An aging beauty, but still dear to the heart

ACAPULCO, Mexico – Some places in this world must be treated with the chivalry and tact one exhibits towards an aging lady whose faded charms can only be cruelly accented by garish day. Acapulco is one of them. She must be approached just after nightfall – so that the darkness may mercifully conceal the wrinkles and scars, and her dazzling necklace of lights and blinking neon signs provide an artificial sparkle where a true ambience no longer shines.

I first came upon Acapulco in this manner many years ago: Rushing down by car through tortuous twists and turns of mountain road from the chilly heights of Mexico City, some 7,400 feet above. My impetus carried me towards the warm embrace of the tropical sea – or so I thought. Acapulco signals a welcome like no other; for its dramatic surf can be seen from high above; its sly wink, glimpsed from the last peak, is a glittering beacon on the Pacific shore. It seems, for a magic instant, the fulfillment of Balboa’s dream about the existence of a Fountain of Youth, and a vindication of every gushy article written about her by pampered travel writers for the glossy magazines which cater to the international jet set.

Two days ago, in like manner, we had chosen a last-afternoon Mexicana airlines flight from polluted Mexico City, D.F. – perched on its mountain eyrie, high above – calculated to wing us into Acapulco at dusk, so the golden glow of late afternoon and the dying of the light, might impart to this elderly, still beloved courtesan some echo of its romantic glow.

We coasted to a landing through a speckled landscape, a few lights already blinking anxiously in deference to the coming night. Our welcome was warm. The Customs officer took my filled-out form without a glance. He smiled and indicated a yellow stand on which loomed a black button.

"Punch the bottom, señor!" he urged, when I hesitated. I poked the button. The light on the stoplight in front of us turned green. "You can pass," the Doganes grinned, "Bienvenidos a Acapulco!" (Welcome to Aca.)

If the light had turned red, he would have searched me and all my belongings. This is the sort of cheerful Russian roulette the arriving visitor or tourist encounters at Customs stations. You punch a button: Green means Go. Red says, "Whoa!" The Customs officer frisks you, then they rummage through your belongings. Is it a game of chance, with persons to be grilled and their stuff examined, determined by luck or circumstance? But it seems to work for them.

Having gotten a "green", I won’t argue, and cheerfully have no complaints. I say: "Hola, Acapulco! We meet again! Lead me to the bar so I can wet my tonsils."

* * *

The night is welcoming and humid. Our hostelry, just ten minutes from the airport, is a pleasure palace fit for Kublai Khan of Xanadu. The Fairmont Acapulco Express is composed of three towers; the Princess Tower, Pyramid Building (which, indeed, resembles those ancient Aztec and Toltec pyramids – like the Feathered Serpent – of human sacrifice; the third is the Marquesa Tower. Nowadays, the only thing sacrificed is your credit card.

There are places downtown, however, where the sign says. "American Express Card Welcome", then nobody at the cashier's corner knows how to "iron" it, or use it. You usually end up doing your rotes by hand, and fishing out cash.

On my earlier visit, I had written: "Dawn must break eventually, however, even upon Acapulco, and with daylight comes the moment of truth."

By high noon, this most highly touted of resort cities has become a disappointment. Acapulco may have sparkling discos and "wet shirt" ladies’ parties still, even an Arthur’s Disco-Salsa bar that jumps at night, and there’s still the pink-and-white Las Brisas Acapulco hotel in which Arnold Schwarzenegger snoozed, and various celebrities enjoyed their honeymoons, each of the "pink" jeeps they used to "climb" the internal zigzag to their cliff top cabanas, embellished with their names – like Jane’s Bottom Blessed This Seat, etc.

But the "lady" has grown dowdy, and become a middle-aged (though still expensive) courtesan among cities, rendered slightly more respectable by the Dior label on her gown.

The glitter has faded, though. The cachet shopworn. Acapulco still attracts 140 cruise ships per year, and perhaps a million visitors monthly – mostly Mexican this time. This is surely much better than we do, SARS or Wow Gordon notwithstanding. In the 1950s, by contrast, this vibrant port city with one of the most beautiful bays in the world (it sparkles by night) attracted Hollywood celebrities by the hundreds. They built mansions on the cliffs, and by the seashore, erected hotels. Here remain Planet Hollywood and Hard Rock Café, and those hardy perennials, McDo’s, Kentucky Fried, Pizza Hut, Pepsi, Coke and the other imperialistic Colas.

Here is where John and Jackie Kennedy spent their honeymoon. Here, too, came Bill and Hillary Clinton for their marital kick-off, with no Monica on the horizon beyond the azure sea. Liz Taylor and Mike Todd came here, too, for the lovingest months of Lizzie’s life. (Mike, whom she truly loved, died in a plane crash.)

Honeymooners continue to flock here, but the bloom is off the rose. Yet, it remains on the big entertainment circuit. Placido Domingo arrives for yearly benefit concerts, and singers, like Ricky Iglesias (daddy Julio), and homeboy Luis Miguel, come to give annual benefit concerts.

