Closing the Circle - April 13 - 17, 2015

And - finally - we close out our Tour de Truck of Central Mexico: Durango - Zacatecas - Aguascalientes - Tlaquepaque y Tonala - Tequila - Tepic - Mazatlan:

Tequila!

The town of Santiago de Tequila (Tequila), namesake of the national drink of Mexico, is about 56 kilometers (35-ish miles) north-west of Guadalajara on the road to our next overnight stop --Tepic, Nayarit. Neither of us is all that fond of tequila the drink -- probably due to events that we can't or don't wish to fully remember. But not stopping in Tequila seemed like driving through Northern California and not visiting either Napa or Sonoma 

Just not on. 

Tourists can visit Tequila on day or overnight tours from Guadalajara that range from educational to debauched - all offering distillery tours and tastings. There's even a Tequila Train (see Napa reference above). But since we were driving and hadn't planned on spending the night in Tequila (though some of the hotels look just fine) we decided to limit our tour to a walk around town, a visit to the National Tequila Museum and lunch. 

All good calls.


               Around Town: Tequila is one of Mexico's pueblos magicos, and the approximately six-square block tourist core of the town is quite charming. 

There are charming shopping streets,

Streetscape, Tequila

A cute little plaza surrounded by cafes and two pretty churches,

Gilded Interior of Templo de Santiago Apostol

A Congregation That Is Representative Of The Communityl

Beautiful Tile Stations of the Cross in
Capilla de Los Desamparados (Chapel of the Homeless) 

And lots of places to buy . . . you guessed it, tequila:

The Real Jose Cuervo (Giant) Factory Is 
On The Guadalajara Ring Road!

               National Tequila Museum: The pueblo's tourist core contains only one distillery - the Mundo Cuervo La Rojena. But there are 16 distilleries in the area, eight of which offer tours. 

We did our exploring at the Museo Nacional del Tequila which appears to be supported by a tequila marketing association. It provides information on the history of the drink (it started out as a wine!) and a description of the production process. It also offers numerous warnings about drinking something other than "real" tequila. 

Marketing Group Member Distilleries

Tequila Art!

               Lunch: Always our favorite part of any day in Mexico - the big Mexican lunch. We chose to lunch at a restaurant named after and, it seemed, owned by one of our favorite hot sauces: Cholula! [Because it is next to the Jose Cuervo sales outlet, our guess is now that Cholula and Jose Cuervo are owned by the same giant food conglomerate.]

Just Because We Don't Love Tequila 
Doesn't Mean We Are Teetotalers

A Photo-Worthy Meal

Among our fellow Cholula fans was a large group of young folklorico dancers from Guadalajara (according to their t-shirts, anyway). When a group of Mariachis arrived, the dance group hired them for a few songs and . . . we got an informal dance performance as well!  

Bailando de Cholula!

Tepic:

After our lunch we drove on to Tepic, where we had arranged a  hotel room for the night.. 

The tourist guides don't expect that travelers will spend significant time in Tepic because, well it's a government center (capital city of the state of Nayarit) and agricultural center - but it's not a big tourist center. E.g.: The internet shows a dozen nice business class hotels in Tepic, but the Lonely Planet travel guide says there's "no reason to spend the night" there.  

Add to this the fact that we were experiencing tourist fatigue after almost two weeks of touring . . . and we decided to just stop at one of the nicer hotels along the highway (Best Western Ne Kie - Nahual for "My Home") for a swim, dinner and a good night's sleep. 

Having achieved those goals, we carried on the next day.

Our most interesting memory of Tepic is reflected in a picture that we borrowed from another blog because we couldn't get a good shot of the huge, overloaded sugar cane trucks that came rolling by on the highway. Sugar cane is one of the agricultural products of the Tepic area.  

Make Way For The Sugar Cane!

Back 'Round To Mazatlan: 

So on the 14th of April, 1400-ish kilometers (875-ish miles) and two weeks after we left, we returned to Mazatlan. 

We joined our friends from Full 'n By and Kewao for a couple of meals, got some laundry done, and made preparations for our next trip -- a tour of the Barancas de Cobre (Copper Canyon) area.

Come join us on this adventure when you have time!

  

Close to Home - Mazatlan -- March, 2015

Because we had The Truck with us while we were in Mazatlan, we took some day trips while our friends Frank Chan and Irene deBruijn-Chan were visiting. It was particularly interesting to visit some smaller towns after having been in the big city.  

