I once listened to an excellent episode of my favorite radio program This American Life in which they were attempting to define a fiasco. Essentially, the final agreement was that a fiasco is essentially a disaster that has somehow has gone completely array so that the chaos it creates is quite funny. It is an unfortunate series of events, not simply one sole incident, that has somehow defied all possible troubleshooting plans and is completely out of control of the players. With this definition and the laundry list of hilarious happenings, our weekend in Acapulco was the biggest fiasco I’ve experienced since I hit México.
Tacos. The night before our adventure Ellie and I resolved ourselves to get plenty of sleep. It was the first Friday night we have stayed in and we were planning on chilling out and eating tacos. A recent visitor who had lived in Mexico City in the past, had proudly introduced us to a taco stand down the street from our house. From 8:30pm until midnight, Paco opens up his stand and serves up some of tastiest tacos DF has to offer. Ellie and I have been searching for a taco stand to call our own. We tried to friendly up to the tamale guy, but Edgar didn’t seem too interested in conversation. Plus there were no seats. We have made an interesting relationship with Juan and Sarah, the couple that owns and runs the convenience store where we buy our milk, bread and candy. But lately all Sarah wanted to talk about was us getting it on with some young Argentines she knows. Not that we’re against that, but come on, we needn’t confuse matchmaker with friend. And then there are the numerous vendors at the Tianguis market that comes through every Tuesday, but we needed something that could more easily accelerate than a once a week encounter with a papaya seller. Paco would have to be it- convenience, frequency, delicious tacos and a comfortable distance of a hot grill between us. So, there we were, less than 24 hours before we would have to squeeze our bodies into bikinis, downing quesadillas and tacos. We sat in our sweatshirts, hair swept back, grease and lime juice dripping down our hands, chowing down, as we sweetly continued our courtship with Paco. He ignored us most of the night, and at one point I think he even got annoyed when Ellie asked him if he could use corn tortillas instead of wheat. But at one point he handed us each half a taco of something we hadn’t tried. We smiled to ourselves. “He loves us,” we gloated. We finished up, paid our bill and walked home to get ready for our weekend out of this crazy city. Bellies filled with tacos.
Slip and slide. Ellie recently commented that Mexico is a slippery country. While I, knock on wood, have not had the misfortune of actually falling, I have to agree entirely
. Not less than once a day do I size up a flight of stairs recently waxed, or stare at a marble floor and wonder if my shoes will have enough grip. Sometimes this is fun, as I turn into an 11 year old once more and run with only my socks on, gain momentum and glide across the kitchen floor in my house, crashing into the counter. Sometimes this is nerve racking, as I watch some poor soul slip onto their bum as strangers race to their assistance.
Well, early Saturday morning Ellie woke me up at 5:30am. “We’re going on vacation,” she whispered laughing as she exchanged her British “holiday” so that my American ears would understand. I jumped into a hot shower, eyes barely open and shaved every imaginable lady-like spot. We were going to the beach. I tousled my hair, threw on a skirt, decided against packing my favorite sweatshirt and put my huge sunglasses on my head. We hurriedly walked through our still sleeping, quiet neighborhood to the metro. We giggled about our up coming frolics with handsome Mexicans in Acapulco, discussed how the food might be different, listed the songs we hoped the clubs would play and how we were planning to party that night ‘til 5am, eat some breakfast, slap on some SPF 40 and then sleep all day on the beach. Our plan was no hotel, but instead all night dancing, and all day sun bathing. As our train came to a screeching halt at Tasquena, where we would be meeting Alli and Felicity to catch our bus to the playa, we violently slid across our smooth metal metro seats, crashing into some young chap, and laughing mercilessly. This was only the beginning of lots of mayhem, and lots of hilarity.