A half-finished, terrific-looking three-tiered mansion, climbing and clinging to one bayside hill testifies to the ups and downs of fortune. The owner must have belonged to the cartel and his opus is unfinished while he languishes in air-conditioned jail and runs his empire by cellphone. Every thing is possible here: They even, still, call a bribe, la mordida, or "the bite".

My driver Alberto waves airily at another deluxe mansion, perched precariously on a ledge: "Sly Stallone once rented that for two months. It goes for $2,400 a day. I looked at him in surprise: "Who do you think they are? The St. Regis?"

Right of our vehicle, as we tooled down the Costera Miguel Aleman, was a building they were dismantling. The restaurant in that failed enterprise had been called "HARD TIMES", and it, alas, lived up – or rather down – to its name.

* * *

Perhaps I simply view Acapulco with a jaundiced eye. I cannot drool over her coconut palms because we have them, too. The exotic jungles that encroach upon her boundaries can be found in the fastnesses of Quezon province – in Baler forest, for instance – and in Mindanao (that is, before the loggers get through with them).

The locals, the European and the increasingly fewer Gringo turistas, swoon over those pink, orange and purple Acapulco sunsets. These are no different from our own, including the semi-polluted sunsets over Manila Bay.

Our suite in the Acapulco Princess "pyramid", I must confess, however, is something else. Left of our 16th floor balcony is the surging sea, which, in the early morning, sends rollers capped with froth to attack the shore, and beyond those waves lies the pretty promontory of Punto Marques, beyond which the English filibusteros (freebooters), bucanneers, and pirates used to hide before pouncing on incoming Manila Galleons laden with spice, silk, and goldwork filigree.

Acapulco boasts 40 beaches, such as the "morning beaches" of Caleta and Caletilla, of the "sunset beach" of La Quebrada, the all-day Condesa beach where you are supposed to loll in the sand or collapse into a beach chair to sip mixed fruit drinks called Congas or Coco Locos, which are lethal compounds of coconut milk and gin, while slyly watching the bikinis.

Then there are the Hornos and Hornitos beaches, the La Angosta, the La Roqueta, the Pie de la Cuesta, the Puerto Marques, the Roca Sola, and Icacos, the Revolcadero beach, etc. In the old days, you could amuse yourself by buying beer for beer-guzzling burros, if you’re the type who finds alcoholic donkeys amusing.

What the tourist brochures and chamber of commerce leaflets do not emphasize is the undertow. If you’re a beach boy who dips too rashly into the water, you may wash up, all sodden, in China – if you make it.

As for me, I’m no beach aficionado, or – er, bikini or monokini watcher. Some years ago, I went to French Guyana to attend the rocket-launch of the Brazilian "Hot Bird" by the French Aerospatiale.

Outside my hotel window, I glimpsed a weird sight. On the beach of our hostelry, the Eden Rock, reclined a platoon of French women, completely in the nude, baking resolutely in the hot sun. Those femmes were, it seems, determined to burn themselves black, the fashionable complexion of the day. In the nearby village, Guyanese women were, with equal determination, rubbing white oil and whitening powder on their epidermis, so they could become "white".

The world’s not fair, I guess. Me? I’ll stick to my present persona, far from beautiful and decrepit though it may be.

* * *

FLASH! The terrorist bombs which destroyed an OFW and expatriate employees’ complex in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, apparently killed three Filipinos and wounded about 30 people of various nationalities.

When this writer was in Riyadh and Jeddah last September, the possibility – even probability – of such an al-Qaeda or JI terrorist assault was already being discussed. However, with strict Saudi police and their omnipresent muttawas on hand, we mistakenly believed the possibility was remote.

On the other hand, Osama bin Laden, the chief terror boy, is a Saudi, and he and his men clearly know the turf. The fact is that nobody’s safe in this treacherous world. We’ve simply got to learn to live with that fact.

Saudi Arabia, as an ally of the United States (albeit of reluctant nature) in the two Gulf Wars, including the last one in Iraq, is a natural target of retribution. Moreover, radical Islamists do want to unsettle and overthrow the ruling monarchy, the House of Saud. There are many conflicting factors at play.

But why try to interpret "terrorism?’ The cowardly terrorist strikes anywhere, and where least expected. The dead in the blast were merely the pawns in a continuing struggle that we must combat with equal ferocity. There will be more treacherous attacks and bombings to come.

President Macapagal-Arroyo is right to say that, back home, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) is on the verge of being declared a "terrorist" organization. Go get ‘em, GMA! The MILF are terrorists, and genuine blood brothers of the Abu Sayyaf and the Jemaah Islamiyah. They’re the footsoldiers of Osama’s al-Qaeda.

It’s, in addition, an increasingly clear case of radical and vicious Islam versus The Cross. Let’s stop pussyfooting about the issue. Who’re being targetted by the terrorists, whether at home or in Saudi? The Islamic Jihadis are hitting Filipinos and Christian expats in the Middle East, as well as Filipino Christians on our home front.

The Kris versus Christianity is not a new battle. The difference is simply that the amoks and juramentados now tote modern weaponry, fire RPG’s, and toss bombs. In what they call in Arabic, The House of War, we’re the ones being warred against – given no quarter, or shown no mercy.

We must fight back; or perish. I’m not in the mood for perishing today. Are you?