Mexico: Acapulco's faded glory lives on in cliff diving

ACAPULCO, Mexico — Time has not changed the dives.

Acapulco's cliff divers still hurl themselves off a tiny ledge 105 feet above a narrow, churning channel of seawater just 12 feet deep.

They still fly for more than three seconds, breaking the water with clenched fists at speeds of more than 50 miles per hour.

But time has changed everything else. From the late '40s through the '60s, Acapulco was the fountain of cool. It swung, it was hep, it was hip, Sinatra was here, and Sammy Davis Jr. and Errol Flynn, John Wayne, Brigitte Bardot, Tom Jones and his hips, Rocky Marciano and his fists. They called it the Mexican Riviera. It was elegance: Hedy Lamarr married here, and Lana Turner lived here. It even had a certain gravitas: The Nixons spent their 25th anniversary here, the Kissingers honeymooned here, and Ike met the Mexican president here.

Fading into the mainstream

But time has dulled Acapulco's allure, and it is now as cutting edge as the fried mozzarella at Planet Hollywood. It's tiki huts and sticky bar stools and funny-colored shooters along a gaudy strip where one club's marquee proclaims "drunks wanted." It's become a package-deal destination for tourists grazing at all-you-can-shovel Mexican breakfast buffets.

Tourists used to be 85 percent foreign; now they are 85 percent Mexican. It's a great place to bring the kids, but don't expect to bump into Britney.

The old Acapulco has been gone since at least the late 1970s, when the city's name was best known for Acapulco Gold — a popular type of marijuana, a cult film about drug cultivation, a song and a cocktail.

Vista to the past

The last vestiges of hip Acapulco linger at La Perla restaurant in the El Mirador hotel, which still has girls in wow-short skirts making the rounds with trays of cigarettes.

Here, in a room where diners get perfect views of the cliff divers, the visiting celebs used to autograph the walls. Then local craftsmen traced those signatures with chisels, carving them into the wood-paneled walls.

"The place has a special magic," said Angel David Castrejon, a bulky 26-year-old diver, who seems overcome by nostalgia in the room — at least until he starts chatting about rap music and the Internet.

Castrejon, with his Oakland Raiders hat worn backward, is the new breed of Acapulco cliff diver — warmed more by thoughts of J. Lo than Bardot. The old guys worked on guts and beer, tough men with enormous chests and little waists.

Jorge Monico Ramirez was one of them. He's 48 now and the barrel in his chest has fallen to his waistline. He has the punctured eardrums and the twisted, sprained shoulders and spine of a man who has made thousands of dives. Diving took him to Japan, Italy, France and Australia, back when he was called "The Monkey" and ABC's "Wide World of Sports" couldn't get enough of the divers. Those days are frozen in a picture hanging on the wall of La Perla, showing Monico, young and strong, arm-in-arm with soccer hotshot Pele.

"They were heroes for me," said Monico's 29-year-old son, Jorge, who now dives, too. "Each generation has something good to offer. They were the best in their moment, and now we are the best in ours."

A disciplined effort

He and Castrejon and the other young divers have no celebrities to schmooze, and they see themselves more as elite athletes than tourist attractions. Castrejon said he avoids red meat, maintains a low-fat diet and trains six hours a day. He swims, runs, lifts weights and practices acrobatics on a trampoline. He works on his form from the high-dive platform in a local swimming pool, and he makes regular dives from the La Quebrada cliff. He and his coach carefully review videotapes of his dives.

"In the old days it was completely different," he said. "All the training we do didn't exist." He said training reduces injuries: Over the years, divers have damaged eyes, ears, spines, heads and hands from hitting the water at great speeds, or from hitting the side of the cliff. If they don't time the incoming waves just right, they can also hit the rocks on the bottom.

Castrejon supplements his $5-a-day diving salary, paid by the diver's union that also offers its members health and retirement benefits, with commercials. He filmed a spot for Johnnie Walker whiskey last year, and he has also done ads for Gatorade and Pepsi. But he said nobody gets rich diving, and it's the rush of performance that keeps him climbing up the cliff wall and diving off, day after day.

"I love to feel the adrenaline," he said. "You always feel scared, because if you don't feel that, you can get hurt. But it's nice when you're up there. You see all the people. You're like a star."