Las Labradas

This boulder-strewn beach, located about 33 kilometers north of Mazatlan, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site because it is the site of over 800 pre-Conquest rock carvings. Archaeologists estimate that these petroglyphs were created from approximately 1000 B.C.E. to 3 C.E. [Side note: The literature about the site refers to "over 600" rock carvings, but while we were there the head archaeologist for the site introduced us to a graduate student who had recently completed her thesis and had identified over 800 separate petroglyphs.]

The small site museum was closed when we were there. The staff was preparing a new exhibit for a big solstice event scheduled for the next day. But even without the museum, the visit was interesting. 

We shared our morning at the site with a group from a local university.

Students - Cell Phones and Cameras At The Ready

Frank and Bryce Posing With a Pretty Young College Student
Who Wanted Evidence That She Had Practiced Her English

A Permanent Resident of the Site

The petroglyphs were sometimes faint because it was a cloudy day, but others - even after more than a thousand years - were clear. Here are only a few of the over 800 carvings:

INAH (the Mexican institute for anthropology and history) offers a map identifying some of the more impressive carvings, but even using the map finding carvings is a bit of a treasure hunt. Fortunately, the diligent graduate student had marked several with tiny rocks with arrows or numbers on them.

Bryce and Irene On The Hunt

Bryce Testing His Agility on The Pebble-Covered Beach

And even if you're not a treasure-hunt fan or an archaeology buff, it's a nice day at the beach.

Irene and Frank Enjoying a Beach Moment

If you're going to Las Labradas don't forget water, a hat, your camera, and rock-walking shoes or sandals. It's an interesting place - but a location of high ankle-turning opportunity for those who don't take care. Also, you might want to schedule around meals as the "restaurant" in Barra de Piaxtla looks a bit - uh - rustic.

El Quelite

After working up our appetite searching for petroglyphs we drove back towards Mazatlan and took a side road to the village of El Quelite. The road into the village is lined with bougainvillea and the streets of the town are lined with brightly colored houses. The church was closed.  






The primary attractions in El Quelite are a couple of destination restaurants. We chose El Meson De Los Laureanos and we are happy to report that it has great food for a destination restaurant.  

And chickens!

El Rosario

Our second day trip was to one of Mexico's "Pueblos Magicos" - small towns throughout Mexico that have been designated as sites of particular beauty, cultural significance or historical relevance by Mexico's Secretary of Tourism. El Rosario is a former mining town about 30 miles south of Mazatlan known for its beautiful church and a museum honoring Lola Beltran, the queen of ranchera music. 

We did El Rosario proud.  We visited the church and saw the golden altar: 

Nuestra Seniora del Rosario

The Golden Altar

Altar Detail - Archangel Michael, We Think

Another Altar Detail

We visited the town square and saw the statue of Ms. Beltran. We even brought our own diva - Irene!

Our Own Diva!

We visited the Lola Beltran museum which was interesting but, oddly, didn't play any of her music - ? After touring the museum we sat for a formal "family portrait" taken by the charming museum guide.

The Andrews-Arnolds and Chan-deBruijn-Chans

Across from the museum were the ruins of the prior incarnation of Nuestra Senora del Rosario (Our Lady of the Rosary) which, we were told, collapsed when its foundation was negatively impacted by the mining tunnels underneath the town. The townspeople moved the church to its present location, creating an exact copy of the fallen church. 
  

Bryce, Explaining It All To Us . . . 

El Rosario didn't offer many obvious options for lunch so we asked a woman at a local tienda where we should go. She highly recommended the Restaurante Bellavista saying that it was where "everyone" liked to go. 

Travel tip: Before acting on a restaurant recommendation try to discern the dining preferences of the person offering the recommendation. 

It turns out that the Restaurante Bellavista is the snack shack next to an extremely popular water park. While we wouldn't recommend it for fine dining (or really for anything other than a few tacos) we had a great time watching groups of middle-school and high-school students enjoy the day. 

One local water park fan practiced his English skills by introducing himself and his high-school buddies to us, and proudly welcomed us to his town. He was remarkably fluent for one so young and confidently explained that his father was a doctor and that his plan was to attend veterinary school in Phoenix, Arizona. 

