Tres Hombres In Mexico: Cuernavaca & Alcapulco

Cuernavaca is cool if you stay at an upscale hotel. We did. Las Mañanitas. Aside from the magnificent grounds of this walled oasis of beauty and tranquility, there's little else in Cuernavaca save the Cortés Palace and Museum. Built from 1522 to 1532, this fortress (built from a demolished local pyramid) has been converted into a museum, and features a balcony mural by Diego Rivera, (said to be his best), a few 19th Century paintings, some interesting old photographs, a smattering of artifacts...and the building itself.

The town's square is pretty dumpy; the restaurants looked bad; and the air was thick with lead fumes. Just another stinking Mexican town...but with great private villas, as this climate-blessed place is "Cottage Country" for a lot of Mexico City's rich. In fact, German Baron Alejandro von Humboldt called it "The City of Eternal Spring" because of its year-round temperate climate. Emperor Maxmilian & Empress Carlotta lived in Cuernavaca, and more recently it gained some kind of fame as the setting for Malcolm Lowry's novel, Under The Volcano. Thus endeth the lesson...

Alcapulco is a hole. We stayed south of town, in a hotel on the coastline of Puerto Marques., venturing into town only once for an unremarkable dinner.




Las Mañanitas comes complete with these two great parrots. And an albino peacock. Isn't that a strange waste of colour?



Bal relaxes in the Las Mañanitas pool...




Detail of the Rivera mural at the Palacio de Cortés




View back from the Cortés Museum towards the zocalo





Post-Modernism: I'm shooting LR while he sets up a remote shot so he can get in the picture you see far right


LR wrote an incredible short story version of this trip. To read it, just click here: Acapulco