RESEARCH NOTES: Cliff Diver

CLIFF DIVER grew out of a short story called So Far From God that I wrote for a writing group. That story turned into The Cliff, the last story in prequel MADE IN ACAPULCO, a collection of 5 short stories.

The plot of CLIFF DIVER combines key elements that really made an impression on me when we lived in Mexico:

Bottled water

The Maxitunel

Cliff divers

Hotels with style

Bottled water

No one drinks tap water in Mexico and bottled water is essential. You contract with a bottled water company to bring a set number of 5-gallon jugs to your home once a week. These jugs, called a garrafon, are in everyone’s home.

The delivery truck has a large frame with slots to carry 60 or so jugs, positioned with the sealed neck of the bottle poking out. Once a week, the truck would pull up in front of the house, which like all the houses, was surrounded by a tall wall topped with razor wire. The driver would ring the bell at the gate to be let inside the property and haul 5 jugs through the house to the kitchen, one at a time.

PHOTO: Empty garrafons by Daniela Flores via Unsplash.com

Fitting the garrafon into the countertop dispenser base was tricky. Once the seal was off, I had to climb on a stepladder with 5 galloons sloshing inside, and flip it upside town into the plastic base, which had a tendency to skitter around unless the jug was perfectly positioned. The trick was to get the garrafon into the sweet spot without dumping out half the water.

When it came to a plot involving drug smuggling, water delivery trucks were perfect camouflage. They’re everywhere because everyone buys bottled water, and with all those slots for the jugs, there is terrific capacity.

The Maxitunel

The first time we drove through the Maxitunel was a seminal experience. The tunnel is very, very long, with a relatively low ceiling. When it curves you can’t see either end, just this enclosed snake of pavement punctuated with lights above and doors along the wall for maintenance areas.

Every time we made the trip, there were legions of people wandering between the lines of cars waiting to pay the entrance toll and listlessly hawking jellied candy in flat white boxes. It’s clearly a syndicate as there were no freelancers selling a different sweet.

That was another experience to give Emilia Cruz so as to root her even more deeply into the Acapulco landscape.

I tried to capture the speed, darkness and lights that rush at you in the Maxitunel in CLIFF DIVER. Being in a car speeding along is one thing, being on foot would be terrifying.

Cliff divers

A tourist staple, the cliff divers at La Quebrada is an unmissable experience. The divers are skilled, fearless, and know how to keep the crowd gasping in awe. The cliff face is so rocky and the timing has to be perfect so that they hit the tide just right.

PHOTO: istockphoto.com

Personally, I can’t imagine launching myself off a platform and sailing down a cliff face to hit a specific spot at just the right moment that the tide is in.

So the cliff divers became the perfect metaphor for Emilia taking the risks she does in the book.

The hotel

The Palacio Real hotel in the Detective Emilia Cruz series is a composite of my favorite hotels in Mexico:

• The Camino Real in Acapulco on Punta Diamante (see the picture below). The fictional hotel mirrors this hotel’s location and architectural concept, and
• The Hacienda los Laureles outside Oaxaca has the ambiance of intimate luxury that I imagined for the hotel managed by Kurt Rucker.

To make the fictional Palacio Real a true experience for the reader, I borrowed elements, like the waterfall pool grotto and the Pasodoble Bar, from my travels to other far-flung places, including Fiji.

PHOTO: Aerial view of the Camino Real hotel in Acapulco, courtesy grupocaminoreal.com