Barra Vieja

Barra Vieja is a village and long beach in the rural east of Acapulco municipality, about 30 km from the city and some 20 minutes beyond the international airport, on the road towards the Costa Chica. It sits on a sandbar between the open Pacific and the Laguna de Tres Palos, and takes its name from the bars of sand and sediment that build up where the Papagayo River meets the sea. The beach runs for several kilometres, 50 to 110 m wide, with fine, light grey sand; unlike the beaches inside Acapulco Bay it faces the open ocean, so the waves are much stronger.

Barra Vieja is best known as the cradle of pescado a la talla, Guerrero's signature grilled fish. According to Gregoria Galeana, widow of Don Beto Godoy, fishermen on the Costa Grande used to skewer a big fish on a stick and stand it in the sand beside a fire at dawn as their first meal of the day. When the couple set up a restaurant on the shore of the lagoon, the smoke and long waits led her to split the fish open like a grilled chicken and smear it with an adobo of whatever dried chiles she had in the kitchen. Today the fish, usually red snapper or snook, is opened, rubbed with red chile paste and cooked on grills over espino wood, and restaurants all along the beach serve it.

The village is also the starting point for boat trips on the Laguna de Tres Palos, where local boatmen take visitors through the mangroves to see herons, pelicans and other birds; the lagoon was used as a set for early Tarzan films. On the beach there are horse rides, all-terrain vehicles, surfing and massages, and the sunsets over the open sea are a big draw. Many tours from Acapulco combine the lagoon, a mud bath on the beach and, from May to October, the release of baby sea turtles at a turtle camp.