The top 5 things about Mazatlan are the lovely beaches, the great weather, the excellent food, affordable housing and of course the wonderful people.
Let's start with the beaches. There are about 5 miles of sandy coastline with several different beaches. Below is a photo of North Beach looking north to the Golden Zone, denoted by the high rises in the distance. Except for the weekend when this beach is populated by the native Mexican tourists this beach is seldom crowded. Merritt bought a beach chair at the local Walmart and spent many hours sitting here reading books with an occasional dip in the ocean to cool off.
With the great weather, nearly every evening we had access to marvelous sunsets.
After the sun went down we often went into the historic district to try some of the great restaurants there.
I don't feel the need to belabor the point but the food here is amazing while being reasonably priced. We had access to great salads, local food (Locas Papas) and Merritt's favorite Oxtail stew. The Oxtail stew may not look the best but it tasted great, especially since Merritt's favorite flavor is gravy.
We spent our first four weeks in an Airbnb close to North Beach. It had 2 bedrooms and 2 baths, and a large kitchen and cost us about $25 per night. It was 2 blocks from the beach and had a nice comfy couch and a TV so we could hook up our laptop and watch Netflix/Amazon Prime in the evenings. The biggest downside was that next door was a boarding kennel. Those dogs would always start barking with the sunrise. We spent the remainder of our vacation in a 3 bedroom 2 bath home with ocean views near Olas Altas, it is $55 per night, averaged together our housing costs were about $40 per night which is about what you would pay in rent in most places in the US. Both homes offered a significant discount because we had made a 4-week rental commitment. This is one of the factors that make it possible to be on vacation for the same cost as being at home. With Airbnb, you show up and you're automatically plugged in (wifi, power, gas, etc) plus the hosts nearly always go out of their way to make sure you enjoy your stay.
We have met so many wonderful people during our stay in Mazatlan. The Mexican people are so friendly by nature and the members of the local church congregation where we attended treated us like family. The congregation also provided an opportunity to meet up with other Anglos who were visiting. Additionally, we helped teach English for two hours every Friday night (using English Connect) and grew close to a different set of wonderful people.. Merritt also takes Spanish lessons from a local church member.
We were invited to join a 16th birthday celebration with a wonderful family.
Below: the largest group of visitors at church while we were there.
Some of the group that we helped with English on Friday nights.
On February 3rd we took a four day trip to Durango, Mexico going by bus over the new highway. This new highway includes about 100 bridges and 50 tunnels that shorten this trip from 9 hours to 3 hours. While the temperatures in Mazatlan are 75 to 80 for daily highs Heather was interested to find some cooler weather. Durango has an elevation over 6,000 feet and is typically about 10 degrees cooler than Mazatlan. Heather enjoyed the cooler temperatures, Merritt had to buy an inexpensive jacket to stay comfortable on our walks around the town. We enjoyed this historic mining town which has one of the largest historic districts in northern Mexico. The electric blue skies reminded us of Corrales, NM. The bus stations in Mexico are very orderly and the buses are very comfortable. Being able to speak a little bit of Spanish helped us make sure we got on the right bus. (Es este autobus que va a Durango?)
The internet obviously makes being on extended trips like this one so easy. Merritt can video chat with Heather's father Ted. We can text often with family. We can send and receive video messages with our grandkids. It's no different being here than if we were in Portland. Additionally, we used Uber, Google Translate and Spanish Dict apps to get around and communicate.
On Feb 12th Mark and Lorette Eliason joined us for about 10 days. Mark and Merritt went to High School together back in Fair Oaks and we have stayed in touch with them through the years stopping and seeing them whenever we passed through Redding. This made the nightly game of cards more entertaining and Merritt and Mark enjoyed riding bikes down the Malecon (the 2-mile pedestrian/bikeway in front of the ocean) and buggie boarding in the waves at Olas Altas (Olas Altas actually translates to High Waves).
We traveled to Las Labradas Archaeology Zone (a small town 45 minutes north of Mazatlan) by Uber. Exploring this UNESCO World Heritage site was a highlight.
Mark and Lorretta left just as Mazatlan kicked off their Carnival Celebration. It is supposed to be the 3rd best place to celebrate Carnival behind only Rio and New Orleans and I believe it after seeing all the activity. To begin with, the city created about 30 super large paper mache statues each representing a different Latin American country. We have photos of most of them but will only include one of our favorites here. This one represents Bolivia and is extremely creative.
There were about 8 different bandstands set up along the Malecon near Olas Altas which each played music from about 6 pm to 2 am for all four days of the Carnival.
On one of the nights, there is a huge firework display that re-enacts a battle from the French - Mexican war where French ships which attacked Mazatlan were repelled. Several barges are setup off Olas Altas beach loaded with fireworks for a show that went on for about 40 minutes. We could see quite a bit of it from the window of our apartment.
Earlier in the evening, Merritt ventured out to see the crowds all filling up the Malecon and the beach getting ready for the show to start. Everyone was enjoying the family-friendly festivities.
On the second and then again on the last day of the Carnival there is a huge parade with about 35 huge floats which travel the full length the Malecon from Valentinos in the North to Olas Altas in the South which is about 5 miles. They actually take down the traffic lights along the road to allow these huge floats to pass by. The photos below were taken from our apartment window.
In between the floats were dancers representing many different Latin American countries. The dancers all had pretty elaborate costumes. Here are a few examples:
These dancers were pretty exhausted by the time they reached us in Olas Altas but some friends of ours got these photos at the starting end of the parade.
Carnival was fun but it was nice when it ended, 4 nights in succession with very loud music (which actually rattled our windows) tends to wear on you after a while. It was nice to have a couple of weeks of "normal" Mazatlan before we headed back to the States. During this time we had the opportunity to teach English at the Merchant Marine College in Mazatlan. One of the English teachers is from the local church congregation that we attended and she asked us to come and speak to all of her classes during our last week there. They are an amazing group of young men and women. Karla who was Merritt's Spanish teacher had just graduated from this college and so she also came along on our first day to help us find the right classrooms.
On our last night, we went out to the local Taqueria to say goodbye to some of our new friends until we return next year.
We hope if you ever get a chance to visit Mazatlan that you find it as enjoyable as we did. The beaches are excellent, the climate during our North American winter is great, the food is delicious, the housing is a tremendous bargain and the people are marvelous. Don't miss it.
On March 10 we left "normal" Mexico to go and spend 3 weeks with our daughter Madison and her family. Little did we know how foreign we would find things in Utah with all the Corona Virus restrictions that were put in place soon after our arrival. But we will save that bit of craziness for our next blog update. Until then, don't panic, use common sense and stay healthy.
Merritt and Heather
