The long run

Mazatlan, Sinaloa, Mexico

It is funny how familiar this place seems.  We spent about 3 months here a year and a half ago and got quite used to it.  One thing that becomes immediately obvious to us is how much larger Mazatlan is than La Paz.  The roads are busier and the distances are longer - it is really a long walk to get into town from the marina - a bus is much more necessary.  Fortunately the buses service is also a lot better.

While a lot of things are the same as they were when we were last here, there have been some changes.  The most disappointing to us is that our favorite coffee shop (Calypso) is missing (it is now a Sushi restaurant, of all things).  We now have to go across the street to Rico's, a much more upscale Starbucks kind of place.  It is always busy and the service is always bad!

This last weekend was a busy one.  Saturday was a holiday to commemorate the change-over of the government (the election was held while we were in La Paz).  Down on the Malecon, the aquarium was releasing a batch of young turtles into the sea.  We took a bus ride to get close, then walked for a long way - the Malecon was completely closed to traffic for the entire weekend due in part to the holiday but mostly because of the huge marathon event that took place on Sunday.  We could not believe the crowds of people that showed up for the releasing of the turtles - a real party atmosphere.

Later in the evening there was a huge fireworks display along the Malecon but we elected to skip it and the throngs of people, and headed into the Golden Zone for dinner at Cristies, where a very hot rocking blues-band was performing.  I am such a sucker for a good blues guitar.  The food was pretty good too. We actually went out to another palapa with live music on Monday night, but they were not in the same league.


The marathon route went right by the marina on Sunday morning and we spent a couple of hours watching and encouraging the runners.  Reportedly there were about 10,000 runners for the combined marathon, half-marathon and other distances.  The Kenyan runners cleaned up as usual.

 

Our planned stay in Mazatlan got extended a bit when we found out that there is a meeting tomorrow (Thursday) for this season's El Salvador rally.  We thought we would stick around and find out if this is what we want to do this coming spring.  Also, we have been trying to sell off our old chartplotter and radar equipment as it is taking up a huge amount of room on our small boat.  There is a swap-meet planned for this Saturday so we figured that would be an excellent opportunity.  As it turns out, we managed to sell the stuff to a fellow cruiser just a couple of hours ago, so the pressure is off.  We may still hang around till next Monday though before pressing on for greener pastures to the south.  BTW, this is still one of the least expensive places to keep a boat in Mexico so there is not a lot of incentive for us to leave.