One of the boys he introduced then proceeded, with the most serious expression we have seen on a high-school boy in a long time, to ask us where we were from. We answered. He nodded and walked away. A few minutes later he returned to ask what we did for a living. We answered. He nodded and walked away. His third pass was another carefully thought out and grammatically correct question which we do not remember. We answered. He nodded and walked away. He certainly understood his seriously formatted questions - but we will never know if he understood our answers! 

So, while we can't highly recommend dining at the Bellavista, along with edible tacos you may have a thoroughly amusing afternoon.  

Once Frank and Irene left us, we packed up and departed for our Tour of Central Mexico - the home of cowboy hats, pick-up trucks and heroes of the Revolution ---- aye yai yai!  

Land Lubber Lessons in Mazatlan -- March, 2015

By now you must be thinking: Oh my God This Is Like Those Late-Night "But Wait, There's More" Commercials! What More Can These People Possibly Say / Show About Mazatlan?  

Well, maybe nothing of interest to you. But we write about our experiences and for February and March we - and some of our friends and family - experienced Mazatlan. So here goes some thoughts about that:

Bryce's recovery from hip replacement surgery is going extremely well and we have every reason to believe that we will be back aboard Abracadabra this September-ish. That said, his temporary disability has made us aware that at some point in the future one or both of us probably won't be able to enjoy sailing or living aboard Abracadabra. When faced with life changes that make living aboard uncomfortable many yatistas "swallow the hook" or "become cave dwellers" and purchase a house or condo in Mexico. They usually settle into a seasonal rotation between their Mexico home and one "back home". Our recent land lubber experience in Mazatlan suggests that this is not such a bad idea. 

But we've never wanted the obligation of a second home. Which has led us to think a lot about what to look for in a long-term rental - almost all of which was met by our Mazatlan home at Condominios y Golf Serena. 

The apartment was not on the beach, but was in a quiet location (quiet by Mexico standards) with a water view.

Masts In The Distance Are Sailboats Docked
At The Isla Marina and Marina Mazatlan

One of Many Beautiful Sunsets

The swimming pool was large enough to really swim in, and also pleasantly landscaped to encourage pool-side sleeping and reading.

Blue Sky, Green Palms, Red Umbrella . . . Ahhhh!

Plenty of Lap Swim Space

There was water access for our new toy (which we look forward to launching from Abracadabra soonishly).

Inflation Of A Good Type

Captain Bryce's New Command

Brother Robert - Off to Explore The Mazatlan Estuary

We had all the mod cons (washer, dryer, full "American" kitchen) so we were able to have local cruising friends over for dinner and drinks (crews of Calliope, Cuba Libre and Dolphin Tales). 

And there were three bedrooms - room for long-term visitors (some we have not been able to entice with a stay on Abracadabra)! 

Couple #1 - Brother Rob and Husband Tom

Couple #2 - Frank Chan and Irene deBruijn-Chan
(Fresh From The Plane and Still in Long Sleeves!)

  

Couple #3 - Candace and Norman Thersby (aka the crew
of Kyalami) Stopped In On Their Drive North 

In sum our Mazatlan experience gave us a lot of encouragement about life on land in Mexico. Our only "want" that wasn't met was that the apartment was a looooong drive to the cultural center of Mazatlan which caused us to opt out of a couple of theater and art events. 

The other downside to renting is the same as with our AirBnB experiences in the U.S -- rental kitchens are never really well stocked. We've read in other blogs that some serial renters create a mobile kitchen supply box in order to take certain "must haves" with them - a good chef's knife, a good wine opener, a whisk, tongs, etc.. That still won't address the missing cast iron skillet . . . but if we launch into full-time land adventures we'll have to arrange for some kitchen items to travel with us.  

Finally, because price is always a consideration for us, we were saddened when we next checked the cost of renting a unit at the condominiums to find that the monthly price had gone up by about 20%. Hmmm. That may be why people go to the trouble of buying.  

Happily it doesn't seem like we're going to have to make the buy/rent decision any time soon as we are looking forward to returning to Abracadabra in El Salvador. Until then we are planning on more truck travel in Mexico and perhaps some land-based travel in Central America. 

The Truck and Bryce With His New Best Friend - Oscar,
 Who Washes Cars At Condos Serena For Extra Income

Our next posting will be of some Truck Travels we did from Mazatlan with Frank and Irene, which turned out to be good "shake-down cruises" for the longer drive we're currently on. 

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".