Manzanillo is down on the pacific coast a little south of Guadalajara. The trip from Guadalajara down to Manzanillo is mostly surrounded by fields of blue agave, aka Tequila in plant form.

It actually did rain for a few seconds along the way too – that’s one day with rain per three weeks. Not bad.

Manzanillo is now the busiest port in Mexico, passing up Veracruz a few years ago. Even so – the port looks like a little toy compared to Oakland’s monstrous shipyard. 4 big cranes in Manzanillo… maybe 20 in Oakland? Manzanillo is centered around it’s seaside zócalo with a big metal swordfish.

Manzanillo didn’t feel very gringo-friendly, I think it’s because it’s really an industrial port city at heart – and proud of it. I took off for Acapulco the next morning. 12 more hours of bus down the side of the big beautiful pacific to Acapulco. The highway was slow and windy, lots of military checkpoints, small villages lacking basic infrastructure, and… miles and miles of stunning, deserted, secluded beaches.

And Acapulco! The first thing you notice about Acapulco is the taxis. The whole city is literally covered with little Volkswagen Bug taxis.

Acapulco’s central zócalo….

The bay of Acapulco is beautiful, even if it smells bad. The mountains nestle right down to the water – a truly beautiful city (from far away).

Acapulco from up close… being blunt, Acapulco is the filthiest, most polluted, most depressing, most crime ridden place I’ve ever experienced in my life. I have a completely new perspective on West Oakland. You think you’re hardcore? In downtown Acapulco, the bums have are literally rotting away on the street. The air is thick with diesel smog. The water is brown. Sewage. Insects. The very first guy I talked to, a taxi driver in the bus terminal, was selling cocaine. Everyone up here in the Bay Area, everyone from the prostitutes in the Tenderloin through the crackheads and gangbangers up and down Oakland’s International Boulevard – we’ve still got our basic needs covered at a level that the general population in Acapulco can’t assume. We have clean water. We have clear air. We have a functional sewage system. Our bums survive. We have welfare. Social Security. I don’t want to say we’re pampered, because that implies that we’re soft, and have something to be ashamed of because we’ve managed to get our basic needs under control. But we do need to realize and remember that even though there is significant variance in the level of privilege we’re born into in the first world, from the perspective of the other 4 billion, we’re really all one and the same. There’s a lot wrong with our society in the States, there’s a lot to work on and a lot to change, but it’s essential to remember how much we’ve done that’s right. There’s a level of pride in the States that’s warranted by our successful creation of community… but yet for some reason doesn’t exist. Keep working to improve, but allow ourselves to recognize and celebrate good we’ve created! </rant>

Día de la Revolución celebrates the start of the Mexican ‘Revolution’ of 1910. Of course, the guys who won decided it was a ‘revolution’ not a ‘civil f-ing war’… all rightly then. Approximately 1 of every 15 Mexicans were killed in the 7 years of war. But stats and fancy numbers always lie anyway right? So let’s celebrate! Everyone and their mother was down on Mazatlán’s malecón. The parade went several kilometers from downtown toward the tourist district (Zona Dorada) and lasted all afternoon.

They do this cool thing with the military-style bands… the drummers are all women and the horns are all men. No wussy flautists needed here!

Mazatlán itself is a very admirable city, significantly larger than La Paz. I only ended up only spending one day here, but in that one day I did manage to get totally fried on the beach…. this picture being the bad part of a good beach.

There’s all kind of resorts going up in the district between downtown and the Zona Dorada (gringoland). Construction in México is different than in the States….

If those look like big sticks holding up the molds for the cement forms, that’s cause, yes, those are big sticks. If it looks like those guys are working some 5 stories up without any safety equipment, that’s cause they are. And if it looked like that guy who fell off the 5 stories the next morning was dead, well, yes, he was definitely dead. I didn’t take a picture of his body, something about respect and stealing someone’s soul.

If La Paz is famous for anything, it’s the Malecón (the walkway/street along the water) and the sunsets. Even though La Paz is east side of baja, the water lies to the northwest of the town due to the Bay of La Paz. How convenient… the sun sets to the northwest in this part of the world.

And the Malecón…

La Paz is the only real Mexican city in southern baja. The Cabos are resort towns, and nothing else here is big enough to have the vibrancy of a city. In ‘El Centro’ (downtown) the streets are packed and alive with people everywhere. It’s hard to capture the feeling with pictures, but this is a start.

Chiles, anyone?

And the beaches… if you head north out of town (actually farther down the baja peninsula) beaches dot the coast. It’s great – they serve beer on the beach. I spent a few days down that way. Playa Pichilingue…

Playa Tecolote…

Shuffle your feet in the sand as you go out into the water… you got to scare the sting rays away! No joke. I found myself carrying this guy Odin back to the bus cause he got stung and couldn’t walk. Apparently it’s an intense throbbing pain that lasts about 3-4 hours… then you’re back to better.

I took an intensive spanish course in La Paz for a week at the Centro de Idiomas, Cultura y Comunicación, which is a language school in La Paz. The school was ok… the lesson plan wasn’t tailored enough to fit my deficiencies. But helped me a butload anyway.

I met this dude at the school, Athony who’s doing México by bike. He said he’d ran into about 10 cyclists or so coming down baja from Vegas. Well, next time I come back to La Paz there’ll be one more cyclist coming down that road.