inn which was just behind the Cathedral and main plaza.  30 minutes later we were in our room having rejected the first which only had internal windows onto a corridor.  The new one was spacious, well furnished and had a fine view across the rooftops of a hill outside of town.

It was time to explore and get our bearings and some food.  Chihuahua has a compact centre, with pedestrianised shopping streets a few old but mostly new buildings so it lacks the full-on charm of a lot of other places we have visited.  Despite the sunshine it was also chilly and some days a cutting wind blew through the town which made walking around unpleasant.  We struggled to find a restaurant that wasn’t playing loud music making a relaxing dinner impossible.  We don’t always follow the guidebook recommendations but even these were closed and looked like they had been for some time.   Despite our initial impressions of a modern and upmarket place in reality it was beginning to feel like a ghost town that had seen better days. 

On the way out we noticed the hotel restaurant was quite busy.  Add the fact that there was no pumping music and we agreed to give it a go.  The food and drinks turned out to be pretty good but unfortunately the ‘good breakfast included’ on our booking turned out to ‘very poor continental breakfast included’.  We skipped breakfast and resorted to having an early lunch in the hotel instead.  We quickly worked out that this restaurant was used by well off middle aged locals as a drop in for coffee, meet friends, chat and some stayed for lunch or dinner. Each day it was the same characters. 

Our 3 night stay was again down to logistics of the Canyon trip and the cost of onward flights which for some strange reason on Thursdays were penal.  Whilst the town isn’t horrific it isn’t too exciting either.  We tried to go into the top attraction, Museo Casa de Villa, the over the top mansion of Pancho Villa, but that was closed due to Covid.  We then tried Quinta Gameros, which was a quirky house built in 1907 by an extremely wealthy man to impress his much younger fiancé and yet again were faced by padlocked gates.  As we stood debating what to do next a guy came up behind us, gesticulated something that we couldn’t make out, and he proceeded to unravel the chain on the gates and wander in.  We waited, and a few minutes later another guy came out and in pretty good English proceeded to tell us that the house was officially closed due to Covid but we could have a look around and make a ‘contribution’ at the end.  So, in we went.

The house was an ostentatious display of the outrageous wealth held by the elite at the time and took utilised the latest fashionable trend to build a Parisian Belle Epoque style mansion.  The result was over the top bad taste akin to a modern footballers’ wives bling palace.  The building is now owned by the university and as well as preserving the interior it has spaces to showcase artworks.  The story goes that the much younger bride to be died before the house was completed but there is a strong rumour that she actually ran off with the architect responsible for the build.  It didn’t matter to us, the building was a superb distraction, we enjoyed our private tour and we were more than happy to hand our 100peso contribution to one of the ladies waiting at the exit.

We managed to easily use up our two full days looking at the town, the zocalo and the cathedral plus the myriad of shops.  Chihuahua is the centre of the universe for buying cowboy boots and Stetsons.  Shop, after shop after shop.  Neil resisted although he was tempted.  We also declined buying any of the cute cowboy and mariachi inspired suits for small boys as we really didn’t think they would cut it for our grandson against his favourite pirate and spiderman outfits.

We checked out what a reasonable price for the 30 minute trip to the airport and the first taxi driver we spoke to gave us exactly that.  It seems that Mexican taxi drivers will always up the price a little because you’re foreign but never to extremes.  That’s one up for Mexico.

Be careful what you wish for……

Our onward flight was to Acapulco via a hop to Mexico City.  The flight time was a civilised 11am departure with an hour and a half to change planes. Another pleasant small airport and after a swift bag drop we decided to walk up and down the check in area to get a bit of exercise.  Then Neil noticed the arrivals board.  The Volaris flight from Mexico City due in at 10.00am, probably ours to go out at 11.00am, was cancelled.  ‘Oh shit’!  We found the departure board and sure enough our flight was cancelled too.   More expletives followed.  ‘Why had we been allowed to check in and how on earth are we going to make the connection to Acapulco?’

We started to talk to the Volaris guy assisting at the check in queue, who didn’t speak English.  He kind of understood what we were saying and said all was OK and nodded us to proceed through to security and the gates. 

At the gate the board showed flight details and ‘cancelled’ in red, but there were a lot of people waiting. By now we were totally confused and wondering what the hell we were going to do.  Another young lady came past with a clip board wearing a Volaris logo on her top.  We stopped her, she spoke some English, checked on her phone and said it was all OK.  Neil pointed to the gate sign that said cancelled and she reassured us it was the airport systems that were wrong and that it would be put right soon.  So, we sat and waited and sure enough the gate sign changed and then the incoming flight arrived a little late.  We eventually took off about 45 minutes late.

The connecting flight to Acapulco was going to be tantalisingly tight to catch.  We alerted one of the cabin crew and he seemed very confident all was going to be fine.  We might catch it, we might not, but there wouldn’t be much chance of our luggage transferring from plane to plane.  On landing we had just under an hour, but the plane seemed to spend an eternity taxiing then stopping whiles we crossed the take off runway and then again as we made it towards the terminal.   ‘We’re stuffed’ we thought. 

We finally got off the plane and there were clearly several other anxious people with connecting flights.  Cheryl queued to find out which gate and sods law told us it was at the other end of the terminal, number 3.  This was Mexico International Airport, it’s bloody huge and we had about 40 minutes to get to the gate before departure time, never mind when the gate would actually close which is usually 20 minutes before departure.  We legged it along with other people going to different gates.  It was a long, long way along the endless corridors counting down from gate 29.  When we finally got to gate 3 it was full of people – phew, the gate was still open……everyone was queuing……it too was delayed! Hurrah! we might even get our luggage. 

