We got up at 3:45 in Puerto Escondido for our 4am taxi. We made it to our bus with time to spare. The porters accidentally put our bags on the wrong bus and we managed to get them off right before it left. We loaded our bags ourselves on the right bus, hopped on, and stretched out. We were the only ones on the huge air-conditioned bus to Alcapulco. I slept most of the way there, and we got in at 1pm.

For the first time ever, Beth and I had started to let our eyes wander over to the “Mid-Range” hotel section of our travel book. During our whole year of travel, we had always stuck to the “Budget” section, without even a glance at better options. But even though we’re in the home stretch, we were tired of dungeons with bald light bulbs and crumbling walls. We’d rough it on food, we figured, but we wanted comfort in lodgings.

We decided to head to the nicer section of Acapulco in search of the elusive good deal amongst the monster luxury resorts. There was a backpacker district, but it was way off to the side of the cove, up a hill, and far from the action. We wanted to be “in it”, and we wanted Mid-Range.

We should have known we were in trouble when the taxi driver outside of the bus terminal quoted us $7 to get into the city. We had been paying about $1 - $2 every where else. We headed down the street and found a little punch buggy taxi who said he’d take us for $3. It was a job to squeeze in our bags, but we made it.

Though the taxi driver said he knew his way, we ended up getting lost for 45 minutes. Beth and I once again broke out the Lonely Planet and tried to direct him using street names. We finally made it to the center of town, and decided to get out and wander around on foot.

The first place we went to cost upwards of $60 and it looked pretty dingy. We finally found the hotel we’d asked the taxi to take us to, and that cost $70. (It was supposed to cost $40-50.) We have a budget of $30 a day each in Mexico, so these options would break the bank.

Beth and I were dripping with sweat, carrying our backpacks all over the strip in search of something that would work. We decided to jump in a cab and head toward another part of town where Beth had seen a sign that advertised rooms for $32.50.

When we got there, we ran into another traveler who raved about the hotel. He had been in the backpacker district, found it to be loud and dangerous and moved down to the Mid-Range/High End area.

“How much are you paying?” Beth asked.

“Seventy bucks,” he said.

Turns out that the sign was for “low season,” which was supposedly this time of year, and it was per person. Despite being annoyed with the false advertising, we dropped our bags and decided to go look at a room because we were exhausted, sweating, and tiring of our search. I sat while Beth investigated.

She came back with a sad look on her face. “It’s a dump,” she said. “We’ve stayed in rooms for $20 a night that were nicer than this.”

Beth went across the street to investigate another option. When she came back, she said the other place was more expensive, but some guy outside was trying to get her to go to his hotel down the way. He said it was $55. We had nothing to lose. It had been 2 hours and we’d found nothing.

We walked in and saw a pool, a bar, and a restaurant. We went upstairs to see a room, and were stunned to find air conditioning, cable tv and a fridge! We took it, and at $27.50 each per night, that was the most we had spent on a hotel since Italy.

After recovering in our air conditioning, we went out to explore the area. We were starving. We had seen a VIPS, a Mexican chain, and decided to give it a go. An indignant taxi driver had dropped us off in Villa Hermosa at a Pizza Hut, and told us we really had to try their pride and joy, a Mexican chain called VIPS.

We sat down and searched the menu, which was pretty pricey for our taste. We decided to order the cheese enchiladas and split them to save some cash. As we were ordering, Beth noticed that Wal-Mart was a sponsor of the restaurant and whispered for me to look at the waitress’s name tag. There was the Wal-Mart logo, right next to her name.

When she left, we began searching the menu and I tried to translate the fine print. It was all about how Wal-Mart recently received an award for their environmental stewardship and commitment to the welfare of their workers and the larger community. I felt nauseous. Wal-Mart is an evil empire that treats its workers like crap and could give a rat’s @ss about the environment. In NYC, I had worked on an anti-Wal-Mart campaign for 2 years, and the last thing I wanted to do was patronize a restaurant they owned. We looked carefully to determine if Wal-Mart owned the restaurant or if it was just advertising there.

Beth and I started to figure out some sort of a plan to ditch the place. Could I feign illness? Could we say we were morally opposed to eating there? As we were plotting our exit, our food arrived. We decided to suck it up and eat, and vowed to check more carefully in Mexico for corporate sponsors or hidden owners.

We walked down the way and cold air wafting out of a glass door caught our attention. We walked in. A mall! I real live mall! We hadn’t seen one of these in a while, and we walked around, checked out the stores, and discovered a huge movie theater. We decided to come back that night to catch Harry Potter.

