Not much to report on this trip

Sorry - but nothing special happened on this trip (Jan-April 2024), and so i did not post anyhting. I did not have a bike and thus could not move a round very much. The Pickleball courts were just 5 min away from Joan's house, and I played regularly. But my knee hurt after that so that I did not even walk around in the neighborhood a lot, except to go to the Mercado for food. I tried to go swimming to the Olympic Pool, as during the last visit before the Pandemic, but i found that my knee prostheses gave me trouble with this. Maybe I will be more enterprising when I travel there again - and in that case i should buy an ebike so i can move about more.... Philip's visit for a week was a nice interlude. The new clean apartment in the house should be inviting to all of the family. One small problem was that the Peso had gained significantly in value (or, better said, the Canadian Dollar has beeen tankink?), making Mexico a somewhat lesser attraction for "cheap" vacationing.

Mazatlan 2024

BACK IN MAZATLAN! After a few years of Pandemic, knee operations, other issues and two winters at Shutty bench - I returned to Mazatlan in January 2024, staying at Joan and Randy's house, where the upper floor now is fnished and serves as my residence for 3 months. BUT - this time I have no bike and am somewhat lazy moving around the city and the area, and so I have less to report. The Malecon, parts of which were under construction last time I was here, has been finished and is busy as ever. So I want to show you at least some of the scene agagin, this time listening to one crazy band producing a somewhat polyfonic noise at one of the beach-side palapas.

HOPLA: This time the blogspotsysytem refused to upload the video from my drive, forcing me to go via a YouTube upload. And that forced me to have an advertizing in the video - not my intent! Have to figure this out: did Google make chang es and force you to all this???

Panama - the Restaurant Chain

Many of the roadside taco and food places, even some of the local restaurants, may not be to your liking in terms of the decor of the place, with a sense of they not being quite clean - although price wise very acceptable. So, if you are fuzzy and still want some "Mexican" food in Mexico, there is a chain of restaurants which you probably will have none of the issues mentioned: The PANAMA chain.

Lets go and have a look:

The places are clean, airconditioned, offering an amazingly large variety of foods and bakeries. The service is excellent and all the personnel is meticulously dressed in attractive uniforms. The huge menu is available in English and shown in colorful displays.

This page shows favored selections, "Flavor of Love"

Plentiful selections of drinks and deserts

But you do not need to order a dinner - there are plenty of snacks!

Before noon you can order from a large variety of "Desayunos" - breakfasts.

"Cenas" is full dinners - with the price being seldom over $10.- and lower than at fancier restaurants catering to foreigners.

If you have trouble ordering from a list: here is a colorful display of dinner arrangements

At lunchtime, the places may be rather full, but at other times there should always be some room.

Some new and favored selections may be displayed when you enter.

And this is what I am usually looking for: the lady who pushes this dessert trolly through the rows, so you can choose your favorites from the live display: There is no sugar icing, but all fancy tortes are done with buttercream, and I choose always the least healthy one  and order with it a "cafe descafeinado", a decaf, and that costs me 66 pesos plus 10 as a tip - so that would be about 5 Canadian dollars.

SEE YOU AT THE PANAMA
(Should i show this blog to the manager, maybe he will offer me a free lunch?)

Malecon Beach Wave watching

Having a nice meal at one of the Malecon palapa restaurants (excellent fish), there was not much left to do but watching the waves. On a Wednesday, the weekend crowds are not there, all very quiet and peaceful...

An Evening at the Centro Historico: street art and music

On the same Thursday evening I watched the neighborhood dancing (previous post), several blocks further into the Historic Center of Mazatlan there was to be a concert (as I noticed earlier in the day when I went there to look around), so I decided to see what this was all about.

The "Centro Historico" is a well-maintained part of the old town, with lots of very attractive looking restaurants, a beautiful park surrounded by historic buildings, next to the famous Teatro Peralta where man cultural events are taking place (program a week from now: "Madame Butterfly"!).

But on this Thursday evening the events took place right in the park plaza: Break dancing by local youngsters, an Aztec dancer, music groups at some of the restaurants, and ultimately a Cuban band performing later into the night. The foreign "snowbird" tourists would have filled the place in the winter season, but on this evening it was all local visitors - a truly Mexican party.

A huge butterfly provides the stage for tourist photos

Beautiful restaurants surround the plaza - prices are ok and "Happy Hour" pricing goes for drinks!

More restaurants...

And some more...

The Mexican Flag in the fading daylight...

Greenery in the plaza, with a view of the well maintained historical buildings surrounding it

A look back towards the Ice Box Hill and its microwave towers: right behind it, to the right, is Joan's house, a 15-20 min walk from the Centro.

And now to some of the entertainment: 

A group of young guys (with one girl) performed some break dancing - some of the solo parts being absolutely great and exceptional! I believe this is the same group of people who I saw over a year ago at one of the busy intersections in town, where they just jumped into the  empty spaces during changeovers of traffic lights and performed a minute or two worth of entertainment (if they did this in Vancouver, the local police would go nuts and drivers would honk their horns, upset about the few seconds of interruptions of their busy driving...):

At another corner of the plaza, two Aztec dancers were performing in their old, wild costumes, accompanied by heavy drumming. However, the lighting was very poor and video recording thus not the best. 

Eventually, after 9 pm the Cuban band got its act together and played up: kind of jazzy music. What I liked is, just as during parties in St. Vincent, these Caribbean players did not perform these  3 min songs with 5 lines of questionable lyrics, so typical of performances at the dozens of "music festivals" happening all over BC (viz "Jazz Et Cetera" in Kaslo!). No, once the Cubans started playing they went on for 20-30 minutes or longer, a rich, beautiful program. A few excerpts:

I would have loved to sit down at some of those restaurants surrounding the Centro plaza during all those entertaining happenings - but that would have made sense only with some company. Some other time then!

Bailar, bailar - Neighborhood Dancing

Every Thursday, I understand, some people or group are organizing some dance music at the Plazuela Zaragoza - just 4-5 blocks away from my house. What a wonderful event, fun for young and old (well, mainly old, it seems).

I really would have liked to join in, but I was not so sure my new knees would allow me to perform adequately. But I really was itching to try...

The musical setup was quite simple, and a lady served as the animator, as you will see in the video. First, people were a bit slow (or - maybe the Mexicans are not waltz enthusiasts), but on the next piece they all became active and filled the dance floor:

Pop Concert and Flamenco Mexican Style

In the new Hermanos park nearby, about 5 blocks away, a free pop concert was scheduled last weekend, and although such concerts are of little interest to me, I went to look at the setup. There were supposed to be some food services, but I saw none - but what I saw were preparations for some tap and/or flamenco dancing. The video shows some prep activities by some of the ladies, some of their dancing and then the general scene, as visitors filled the Park. The music, of course, started at sundown and went till midnight. Luckily it did not prevent my sleep.