Mazatlan With Visitor's Eyes -- February, 2015

We have visited Mazatlan five different times since we set sail for Mexico in 2011, and we chose Maz as a place to further Bryce's hip recovery in part because it is so familiar to us. But over the last few weeks we have once again been reminded that there are new experiences to be had even in a familiar place.

That's particularly true when visitors give us the opportunity to see through new eyes. Our friend Jodi Rafkin (of Portland, Or.) came to visit recently and we shared some familiar and new experiences with her:

The Familiar:

Those that know us well do not need to be reminded that many of our favorite places are restaurants. One of these - Mr. Lionso's - is a favorite less for its food than its location -- the spectacular surfing beach, Playa Bruja (Witch Beach). 

Catchin' A Wave - No, Not Us

Beach Busy-ness

Post-Brunch Beach Walkers

The New:

               Carnaval: Jodi's visit corresponded with Mazatlan's Carnaval and she joined us for our heavily photographed Carnaval experiences which we shared in a prior blog post.   

               
               Stone Island:  Because Jodi is a beach lover we used her visit as an excuse to scout out a trip to a local beach that we have heard great things about - Isla de las Piedras (Stone Island). A visit to Stone Island is an enjoyable, typical Mexican beach day and if you visit Mazatlan definitely put this on your itinerary. 

We arrived mid-morning and had no trouble securing a pleasant table at Lety's, a highly recommended restaurant on the beach. 

Jodi and Bryce at Lety's

The food at Lety's is very good and (important and not always the case at a Mexican beach restaurant) the bathrooms are clean and well equipped. Our one disappointment was that Lety's does not have hammocks and all the restaurant's beach recliners were in use. Next time we will call ahead and try to reserve some recliners or perhaps try the restaurant next door which does have hammocks. It's just plain difficult to take an after-luncheon nap in a plastic beach chair. 

Getting to Stone Island is half the fun. At this point we can only report in on the ferry that leaves from the Embarcadero near the naval station, but we hear there's another ferry dock in town. More on that later, perhaps. If you are cabbing or riding in a pulmonia just tell the drive that you want to go to Stone Island and he will get you to one departure spot or the other. 

We drove to the Embarcadero and parked in the Isla de las Piedras ferry dock parking lot - we were guided in part by a blue line that has been painted on the street to lead cruise ship passengers from the cruise ship dock to downtown. Parking was a true Mexico moment complete with an attendant that, using whistles and hand signals, directed us into such a tight spot that Bryce had to crawl out the passenger's side door. 

The Stone Island "ferry" is a panga with a fiberglass cover and - unique in our Mexico experience - life jackets! We suspect this safety feature is due to the ferry dock's proximity to the naval station. The Armada acts as the coast guard: it is the governmental entity responsible for maritime safety in Mexico. 

The ferry cost 30 pesos ($2.02 USD at current exchange rates) per person for a round trip (ida y vuelta). Don't loose your ticket - you will need it for your vuelta!  

The "Ferry"

Upon arrival one can walk to the beach or take the local "taxi" - a truck with bench seats in the bed. We didn't know how far away the beach was so we took the taxi (40 pesos one way - $2.70 - for the three of us). Next time we will probably walk unless we're carrying a lot of beach stuff.

The "Taxi"

Once at the beach there are several restaurants to choose from, all of which will let you sit all day for the price of a meal and a few drinks. Our lunch at Lety's was very good. Molly and Jodi had decadent shrimp dishes and Bryce had some very fresh fish. 

The water off Stone Island is very clear, the waves are fun but not overwhelming, and the beach is full of typical Mexican beach activity:

Para-sailing Kites

Food Vendors

All in all, Stone Island is a great day.


               Salsa y Salsa: Molly has been looking forward to having a guest who would take a cooking lesson with her - but Carnaval had all of the local chefs otherwise occupied. What she found was less - uhm - authentic? academic? - but fun: Salsa y Salsa is a margarita drinking / making / drinking, salsa making / eating and salsa dancing event that is popular as a cruise ship land excursion and, as it turns out, a total hoot - with some pretty good salsa recipes as a take-away.

Salsa y Salsa started out at 9:30 a.m. with all-you-can-handle margaritas.

Jodi's Breakfast Margarita

The "dancing chefs" then taught the group how to make a margarita, saving pockets of North America from the horror that is margarita mix. After margarita making the group moved on to making salsa roja, salsa verde, salsa de pina, pico de gallo, and a dessert salsa with coconut. And they got to wear chefs hats! 

Who Would Not Trust These Chefs To Make Great Salsa?!