Rain and paradise don’t mix. The four of us, dressed half for cool Mexico City and half for warm tropical Acapulco, boarded our 7:30 bus swearing we would nap and rest to prep for our all day and night beach extravaganza. We instead stayed up discussing what nationality we would fraudulently claim that weekend, laughing about people we knew and playing road games
. As we rode, the vegetation and landscape changed. We left the dry and smoggy valley of Mexico and slowly entered the lush tropical, smooth mountainous landscape of the Pacific coast. But the thick cloud of fog didn’t lift. There wasn’t any sun to be seen. We discussed the comparison of weather reports and assumed that partly cloudy obviously meant that the sun would be out for part of the time. As we neared Acapulco we assessed the depths of the puddles on the road and tried to determine if they were simply morning showers or whether we were going to be rained upon. As we entered a long tunnel that connects to Acapulco, we were confident that we would exit into the bluest skies, with a bright yellow sun glimmering over the aqua marine bay. Instead the same haze of cloud made the town look gray and the bay look even grayer. We exchanged worried glances.
Gringas in disguise. As we descended from the bus into the puddled station in Acapulco, our first order was to get to the nearest beach front comida corrida restaurant and chow down. We told the taxi driver to take us to the Zocalo, assuming we’d start there and make our way to the more touristy hotel zone afterward. He congenially listed all of our hotel options and we just smiled and said no thank you, we weren’t in need of a hotel. We found an inexpensive place to eat in the zocalo, sat outside under an umbrella (which I assume was there to protect folks from the sun, but we needed it just in case it began to rain), and ordered our food. We discussed our plans and took turns listing our favorite carbohydrates, as we analyzed the differences in the tortillas in Acapulco and DF. At the end of our meal we each took turns heading to the not-pretty bathroom to change into our swimsuits, nearly each of us returning depressed with the sight of our half naked, bleach white bodies that had not seen sun in some time and had been treated to over two months of Mexican cuisine. As we were knocking back our last bit of jamaica agua, a woman came up to our patio bumbled about, with a tambourine and a sad looking Santa Claus hat that had probably seen one too many tosses in the waves, and began to sing her English-as-her-second-language version of Rudolf the Red-nosed Reindeer. Her shrill voice huffed and puffed out quasi-forms of the words and shrilly sang in a sound that was a cross between a flute-a-phone and a lounge singer. We sat there trying our hardest not to crack up. “That is the worst performer I have ever heard in my life,” whispered Felicity through her laughter. The woman continued, adding a bit of a shakin’-your-hips-in-church jig to really get in the spirit. Street performers and mariachis all work for tips in Mexico, but how could we possibly reward this? After her rousing performance, she approached our table and began to ask us for money in broken English.
I looked at her and said, “We don’t speak English” in Spanish. She looked surprised.
“Well, what do you speak?” she asked.
“We’re from Russia,” I lied, figuring that would be a language that no one here would be familiar with.
She seemed to believe it and then went on about la Navidad and Jesus. I then informed her that we were Jewish. Another lie. She stop
ped and looked shocked. Felicity just laughed. Ellie got up and excused herself to go to the bathroom again. This woman didn’t seem to believe that we didn’t believe there was anything but the option of Christianity. Finally Alli returned and talked with her a while about Judaism and la Navidad. We decided then that we would be from Russia that weekend and pretend that we didn’t understand English.
Abrazame! We took our stuff and headed for the beach. We walked down the sandy beach past tons of Mexican families that didn’t seem to notice or mind that it was indeed drip dropping. We finally found a relatively empty place and settled ourselves down. After several hours on the beach, we decided it was time to change our clothes, clean up a bit and find something to eat really cheap. I suggested we head to Sanborn’s, a Mexican restaurant and everything-store, to take advantage of their free and clean bathrooms. The Brits and Alli had other plans. We were going to change back into our going out clothes right there on the beach. “Huh?” I questioned. Alli, a swimmer back in her high school days, insisted “deck changing” would be easy and we wouldn’t attract any attention. According to Ellie and Felicity changing from your “swimming costume” to your regular clothes right on the beach, and vice versa, is practically an English pass time. They swapped stories of their parents doing it and how no one looks. I reminded them I came from the land of tax-funded bath houses that were relatively clean and afforded American prudes, like yours truly, the privacy we needed in order to go from half-naked to dressed.
