Culture Galore

Mazatlan, Sinaloa, Mexico

One way that Mazatlan sucks you in is to present you with a seemingly non-stop series of cultural activities to keep you occupied, making it difficult to get the various boat related projects done.  At least, that's my story and I'm sticking with it.

Case in point: Yesterday, as I am putting the finishing touches on my new water heater installation, I am informed that I am the designated guide and chaperon for a bevy of women determined to finish off the "Art Walk" that we started a few weeks ago.  Somehow the other husbands all had convenient excuses why they could not possibly leave their boats just now - waiting for parts, emergency repairs needed, bad knees, etc.

So it came to be that I found myself escorting Sue and couple of friends through the streets of Old Mazatlan, visiting most of the little art galleries that we had missed on the last go-around.  Probably just as well that I was there as I am sure they would have been completely lost without me.

The art walk is pretty cool.  In fact, I think we saw some even more interesting sites this time than last time..  Several of the exhibits are actually held in the artist's homes, which they open to the public only for these art walks, on the first Friday of each month during the winter (this is the next to last one for this season).  A couple of the homes were quite spectacular.  And several of them were kind enough (or foolish enough) to serve wine and cheese and other goodies, which was quite a hit with my group.  Note: Can you find the vicious guard dog on duty in this picture?

We ended up back at the Plazuela Machado for supper before heading off for the 2nd half of our cultural immersion.  In the evening, we walked past the many enticing looking bars and open-air stages, playing music that ranged from hard rock to smoky jazz, to arrive at the "Museo de Arte de Mazatlan", in time to take in a Flamenco dance presentation that started around 8:45PM.  Surprisingly it wasn't half bad - lots of energetic dancing and some great guitar playing and singing, all with a multimedia background, called appropriately "Mis Andares Espectaculo Flamenco Multimedia".

Upon leaving the Flamenco dancing, around 10:30PM, our group had grown with the addition of a few other strays from the Marina, so we had enough to make it worthwhile to hire one of the "little red trucks" for 20 pesos a head, to take us all back to the marina.  For people from Alberta, riding in the back of a pickup truck just comes naturally.

Oh yeah, the water heater did arrive after only 2 weeks (not really much worse than back in Nanaimo at times), and it is now installed and making copious amounts of hot water.  Of course, nothing is ever totally straight forward.

After all my careful measuring, the heater turned out to be 1/4" too tall to fit under the cockpit drain that had forced me to cut the old heater into pieces to get out.  In spite of this heater being significantly smaller than the old one (6 gallons instead of 10), it still would not fit!  So, I was forced to remove the offending drain fitting from the cockpit before I could wedge the heater in (Note that this drain is now back in position in the accompanying photo).  Just par for the course when you live on a boat.  All in all, it went pretty smoothly as boat projects go.

As I am writing this, Sue is off to a cut-throat game of Train Dominoes up at the Gus y Gus restaurant (they let them use a table there for the price of a glass of orange juice - or other more high-octane beverages).

We really have to get out of Mazatlan soon.  There is just so much perfect weather and good company we can take!

{GMST}23|16.25|N|106|27.2833|W|Marina Mazatlan|Marina Mazatlan{GEND}