The next salsa event was a salsa dancing lesson. We will pause here to reiterate that Bryce did not go to Salsa y Salsa. He felt the combination of daylight margaritas and a salsa dance lesson might be unwise as, historically, dancing has not been one of our partnership's core competencies. But Molly and Jodi had a a great time. 

Say "Salsa"!

But perhaps their favorite part was the post-salsa-ing hour-plus they spent on the beach in front of the hotel where Salsa y Salsa was held. Jodi negotiated the rental of a little thatched shade cover, a table and two chairs and a lovely time was spent taking turns paddling in the ocean and walking the beach. 


               Alagua:  It came time for Jodi to return to sunny Portland. [Really - it was sunny in Portland while she was visiting, which was particularly ironic when for two days it was rainy in Mazatlan!] On the way to the airport we stopped for the breakfast buffet at Alagua, a new restaurant find for us along the Zona Dorada beach. For 70 pesos ($4.75 USD) we were more than pleased.

Jodi's Breakfast Orange Juice

Now that we are without our "new eyes" we will have to open our own! We will let you know what we "see".  

Carnaval!!!! -- Mazatlan -- February 12 - 17, 2015

Mazatlan's pre-Lenten celebration is reported to be the third largest in the world, and though we have  have not celebrated Carnaval in Rio or Mardis Gras in New Orleans we do not doubt the estimate that 600,000 people participated in this year's Carnaval revelries in Mazatlan. In fact we're pretty sure we bumped into about half of them on the nights we waded into the throng. 

Travel Tip: If you don't like crowds or are agoraphobic, one way to view Carnaval is to rent a hotel room along the Malecon (the walking path along the ocean and site of the three biggest public events) and watch from the comfort of your balcony. Of course you may want to rent a second hotel room somewhere else in town for sleeping purposes . . . the party lasts waaaay into the night.

Viewing From Above The Throng

Daytime View From The Malecon

But in Mazatlan the pre-midnight crowds are relatively tame and there is a huge police presence, so unless your mental health needs dictate otherwise, go ahead and join in the fun at street level!

Monigotes

About three weeks before the beginning of Carnaval eleven monigotes were erected along the malecon. These fantastical - and gigantic - wire and papier mache statues are the creations of Jorge Gonzales Neri, an artist from Monterrey.  They are each about 25 feet high and weigh almost a ton. 

Monigotes have been part of the last ten Carnavales. This year's monigotes (various translations include "puppets" and "rag dolls") were designed around the theme for the 2015 Carnaval - "El Suenos de Momo" (Dreams of Momus).  Momus (Momo in Spanish) is the Greek god of laughter, madness and joy and Maestro Neri's monigotes are very appropriate to the theme. 

We got pictures of a few of them:

Another charming aspect of the monigotes is that they are intended to be impermanent. In March they will be taken down and put in a yard near the ship terminal to disintegrate in the sun.

The "Naval Battle"

On Saturday night we (Bryce, Molly and Jodi Rafkin our visitor from Portland, Oregon) attended the fireworks display commemorating the defense of Mazatlan against an attempted French invasion in 1864. The day before we had secured seats at a restaurant along the Olas Altas portion of the malecon - the Blue Smoke BBQ restaurant. 

Travel Tip: The Blue Smoke was a good place for a meat fix and to watch the fireworks. For 300 pesos each (approx. $22 USD) the restaurant provided a table and chairs, a raised viewing platform, a 100 peso meal credit (the meal cost about 75 pesos more than the credit) and - key to happiness at any mass-public event - a non-public bathroom. There was even a person to watch our jackets while we went walk about. Granted, there wasn't a roof over the restaurant and there was a fairly steady drizzle during part of the evening . . . but it all worked out. 

Prior to the fireworks was an event called El Quema de Mal Humor (the Bad Humor Burning). This is where an effigy of someone that has really, really annoyed the people of Mazatlan is put to the flame on the Olas Altas beach. This year there were two effigies, representing the former mayor of the town of Iguala (Jose Luis Abarca) and his wife (Maria de los Angeles Pineda). 

[Background: The former mayor and his wife are currently in custody, charged with mass kidnapping. The allegations are that, last September, the mayor ordered the Iguala municipal police to take 43 protesting trainee teachers into custody to prevent a speech being given by his wife from being disrupted. The police allegedly turned the students over to a local drug gang that had close ties to the police. To date the remains of only one of the students has been identified. The remainder are still missing. They are presumed dead.]

Due to the general confusion of the evening we did not see the burning of these effigies - but we can't think of a more appropriate set of effigies to burn for the purpose of removing bad feelings from a celebration.