Ellie began the process with grace and seriousness. I buckled over laughing as she contorted her body, weaving her arms and legs this way and that in order to go from her two piece to her panties, bra, jean capris and tank top. Behind us a group of cabana boys watched the process and refused to look away when I told them to stop staring. To our left a Mexican family followed the stares of the father as he gawked at this light-skinned, curly haired, green-eyed Brit shimmying her bikini bottoms off and her panties on without showing a bit of booty. Alli coached her through the “deck changing” process when things looked impossible and Felicity took photos, as I laughed in between giving dirty looks to male onlookers. “Buenos dias!” Ellie hollered when she was nearing the end, tossing her bikini top up into the air in victory. I laughed hysterically. A while later, I was repeating the Buenos Dias moment with hysteria when a passing vendor corrected me in Spanish and said, “Actually, it is ‘buenas tardes’ because it is the afternoon.” I snapped back, “Yeah, I kno
w that. It’s a joke!”
My turn to strip was much easier than Ellie’s as I had a skirt and a t-shirt. I might have even cleared the radar completely if it weren’t for the monitoring we were receiving since Ellie broke everyone in. We were all dressed up and ready to go when this shady looking Mexican guy, with cherry-red dyed hair, and Speedos approached us and said, “My friend wants to give you a ride on a wave runner.” He pointed down toward the shore where a jet ski was propped up on the shore and a less shady guy was waving to us.
“We’re already dressed and not wearing our bathing suits,” I responded.
“Oh you won’t get wet,” he lied.
I looked at the girls. And then I looked at Ellie.
“Should we go?” I asked her.
She rubbed her eyes and very plainly said, “Sure.”
“So, we should change back into our suits?” I asked.
“Sure,” she shrugged.
“Give us 10 minutes to change,” I told the guy.
“Five,” he responded. I nodded.
We cut our changing time in half and did the whole routine again, along with the same legion of spectators. We went down to the shore where they delivered the news that we would have to go separately. I protested. I was not going out on a wave runner with some strange Mexican dude that I didn’t know without Ellie. They said then I couldn’t go. I buckled. Who would go first?
“Rock, scissors, paper?” Alli suggested for Ellie and I. I said no and that I’d go first.
The rental guy strapped a life jacket on me, and attempted to buckle me up. “I can do it myself,” I barked and pulled away, not wanting him to get a cheap feel. He rolled his eyes and let me do it. I was introduced to Chucho, a nickname for Jesus, who was the guy inviting me for this ride. I asked him if he was a gentleman and made him promise not to go fast or get me killed (see the photo, as I’m sure
most of you can imagine me in bossy mode in Spanish). He laughed and nodded. Not reassuring. I hopped onto the back of the jet ski and he slowly, but with jerky motions, exited the shore. We bounced out toward the Pacific. “Mas despacio!” I demanded. I was holding on to the flimsy straps of his life jacket. “Abrazame!” he demanded back. No way, I thought. I am not about to “hold you,” asshole. I yelled back through the noise of the waves and the motor. I am holding on, don’t worry. “No, you’re going to fall off. Abrazame!” he yelled. I told him if he just goes slowly then I won’t fall off. I gripped on to the straps of his life jacket tighter, and tried to keep my legs as far away from him as possible. “ABRAZAME!!!” he screamed as we took off faster. Fuck, I thought. I am totally forced to abrazame him. I was ticked. But finally, I threw my arms around his torso and swore I saw his smirk from the back of his head.
We finally got back to shore when it was Ellie’s turn. I told her she would be forced to “abrazame” him and she just laughed as I retold our exchange. She took off for her ride, only her partner was the guy with Speedos. They went out for a while and came back in. Then Alli went out with Chucho. The sun had presumably already set (we didn’t see it after all, since we haven’t seen it for nearly a week now) and it was getting dark. Alli was still out. They went so far out into the bay that I swore they reached the Pacific. They finally got back as the lights of Acapulco were beginning to decorate the hillside. As they were approaching the shore, Chucho, probably nearly drunk despite him insisting to me he wasn’t, took a hard turn and flipped the wave runner. Alli went flying into the surf. She came up laughing and taking it very well, as Ellie and I commented that that would have sent us into violent hysterics and we would have started throwing punches at the guys.
