This is a Swimming Pool?!

I have always been accustomed to swimming in pools during the long, hot and humid summers that I am used to having in Nebraska. Living in Akumal wasy amazing because the beaches were right at my front door. Living in Mexico City was not bad either because it only takes 4 hours to get to the beaches of Acapulco. But, sometimes you just want to drive down the street to a pool, take off your clothes and lay in the sun all day. I have never had a summer without the pool, so this summer was a little different.

I was searching all over Mexico City and Cuernavaca for a decent and nice place to swim. Apparently, in Mexico it is considered 'naco' to go swimming at a public swimming pool, but in the US it's totally normal. So a friend and I decided one day to drive about one hour to a place with pools, we had never been there before and had no idea what it was going to be like. For those of you who know this place, I just want to say before hand, that we had NO idea what this place was like and nobody told us what it would be like or warned us! The drive there was awesome, but when we got to the pool, I started to become suspicious. The name of the place we went to was called Palo Bolero.

When we got inside the door there were several pools, it looked pretty normal from far away but when we kept walking we realized it wasn't. So many people still had on their socks, shorts, tshirts, hats. There were not a lot of people in actual swim suits. It reminded me of when I was a lifeguard at a waterpark in Omaha and there would be a company party every year which the lifeguards would dread since people would swim in their clothes, babies in their diapers and nastier things. Look, if you are in your own pool, or in a lake, swim in whatever you want, hell swim naked! But if you are going to a public pool, what do you not understand about the word 'public'! If you are going swimming, the first that that comes to mind should be a swim suit!

The pools were not well maintained at all and the paint was chipping off everywhere. Ther was a slide that you had to climb a few floors to get on, but it was no longer running. Basically, this place looked like it would have been amazing when it opened, but then it shut down and people just came back and reopened it on their own. The pools I always went to at home were definitely not this type. They were a lot nicer and people actually used swim suits.

There were some stairs there that went down to where a stream used to run and there was a pool of water with a waterfall. That was definitely the best part there. The water was cool and probably cleaner than the water in the pools. There was a place where you could swim back into a cave and swim out. It definitely made up for the gross pools that were up on the hill.

When we were finished swimming and ready to leave we went back to the main area where the pools were. We laid out for a while in the sun and then I had the urge to jump off the diving board. This was a huge mistake. I went to the high dive and the kids that were jumping off this thing were doing whatever the hell they wanted. They were jumping at the same time, landing on top of eachother and all kinds of other crazy and dangerous stuff. As a former lifeguard, it was really pissing me off, but I couldn't do anything about it so I just watched and waited for these kids to finish up so I could jump. One thing never occured to me before I dove, to check how deep the pool was. Usually if there is a high dive, the pools have regulations for how deep the pool has to be for the diving board. Well apparently not in Mexico. So I dove into the pool and right after I hit the water the first thing I heard was the sound of my skull cracking on the cement of the bottom of the pool. Needless to say, I came up from the pool pretty disoriented and I was freaking out. I had heard all of those horror stories about people getting concussions and hitting their heads and thinking they were okay. Later they would go to sleep and never wake up because it was a lot more serious than what they thought. So thanks to mass media, I was genuinely freaking out and worried that I had done a lot of damage. Luckily, I was okay, otherwise I wouldn't be sitting here telling you about it.

However, there is one place that I can recommend to go swimming. Las Estacas is about an hour and a half away from Cuernavaca and it is beautiful. There is an area for outdoor camping, the park is beautiful and very eco-friendly. There are also several pools there for kids that have jungle gyms in them and they are very clean and looked really fun! You can rent canoes, rafts, snorkeling gear and other things for the water. The water is crystal clear and beautiful. Some people do diving trips there as well. There are lifeguards there and several places along the river where you can swing out over the water and jump in. You can bring in food, drinks and snacks and enjoy the sun, weather and company of whoever you are with. It was one of the best places I have been to in that area of Mexico. Here is a link to the website for Las Estacas in Morelos.

Here are some photos from my trip to Las Estacas.

These photos were taken with my Ipod Touch using the Instagram application.

So I just have a little advice for people traveling in Mexico and want to swim or lay out and are not by the beach : Do NOT go to Palo Bolero, just don't. There are plenty of nicer places to go and places that are more clean where people actually wear swim suits. I definitely learned that sometimes being spontaneous is not always the best and I should look into some things before I go out and do it, that way I won't be so disappointed. Oh, and before you jump into a pool, make sure you know how deep it is.