The aforementioned general confusion began as we passed through the heavy police presence to enter the area of the celebration. Bryce had to join an enormous line of men because the male members of the public that entered the celebration area were sent through a metal detector and patted down (one metal detector + thousands of male attendees = huge delays). Jodi and Molly sailed through the women's entry gate without a second look. Apparently if one has a desire to smuggle something nefarious into the Carnaval area it would be best to ask a female friend to do the deed.

Sadly, once we met up at The Blue Smoke we realized we had misunderstood the directions to the bad mood burning and that the mayor and his wife had already been - symbolically - set to the flame. So we enjoyed our BBQ and wandered among the crowd before the fireworks began. 

The event was everything we have come to expect from a Mexican celebration.

The Sponsor Was Well Represented: 

Pacifico beer is brewed in Mazatlan, and can be found everywhere. The company is a big sponsor of Carnaval celebrations and only Pacifico was found at Carnaval!

Pacifico - The Beer Out Here

There Were Mexican Entrepreneurs Everywhere:

Forgot Your Mask? No Problem!

Gotta Sweet Tooth? We Can Fix That!

Feeling An Urge To Wear Pink Hair?
Or Orange Hair? Got That, Too!

Or Perhaps A Hat?

There Was Music:

We counted six stages of enthusiastic Banda performers during our walking tour - which covered only half of the celebration area.

And the live bands competed now and then with recorded music -- and dancers!  Kermato is a spicy tomato juice and beer mix . . .). Bryce began to crave tomato juice and beer . . . 

The Kermato Girls! 

The Fireworks Were Spectacular:

The Blue Smoke BBQ was very close to one of the several fireworks launching sites and we had big sparklers bursting above us - literally right above us. We have been closer to fireworks during our time in Mexico but these were somehow more . . . 


. . . enveloping. 

Very cool.

Back of the Blue Smoke Sign

And We Managed To Get Home:

When the fireworks were over we joined hundreds of thousands in the salmon-like process of leaving the area while at the same time hundreds of thousands of the young and flashily dressed were attempting to enter the area (30 pesos, 6+ bands - it was the place to be for the late-night dancing crowd). Families and retirees out - late night revelers in. 

Once we were squeezed out of the packed street leading away from/to the Carnaval area we attempted, among the scrum, to find an empty cab to take us to our car which we had parked some four miles away. Eventually we decided to walk away from the Carnaval area to a hotel and wait for a cab dropping off people who had been smart enough to pre-arrange or call for a cab. This "plan" eventually worked - we didn't lose each other or get in a fight with anyone over a cab, and we got to our car before our feet gave out entirely. Some two miles of walking and an hour of waiting later . . . 

Carnaval Parade

Jodi also joined us, along with friends Ron and Fran from Calliope, on our second foray into the world of mass entertainment: the second of the two Carnaval parades, held on the Tuesday before Lent. 

Once again we were joined by several hundred thousand of our fellow Mazatlecas many of whom were clever enough to bring chairs to place along the malecon. We, not so resourceful, were able to find a curb that gave us a few inches of viewing elevation - but mostly we relied on Bryce being much taller than the average Mexican for purposes of picture taking.

Walking toward the malecon we met up with a group of mermaids waiting to join the parade:

Mermaid Dance Troupe

Once we were in place we were entertained by our fellow parade watchers:

Pacifico Balloon Warriors

Then came the police, clearing the crowd from the parade route:

Who Wouldn't Obey Guys In Balaclavas? 

And then came the parade:

There Were Spectacular Floats:

Some of the floats celebrated other cultures -- but sometimes in ways that might not be considered appropriate in the U.S. or Canada:

     

And Spectacular Floats Carrying Carnival Queens 

and Beauty Queens:

There was a float carrying the Carnaval Queen, one for the Carnaval Child Queen and another float for random beauty queens, including several from across the border (Miss Barstow!).  

And Molly's favorite beauty queen floats - those carrying the Jovenes de Corazone! These floats carried beauties of a certain age, giving Molly the ambition to work her way onto a Carnaval float in her next decade 

There Were Dance Troupes:

    And Dancers:

Including Wiggling Girls . . .

. . . Wiggling Boys . . .

       

. . . And Wiggling Couples!

And Finally, Una Charra y Charros:

The charros rode on beautiful horses on silver covered saddles. The charra that led the group was dressed spectacularly. The caballos danzantes (dancing horses) performed to the music. A very Mexico moment.

Not all of us made it through the whole parade:

But the five of us did - and from there headed to F.I.S.H. for some great fish tacos.  Viva Carnaval!