At some point one of the guys had invited us, through Ellie, to dinner. But during the course of this frolic on the wave runner it had either downgraded (or upgraded depending on how you look at it) to drinking and 
dancing. We temporarily sent them off while we opted for a more conservative changing set-up of each of us taking turns in the middle as the rest of us held up towels and sarongs. We conferenced as to what to do. We wanted them to pay for our dinner, but did not want to spend the night dancing with them. With the slight exception of Chucho, they were crude and obnoxious, and a few too many sexual innuendos were being bandied about. So, we decided to attempt to hint as to how we would need to eat before we could even think of dancing and partying. Then, we assumed, we would be cordially invited to dinner and we’d be able to select the paella and tapas place, as opposed to 30 cent tacos. Somehow there was an unspoken retraction of dinner and only drinks and dancing were still on the table. We reconferenced and decided that it was time to send them on their way and that tacos would have to do. “What happened?” cried Ellie, “We can’t even get an offer for dinner…” We laughed as we lost them and took off to the supermarket to wash up.
Geronimo. We were relieved and laughing that we finally got rid of them, but felt defeated that we didn’t get dinner out of it. We paced around the beach front area searching for decent tacos. We found a lady selling sweet tamales, bought one each and headed to the beach to sit down and try to cheer ourselves up. It was only 8pm and the rain had begun. How would we gain enough gumption to revive and party all night? We were already fading. After devouring our tamales, we picked ourselves up and walked the beach looking for a place for our dinner. We finally saw a decent restaurant, and feeling sorry for ourselves entered to pay 15 pesos more for comida corrida than we cared to do. Maybe the atmosphere will be better, we wondered. We entered the palapa and walked past the bar. There at a table was the group of guys we had only gotten rid of an hour ago. I laughed and looked back at the rest of the girls to see their reaction. They stared, defeated and shocked as the guys started howling at us, clearly even drunker than before and started ordering us drinks. We rolled our eyes and picked a table furthest from them and closest to the beach. One of them came over to our table and started insisting, “Tequila or beer? Tequila or beer?” I said I didn’t want either and if he wanted to buy me a drink I would have a non-alcoholic pina colada thankyouverymuch. He began to get really fresh with me. He pinched my cheek and started saying
inappropriate things. I pushed his hand away and said, “Don’t touch me.” He thought that resistance was cute obviously because he did it again, laughing. I was not laughing. I was so pissed. I pushed him away again and said to leave us alone. He left for a while. Then came a bucket of beer. He came back. Touching my chin and my cheek. “Don’t touch me!” I yelled and pushed him away. He became pissed. A mix of Spanish and English swear words came out at me. It was his “fucking country” and I was a “bitch” and all sorts of other things. I was so infuriated. He stumbled off and we sent our beer back with our waiter, telling him that the guy was bothering us and to make sure he didn’t come back to us again. Geronimo, our waiter, seemed really concerned and was quite nice as he hurried the bucket of beer back to the kitchen. “Fucking Mexico,” Ellie and I said in unison. And through up our gang sign we created to non-verbally communicate it.
Geronimo then took care of us the rest of the night. Commenting on how it was a pleasure to see such beauty in his sight. We laughed knowing it was a lie, as we all smelled, had greasy skin, smudged make-up, and Ellie and I each had at least 2 centimeters of frizz and fuzz raising from our hair in the midst of the humidity. A nice group of guys nearby came and struck up a conversation with us and insisted that not all Mexicans were like the guy that was bothering us. We laughed and jokingly insisted they were. Later, tired, worn out, running out of money and a full rain commencing, we decided that we would rather sleep in a bed than bump and grind on a dance floor. We made the very difficult decision to forego the dream of photo after photo of us looking sexy, smiling among strobe lights, techno music and cute gentlemen. We informed Geronimo that we needed a hotel. He looked a bit concerned because it was a holiday weekend, ten o’clock at night and we didn’t want to spend more than 500 pesos total. But he went to work asking around and told us he would walk us to the hotel that he knows of when he finished his shift in 20 minutes. An hour and a half later we were following a drunk Geronimo through the Acapulco streets appearing like a gaggle of ducklings following their mother bird. This gentleman turned creep, commented on how lucky he was that he was being accompanied by four beautiful women. We ignored the comments as he stepped out into oncoming traffic, Negro Modelo in one hand, holding his free hand up in the stopping motion and traffic-cop-style signaled us to cross the street. “We could use the cross walk,” one of us suggested. He answered by telling us we were all four his wives and he was very lucky. We were so annoyed. We finally got to a place that was clean and a decent price. Ellie and I insisted on getting a better price and tried to haggle, while Felicity and Alli kept their patience with us and insisted that this was as good as it got. We bid Geronimo farewell and he almost solemnly left (we weren’t sure what he was expecting but we were glad for the help but ready to say adios).