After that, we went down the the beach and walked around. Huge hotels lined the beach and the water was filled with swimmers, jet skiers, and boats tugging para-sailors behind them. We wandered further down and saw tons of large rock formations that jutted out of the water. People were climbing all over them, and many jumped off the taller ones into the water below. It looked like some folks were looking for sea life to bring on to the beach and BBQ.

As we walked around, we noticed that a smelly river ran into the ocean. We walked further along it and the smell got worse. We realized that the river was the sewage or the drain for the city, and it emptied right in the middle of the main swimming area. Some people waded in the water near where it spilled into the ocean. Beth and I decided we’d pass on the beach.

Instead, we went back to our hotel and took a dip in the pool at the hotel. Later on, we went to the mall, had some Haagen Daas ice cream, and headed into Harry Potter with a coke and popcorn. It felt like home.

The next day, we skipped VIPS and walked to a small restaurant around the corner. We had our first Coronas of the Mexican adventure and ordered enchiladas again to split. This time, they came smothered in shredded lettuce, and we spent half the time picking it off and avoiding each shred.

We decided to go pick up a few things at a massive grocery store we had seen down the way. We walked in and nearly cried when we saw the thousands of choices of deodorant, shampoo, and snack foods. We spent an hour and a half just walking around ogling at things. We thought it was a very sad state of affairs that a big box store brought tears to our eyes.

After dropping off our purchases, we went out in search of internet. We finally found a cafe in another mall and sat down to catch up. Beth set her digital watch, and I noted the time on mine as we usually do. At 3 hours, we decided to call it quits and Beth went to go pay as I finished up a Gmail chat with my mom and sister.

“Lauren,” she called out to me. “I need your help.”

When I went over, they were asking for four hours worth of internet time. I said that we’d only been there for three. No, the woman insisted, it was four.

We knew for a fact that we hadn’t been there that long. Beth had her watch on timer and showed them the digital numbers ticking, just two minutes past three hours.

A man turned around and began talking to us in English. He showed us his “infallible” system, where they manually typed in the times that people came in. I said that he must have typed it in wrong, and he replied that this was impossible.

We asked to check our emails to see when we sent the first one out. He let us check, and it confirmed what we already knew - Beth’s first email had gone out a little less than three hours before. We showed him, but he didn’t care.

I had been pretty adamant before, but now I was certain - we were not paying for four hours. I said we weren’t paying for services we hadn’t received, but it was a stand-off. He wasn’t budging, and I wasn’t shutting up.

I heard Beth calmly start to compromise, “How ’bout we split the diff-” she started.

“I’ll charge you for three,” he interrupted. “But I don’t ever want to see you in here again.”

“Fine!” I said.

I decided that I had said enough, and let Beth handle the payment while I waited outside. Apparently he told her, “You should tell your friend to be more calm.”

I thought that was pretty funny.

That night we went back and made tuna fish sandwiches. We had a can of tuna left over from Puerto Escondido and we had bought a $1 thing of mayo at the grocery. Beth had to mix the tuna in a small glass left in the bathroom for brushing teeth, but the sandwich was great. Especially since we had fresh tomatoes we had washed ourselves. It had been months since we’d had those.

We later went to see the Alcapulco Cliff Divers in La Quebrada. Apparently Acapulco was made famous when Elvis Presley filmed a movie there in the 50’s. One of his best-known scenes was diving into the dangerous waters himself.

We arrived and were happy to receive two free beers with our entrance. We set up camp on some stairs where we had a pretty good view. The “seats” with the best view were all filled up.

The divers ranged in age from teenage to late 30’s, and they all walked down a long set of stairs carrying torches in their Speedos. The leaped over the railing where the best views were, and threw themselves into the water. The area where they had to land was between two cliffs, and the waves beat relentlessly against the jagged rocks. It looked pretty dangerous.

They all swam to the other side of the cove, and began rock climbing their way to the top. They took turns diving from different locations along the cliff wall, and finally one guy dove all the way from the top, about a 100 foot drop.

Before we left, I snapped this shot, which I knew my mom and sister would get a huge kick out of. I hope you guys appreciate the things I do for you…

Beth and I headed back to the homestead and watched Jaws and an old Australian flick where Russell Crowe played a gay man. The next morning, we caught a bus to Zihuatenejo, an affordable beach just south of unaffordable Ixtapa.