Travelling On a Rock-Bottom Budget and a Lunchbag

Encounter on a Rooftop, In Old Acapulco

By Nikki Tack

Her name was Teresa, Maria, Lucia and several others which she chanted rapidly, smiling graciously, as she addressed me, continuing to hand rub the huge dripping white bed sheet on a dark gray stone rippled washboard. And she didn’t look a day over eighteen.

With an unusual deftness her small, slender wrists pulled the sheet into the adjoining oversize cement troughs that were filled with water, stopping only momentarily to brush her long dark hair, and to wipe perspiration off her thin face.

Here, before me, stood the hotel laundress, the two-star establishment where I had spent a glorious February month lazing on hot sands cooled by shady palms - far away from back home snow and eyes.

Were my eyes deceiving me, a nineteenth-century laundry room in this twenty-first century world?

I met her quite by accident on that next-to-the-last-day before departure date, that afternoon, as I crammed as much more sightseeing to remember, before this travel-bubble would burst with the plane floating down to my snow-bound world back home...

Yes! Really cramming - even in that blazing siesta-time-heat which climbs to the nineties, those quiet hours after lunch, when the whole town seems to shut down, the shops and citizen alike, for the shade of their homes...

This cuarto I had found in old Acapulco (the West Side) was tiny, very clean and had fairly comfortable accommodations – the single cot, one rickety wooden chair, and the usual two or three bent wire hangers on the back of the door to hand my winter coat – but never mind the amenities – I had “made it”! This very-much-planned trip that almost didn’t happen what with constantly rising fare prices and hotel rooms.

That particular morning, the roosters that ran loose in gardens near my neighborhood, waking me every dawn. I had risen, as usual. I had walked again to the zocolo park, to watch West Acapulco stir to a new day.

From the twin-spire church, at the far end of the park I watched sombrero-capped, and rebozo-shawled townspeople shuffling through the open doors.

Watched the park cleaners sweep the tile floors with long thatched brooms, then turning sprinkler hoses on walls of trailing rainbow color of bougainvillea and bright red giant-size hibiscus. Watched those flocks of tiny blackbirds, like sparrows, roosting on the branches of the tall mango-laden tress. The groups of grade-school children too, walking to school, all, impeccably dressed in white starched blouses, jumper-skirts for girls, dark long pants for boys, white shoes for girls, black, for boys – all gleaming. The school, behind the church, the walls constructed of open-bricks, for cross-ventilation.

Away from zocalo park, on the costera (main street) a short walk along the bay I had climbed that little hill to the Fuerte de San Diego (old fortress) and watched the blinding red sun rise high over the foggy waters as it streaked above the huge white ocean liners moored at costera’s edge.

I had walked barefoot behind the morning crew of beach-sweepers as they raked miles of pale gold sand, and then watched the waves wash away the only footprints – mine. In that very early morning solitude I could pretend it was my own private estate, my villa. Later – those gigantic free beaches – thirty-eight of them – by law, become outdoor living rooms – crowded knee-to-knee with townspeople and tourists.

Early, that morning, I had watched the small fishing boats returning to shore, the huge nets filled with the night’s catch; watched those human chains of young sun-darkened and virile young men pulling the long ropes that pulled the nets toward them, the straining long pulls, finally reaching the sandy edge. And then, watching the mad scramble of restaurateurs and shopkeepers waiting to purchase their choices of the silvery, squirming night catch.

Watched townspeople too, and itinerant travellers too, some, on foot, some emerging from mobile homes nearby camp-cookers in arms setting them up for grilling fish.

Small children too, sent by parents, for whatever free fish was left, waiting patiently, with white folded cloths over their containers.

It was always layers of tiny sardine-like creatures in the nets – left for “grabs”.

I saw one thin, barefoot old man take off his huge sombrero, turn it upside-down and fill it with squirmy silver sardines, and sea-gulls too, that filled the sky as they swooped down to fill their bills and dart quickly across the horizon. I had even made another trip to another of my favorite hills – the quebrada – back of the zocalo church, where I had watched, countless times, the famous torch divers take that awesome plunge between the jagged rocks in the swirling waters of the deep-blue Pacific Ocean.

I saw again that little shrine, high, on the rock, that little red votive candle, where the divers pray before they leap. And, on this hill where I had seen spectacular sunsets, the evening breezes swaying palm trees, before the sun became swallowed into inky waters.

Now, I wanted to see, perhaps, an aerial view of West Acapulco – from my cuarto...

I began climbing the narrow stone stairway at the rear of the corridor near my room, the three flights that led directly to a small corrugated tin shed – with the door wide open.

On the floor, near the door, lay a small infant sleeping on a blanket, so I turned back quickly, thinking I had invaded private quarters, but Teresa, at the washboard, smiled, and motioned to come ahead.

After introducing myself – “A turista de norteamerica,” and holding my hotel room key with my number on it – to allay any fear or anxiety, I used only one word of my “fractured-Spanish” but big on sign language – ver Acapulco and stretched my arm toward the city around.

She held out her small, dripping, water-whitened wrinkled palm in a gesture of welcome, smiled, and continued rubbing a large white bath towel on the stone washboard, taking only tiny pinches of soap powder sparingly, from a small bag on the counters – and with a small stiff brush she rubbed spots and stains. I walked to the rooftop edge, but my greater interest now was Teresa who was pulling heavy white bath towels from the rinse tubs, wringing them firmly with her slender wrists, shaking them straight, folding, and flattening before placing them – nine, in all, one by one, squarely on the top of her head. Then, with the graceful balanced turn of a ballerina she walked straight to the empty clotheslines strung across the rooftop, and, with a very mystifying twist of both towel corners, a manipulation of fingers – and the exclusion of clothespins that defies gravity (I’ve seen this Europe too). She removed each towel, one by one, off her head, till all hung on the clothes lines.

A few diapers too – por el niño as she pointed to the infant still sleeping soundly in the tin shed.

I looked far across the horizon for landmarks, but found nothing more interesting than I had seen all morning.

Teresa was still weaving in and out a maze of huge sheets billowing with the breezes.

Turning to leave, I waved to her and took one of my no-cost mental pictures of her (I don’t “do” picture-taking. Too much too carry, too expensive; besides-something thieves like to steal) Teresa - to remember in my own laundry room back home - Teresa, her face glistening with perspiration midst all those waving sheets, Teresa, waving back to me, with a smile.

As I neared my room, I paid more attention to those little signs, in Spanish, on the walls, and on the back of my bedroom door, the ones with the word toalla, that translated to “Please do not take the towels to the beach.”

That day, I did not accept the daily handful of freshly laundered towels from my smiling grade-school “maid”. (Every member in the family works in these “Ma and Pa” little hotels.) Nor would I have taken them every day that whole month.

After all, I don’t give myself a fresh bath towel every day, and I don’t wash them by hand. I think of you often, Teresa, as I make my way to my automatic washer and dryer. I thank you for giving me a deeper appreciation for what I have – and, an aloofness to what I have not.