Exploring Acapulco (Feb 26)

We looked around town a little bit. Visited Papagayo Park, a large public park in near the shore at the center of town that contains a small zoo, amusement park, playgrounds, etc. Saw some of the creatures that call Mexico home.

Crocodiles up close are a little scary to me… even when there is a chain link fence between us.


The tlaquachas (la-KWA-chas) were delightfully cute and playful.

The turtles were feasting on fallen mangos, like the one next to this guy. The mango trees all over town had ripe fruit. It was pretty cool to be able to walk around town picking up sweet juicy mangoes now and then. Even better than an Easter egg hunt.

Audrey and I visited the fort that once guarded the harbor, Fuerte de San Diego. It had since been converted to a history museum, and was actually about the best museum I’ve yet seen in Mexico. Back in the 1500’s, the Spanish galleons set sail from Acapulco to the Phillipines. Acapulco was an ideal location for this for two reasons. First, it is a large and wonderfully protected natural harbor, offering some protection from the sometimes powerful wind and seas blowing along the shore outside. Also, not far offshore (a few hundred miles) the trade winds start blowing steadily toward Asia, which the galleons would use to push them along. Interestingly, the cruisers that I know that are making the "puddle jump" to the South Pacific are taking advantage of those same winds 500 years later. Though they now leave from a little further north (Zihuatanejo or Cabo San Lucas) and have better weather predictions to minimize their time in the doldrums, they still leave at the same time of year (mid-March through mid-April) that the galleons did. Anyway… I found it fascinating.

There was a replica of a Spanish galleon floating in the pond at the park. It really isn’t very big. That is, it isn’t very long nor very wide, though it does have high sides. The galleons brought back loads of treasure from the far east. These made really tempting targets for the English and Dutch privateers (pirates sanctioned by the government) who were generally better sailors. The English didn’t have much claim on the "New World" lands, but they built up the best navy in the world and took what they could. Hmm… this is sounding as dry as a history text book, but really I found it quite fascinating. I guess being here and having more familiarity with the means and limitations of the mode of transportation makes a difference. Anyway… just a bit more. I promise.
So to thwart the pirates, the Spanish build Fuerte de San Diego. It was really well designed, in a five-armed-star arrangement. The many cannons on the top could have easily lobbed a cannonball anywhere from the entrance to the bay to the innermost part of the bay where our boat was moored. It had thick outer walls and a moat, like any self-respecting fort should, and skinny windows to shoot arrows out of, some affording surprisingly well placed views of stairs that an enemy might try to come storming up. The center courtyard functioned like a cistern, and collected all the water needed by the fort for storage in an enormous tank off of the kitchen. The tank was tapped so they had running water in the kitchen sink. It was never taken by a foreign power. Though some guy whose name I forget right now did manage to capture it during the Mexican Revolution. Maybe Hidalgo… or was he the priest that was stirring up fever for the revolution with phrases such as "Vive la Virgen de Guadelupe!" I’m not sure what she has to do with Mexican independence, per se… I’m getting most of my information from somewhat iffy translations.

View of the Club de Yates and our boat from the fort. We could so hit it from here...

In summary, the Fuerte is awesome, both in clever design and its connection to maritime history. Captain Jack Aubrey has not yet voyaged to this part of the world in the Patrick O’Brian books that I have read so far, though I am hoping he will in the few that I have left.