An hour later and we took off for Acapulco. The Pacific Ocean and 5 nights of chilling were on the horizon.  Ticketed taxi system again and we soon checked into an expensive hotel, floor 5 was allocated, so Cheryl asked if we could go to a higher floor and a guy intervened as our check in girl didn’t speak much English.  After playing with his console, he said ‘floor 21 ok’?  Perfect we said and 2128 was to be our room.  The view we had hoped for was absolutely stunning gazing across Acapulco Bay.  The room was big with a sofa, desk, 3 balconies and a huge bed facing a wall of glass…..we had landed!! The view down to the pool area was vertigo inducing but looked lovely and the beach had several groups of happy families enjoying playing in the sea.  The wide sweep of horseshoe shaped bay was pretty, albeit very built up with hotels and buildings creeping all the way along the bay and up into the hills.

We chose Acapulco for several reasons.  Neil wanted to see The Pacific.  We both wanted beach time.  Logistically, it was easy to fly in and easy to fly out to Mexico City for our final stay.  It was also to see The Clavidistas, those famous and magnificent men who dive 35m into the sea from the cliff top.

We always do plenty of research on hotels with Cheryl doing the lion’s share of this.  We both check out reviews.  Places to visit, things to do is down to Cheryl.  Neil tends to do logistics, climate and anything practical.  Once we’re all done and we’ve double checked each other we make our decision.  We probably overdo it but when you are staying 5 nights it’s a lot of £’s and you pay in full on arrival, you want to get it right.  We knew Acapulco was big, it’s nickname is Mexico City by the Sea, but we also read it had a faded 1950’s charm from when the Hollywood Stars used it as their playground.  We prefer sleepy beachside but these involve very long and difficult journeys so, as ever, compromises have to be made. We learned from other cities that it was good to be within walking distance of the old town & zocalo, plus our top priority was a room with a proper sea view. 

We did think it was all good until it got dark and we headed out for dinner.  Oh my god…what have we done? By night the place had transformed.  We had made sure that the hotel was direct to the beach as some were across the road which runs all the way along the bay.  But by night the traffic on the 6 lane highway behind the hotel was horrific, the street was lined with garish tacky bars and restaurants with most places playing music loud enough to be heard on the international space station.  This was like Benidorm but on acid.  The expletives were endless as we desperately tried to find a quiet place to eat.  The nightmare continued as the cacophony was added to by brightly lit mickey mouse & looney tunes fairy light decorated carriages trolling up and down the road touting for punters to sample their deafening techno beats on a ‘scenic’ ride up and down the strip.  In other places we have visited there have been charming, Cinderella style carriages decked with flowers pulled by horses and they clip clop around the old town.   No, not here.  Acapulco had taken tackiness to another plateau.  These evil contraptions were towed by scruffy blokes on quad bikes which we forgot to photograph on our last night.

On top of all this there were the local hop on & off buses – brightly coloured, foghorn blaring to attract passengers and a full-on ear-splitting soundtrack of disco/trance/grunge as you ride.  One passed by every sixty seconds on average.   We did use them as a cheap way to get around and have experienced music blaring buses in other countries and find them quaint…..but only for a limited time.

We eventually found a quietish place to eat and endured the roadside ambience from the open balcony.  We retreated via an OXXO to buy milk, water, beer and tequila, to our view to die for in room 2128.  Neil posted on TripAdvisor that, in his opinion, Acapulco was ‘hell on earth’.  He got many replies all suggesting that we had indeed booked into a hotel in the noisiest part of town.  Why hadn’t the reviews told us this?  If we booked somewhere a 15 minute walk in either direction it would have been a bit better.  Too late now so we set about trying to make do.  Over the next couple of days we did manage to find places that weren’t bad and the food OK.   

What we didn’t know, but should have guessed, was that this hotel was very popular with families from Mexico City.  The hotel was very busy so trying to get into the pool or to relax and read a book by the pool was impossible.  To make things worse, we had flown in on a Friday, the start of the weekend, so the pool area was crazy plus there was the inevitable speaker playing loud music……aaaggggghhhhhh!!! Our plan for a relaxing few days chilling out on the beach were completely dashed. 

Another thing that we got wrong, well Neil to be precise, as it’s his job, was climate.  We hadn’t anticipated it being so hot and humid thus making time on the beach very uncomfortable.  What it did mean, and we did this in Australia, that a lot of the day was spent in our AC room reading or updating the blog.

Now one thing we did get right was The Clavidistas.  They have been giving their spectacular shows in Acapulco for just under 100 years.  They dive from either 25m or 35m into a narrow gulley.  We went for the only daytime show at 1pm so that we would get better pictures.  We did, but we absolutely fried in the sun on the viewing platform waiting for the show to start.  It was worth it, and 100peso (about £4) saw us watch 5 guys ‘do their thing’. 

It was so good we decided to go back and see it again in the cool of the evening as they do shows at around 7, 8, 9 and 10pm.  This time we managed to sneak in for a view from the top where we had a seat…..result!  We also had an elevated view which gave us a whole new perspective.  We don’t know why but we were never asked to pay so at the end of the show ‘we got the t-shirt’!  100peso has us the memento to hang in the gallery at home amongst our other travelling memorabilia. 

Acapulco over, we took a taxi which cost 300peso to the airport.  When we arrived at the thieving prepay taxi booth to travel into Acapulco, we paid 450peso.  Who says crime doesn’t pay when it’s legalised?  Next stop, final stop, Mexico City.