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Up in the Hills of Old Acapulco
Acapulco, Mexico
- By
Jane Ammeson |
Up in the hills of old Acapulco, away from the glittering hotel zone, along the winding narrow streets lined with flowering bougainvilleas, is the house of Dolores Olmedo.
Though the street called Cerro de la Pinzona has many stucco mansions surrounded by high walls and protected by iron gates, Olmedo's home stands out. It is here that in the mid 1950s her good friend Diego Rivera created a 60-foot mural along the outside stonewall.
Rivera, considered one of the greatest artists of this century and also the husband of artist Frida Kahlo, spent 18 months using a combination of tiles, seashells and stones in a sparkling array of vivid colors to fashion his mural de la serpiente emplumada (the feathered serpent). These are fantastical forms including the serpent that uncoils across approximately 30 feet of the mosaic, include the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl, the mythological dog Tepeziuncle as well as a dragonhead and a flamboyant face with a cactus growing from the top of its head. Rivera, along with two other artists, produced this art form now known as Mexican muralism. To do so, he immersed himself in the mythology of Mesoamerica including the history and beliefs of the Aztecs using what he learned to create his images.
Inside the empty modernistic house with its broad expanse of glass and flat planes of stucco, is another treasure trove of Rivera's works. The house, which was Rivera's studio, is not normally opened to visitors, though it is scheduled to become a museum in the future. But I am with someone who knows someone and so we are allowed to go through the rusted iron gate, through a tangled, overgrown garden of palms and birds of paradise and up a narrow staircase past buckets of plaster and tools left by handy men.
Though the Mexican government asked Rivera to remove a hammer and sickle representing his communist beliefs from the outside mural, inside, these symbols along with a dove carrying an olive branch are part of an elaborate mosaic on the ceiling. Other mosaic designs are more whimsical, a plane flies above a line of blue waves while a bright yellow and red fish swims in a single wave. Seashells dot the black tiles that offset the brilliant hues that Rivera selected for his compositions.
Up another flight of stairs is an open roof overlooking the many hills of Acapulco, its bay as well as a vast view of the Pacific Ocean.
To many, Acapulco is old glitz. After all, this is the place where Liz Taylor and Richard Burton had a home, Lucille Ball hung out and such 1940s and 50s stars as Lana Turner, Eddie Fisher and Frank Sinatra frequented. Acapulco has been called the birthplace of Mexican tourism," and though it has some heavy competition from places like Cancun and Puerto Vallarta, it is still a hot destination.
But beyond the beaches, the La Quebrada high divers who arc off the craggy rocks 120 feet down into the shallow waters of the Pacific and the numerous nightclubs, Acapulco has a unique cultural history that is less well known.
It is interesting that in many Mexican cities, there are gems of museums tucked away on small streets that offer cultural looks of this historical nation and yet operate with little fanfare.
One such museum is the Casa Mascaras where hand carved masks, a highly skilled indigenous art, line the walls of what was a small cottage. There are masks of all sizes and designs, including a free one given to visitors that is about the size of a thimble and yet is made with painstaking detail. In the back of the museum, craftsman keep busy customizing masks.
Nearby is El Fuerte de San Diego, a fort built by the Spaniards in 1616 to defend the port from marauding buccaneers including Sir Francis Drake.
"No one does museums like the Mexicans," said one of the visitors. And that seems so true. The old battlements gaze upon the waters, rusted canons still pointed out to sea. Inside, 12 salons located inside the fort showcase what life was like at the time the Spanish ruled Mexico. Artifacts from food, to storage bins and to weaponry can be seen in the salons that connect through interior passages. Treasure in the form of silver from Mexican mines were loaded on galleons sailing for the Philippines and used to purchase silks, ivories, spices and other Far East treasures. Once the galleons returned to Acapulco, landing in front of the fort, these goods were hauled across the continent to Veracruz and then on to Spain. It is a small museum, hardly mentioned in the travel guides that abound, but it is crammed full of historical information that is displayed in a very compelling way.
The Palma Sola Archeological Site, which is located in El Veladero Ecological Park, highlights the geometrical designs created by the Yopes who were the first settlers in the area. These designs date back more than 1500 years.
A great way to see many of these sites is to buy a 65 peso ticket for a two hour ride on what is called a trolley but is actually a brightly painted bus that makes stops at 25 points of interest throughout Acapulco. For that 65-peso price, riders can get on and off as often as they like. One great place to stop is in the Zocalo, the old downtown, complete with a square and an old church, the Nuestra Senora de la Soledad, built in 1930. Here families congregate in the early evening and vendors sell their wares as musicians play music and a puppeteer performs for a group of children. The movie stars had their glamorous hotels, but for some of us, this other part of Acapulco is just as fascinating.
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