SUNDAY
Swimming in the rain. After a dry full night sleep, and a few hours of furiously watching CNN, I put my suit back on and we all headed to the beach. It was actually raining today as opposed to yesterday afternoon’s trickle. I went up to a group of cabana boys that were salivating over us like starved wolves and negotiated down the price of an umbrella. “Treinta pesos,” one informed me. “You told me twenty yesterday,” I declared, “Viente.” They looked at each other like they had been caught. And then the leader gave me a bunch of excuses as to why it was thirty now, instead of twenty. “The real reason it is thirty now is because I’m gringa, isn’t that right?” They all sort of laughed, looked at each other and stumbled over their excuses. One guy placed his hand on my shoulder and began to explain- I heard the other one scold him not to touch me. I seized the opportunity. “How about twenty for the umbrella and the harassment?” I smiled through clenched teeth. The leader looked at me and smiled. “Viente,” he agreed. I returned to the girls victoriously. We moved under the umbrella and Ellie and I took to the water while Felicity and Alli remained fully clothed, reading under the shelter. For three hours Ellie and I talked and laughed as we bobbed and swam in the rainy ocean.
Hour one- Banana boat. As if the excitement of the wave runner wasn’t enough, Ellie and I decided the thing that would really cheer us up would be a bouncy, dangerous ride around the bay on a banana float. We swam out to a man in his antiquated motor boat and 
negotiated a price, climbed a board, strapped on life jackets and stumbled and flopped to our spots on the long banana. We took off with a whole beach watching our clumsy white bodies cling to the yellow phallic object skirting across the water. It was anticlimactic. Ellie and I tried to lie to ourselves that it was so much fun, but we were hoping for a little more danger. I wanted to feel like I was going to fall off at some point, but instead I think my heart would have raced faster if I was on a 25 cent mechanical horse outside of a grocery store. After about 6 minutes of this utter boredom, we returned to our original location were dropped off, life vests still on, and were told to wait for the attendant. We bobbed there like awkward buoys in our life jackets pretending that we were actually in outer space, as opposed to the gray waters of Acapulco Bay.
Hour two- Splash back. Not long after the banana boat ride a group of three little boys came up to us to start talking. They consisted of a 9, 10 and 11 year old. They bantered with us and asked us many questions about English. We were having a lovely conversation with them when this kid about 20 years old appeared to be swimming past us. I was distracted by a group of guys our age with a boogie board that I was eying to borrow when I heard Ellie gasp with surprised discomfort. I looked back her way and saw the guy with his arm around her waist, embracing her nonchalantly. Instead of swimming by, he apparently made a slight move toward us and slipped his arms around Ellie without a word, as if they were long time lovers. He just stood there, arm around her waste as Ellie’s eyes widened with complete shock of the situation. Ellie gave a small yelp and politely pushed him away, giggling incessantly. I on the other hand went into 9 year old mode, screamed at him, “What are you doing?” and then splashed him with a big wave of water, not once, but twice. He just stood there in the water looking at me curiously. I began to laugh once I realized how ridiculous it appeared that I just splashed this guy in Ellie’s defense. We laughed hysterically and swam away.
Hour three- Boogie boards. I then refocused my sights on the group of guys with the boogie board. They had the golden egg. I was attempting to unsuccessfully body surf all afternoon, and realized how even as a kid, the beach was way more fun with a boogie board. We swam over to the group and shared quick “shy” smiles. Mexican men aren’t usually shy ab
out hitting on women, and now was no exception. One of the better looking ones swam over and attempted some English. We chatted for a while and finally, I asked, “Do you think your friend will let me ride that?” He immediately signaled over to his friend to hand it over to me. Another one of the guys took the opportunity to wad over to Ellie and strike up conversation. I happily returned to the blissful Hawaii years, when as a child I would spend full afternoons catching waves on my electric blue with airbrushed pink and yellow stripes boogie board and the rush and fear as I rode on top of a wave. I rode it three times onto the shore and then reluctantly returned it to its rightful owner. I decided that even a rainy and cold trip to Acapulco could be vastly upgraded with the help of a boogie board, and made it my mission that my next trip I would find one to enjoy the entire weekend.
Girls gone wild. After three hours straight in the water, only leaving to pay the banana boat man, and then rapidly returning to the sea, Alli came to wave us in. It was three o’ clock and we needed to get dressed and leave to catch the bus, aka Our Salvation, home. Elli and I tried the “5 more minutes” trick, but soon were dragging ourselves out of the water to the beach front restaurant in which Felicity and Alli had taken shelter. We were not prepared to relive the calculated changing ordeal of yesterday, and instead went to a nearby palapa in order to hold up sarongs and towels for Ellie to change within. However, we still managed to attract an audience, but were more bitter and anger this time, barking at any man that dared to glance over. “Remember what Sally Bennett always says,” Ellie sarcastically reminded me as she shimmied off her bikini bottoms, “you’re never going to see them again anyway!” She threw them over the sarong. A group of guys nearby actually began clapping and hollering as I handed Ellie her tank top into the make shift changing room. “Sean caballeros!” I ordered to them. This prompted them to laugh hysterically. “Oh my god, 
they’re actually filming,” remarked Felicity. I looked over and to my horror the three were sitting at their restaurant table with the camera up directed at us. Felicity was dressed entirely, Ellie was behind a makeshift dressing room, I, however, had just my bikini on and my white ass facing their camera. “Put that away,” we all took turns yelling. “Fucking Mexico,” I remarked to Felicity and Ellie. “Fucking Mexico,” Ellie remarked back. After we both were clothed we marched over to these creeps. “Aren’t you at least going to buy us a drink and lunch for your footage that you got?” I asked. One of the guys quickly grabbed the camera away from the table as we approached, accurately assuming that we were prepared to swipe it. “That was a great show,” one of them responded in English. They let us see what they had, as I deleted each photo. We agreed to let them keep the video of the changing session as long as they didn’t spread it around and they emailed it to us. Agreed.
Home is where the tacos are. We briskly walked back from the metro, wearing little more than our beach clothes, as winter had begun to set in in Mexico City. We decided to drop our sandy stuff off at home, and literally run to our newly claimed favorite taco stand. It was just a bit passed 11 at night. “I’ve really been missing Paco all weekend,” confessed Ellie about the taco maker extraordinaire, as we hurried in our sweatpants and flip flops to the puesto around the corner from our house. I laughed out loud and prayed that he would still be open despite it being a Sunday night and the neighborhood already asleep. We turned the corner and 
in the distance, half a block down, saw the lights dimmed and a silhouetted figure scrapping clean a large grill. I began to run. Ellie followed suit. Then it turned into a sprint. Ellie hollered in perfect movie fashion, “Paaaacccooooo!!!” as if she were a 1920s woman bidding her lover goodbye on a departing train. We ran all the way to him, and he looked a little worried and alarmed as these two young, white girls yelled his name in the night. “Estás cerrado?” we asked. He looked puzzled at this commotion and nodded his head. His wife peaked on from the back and said something that we didn’t understand. “Sí,” he told us, “come back tomorrow.” We told him that we had been in Acapulco all weekend. “It was rainy and cold,” we informed him. What we were hoping for, I do not know. For him to say, “Oh, all right, you poor darlings had a rough weekend on the beach? We’ll your mushroom quesadilla is on the house, Rach. And Ellie, can I make you a chorizo taco or a bistek one? How about both? You look hungry. Let me just re-ignite the grill, gals.” He just looked at us blankly, with no sympathy. “Okay, we’ll see you later,” we told him.
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