Punta Cerritos Beaches

From the edge of our park, by the swimming pool, we look down at beach areas where a lot of people come for relaxation. Here is a short recording of the activities there, including the frigate birds:

Fruit stand along the road...Taco Lunch

The prices are in Pesos per kilogram. 15 Pesos currently would be 1 Canadian Dollar.

And here I had a lunch at the Liverpool foodcourt: Tcos with chicken and condiments, including of course Cilanthro, cost about 3 Canadian Dollars including beverage:

More Birds in the Bird Bath

You know the name of some or all of these? Please enter then in the Comment section below!

The Malecon - 10 K Seaside along the ocean

Towards the center of Mazatlan there is a "Boarwalk" which, however, is not build on boards but solid concrete. It separates the lagoons off the ocean from the ocean beaches and is some 10 or so km long: A main attraction for visitors and locals alike, it is always busy with hikers, sightseers and bikers as well as swimmers or surfers.

Here are some views:

All the shoreline visible on these photos is part of the Malecon seaside;

 

 There are a few monuments and sculptures along the walk, tourists taking their pictures:

This  looking south towards the end of the boardwalk - the Icebox Hill (Loma Linda), and riht in the middle of the hill side should be the property Joan is trying to buy - and from there they would have a view of the entire Malecon:

On the northern end there is an Indian-looking building, Valentinos, with a cafe and night club:

The entire beach is used by bathers and swimmers, and ususally you see surfers and borders playing the waves. You can rent boards right at the beach, and there are several palapa restaurants along the beach as well:

The center of town with the historic building area then would be a few blocks off the south end of the |Malecon.

Copper Canyon - report on Spiegel Online

Today I saw an entry in "Spiegel Online" about a special (the only) passenger train in mexico: "El Chepe, ueber 37 Bruecken muss er fahren).

This train runs through the famous Copper Canyon, a natural wonder 4-times "bigger" than the Grand Canyon in the US. I do wnat to go there some time (it is a few hundred km NE from Mazatlan), but \i rather travel through there by car then by train...we will see.

See Pictures and YouTube videos....

Mazatlan Architecture

While the previous blog dealt with the beauty of some of the new developments - shopping centers, Convention Center - many of the newer housing developments (for Mexicans, mainly) also look very nice. But Mazatlan's fame is the "Historic Center", the old town and its historic buildings, created and built by the silver barons from the Durango who came to town to spend their fortunes. Some of the buildings have been abandoned, others maintained and many restored. You can buy many of them and restore them - but if they are rated or classified, by and institute that controls the historic aspects of town  (Instituto Nacional de Antropologia e Historia), then you have to restore to its former glory, which may become expensive.

Here are just some shots I took recently:

This one needs restoring before it decays more:

But next door to this one there is a beautifully restored building:

Yet, across the street there is a really bad one, plants growing through the roof:

This did not deter the new owners of the beautiful one to preserve the building art:

A few steps further there is the center of the center, where all building are restored, a nice plaza has been kept up, restaurants and cafes lining the streets (very close to this is the famous Peralta Theatre - more about this another time):

Looking up the side streets you see the top of the "Loma Linda", the Pretty Hill, also called Ice Box Hill because in a cave under this hill ice was stored in the old days (for the Margaritas, I guess the silver barons were drinking): a ways up this hill is the new building site of Joan and Randy!

The Convention Center

From the shopping center last mentioned a long 4-lane highway extends to the north - i used to bike there  back to the park 8 years ago, and there was a huge construction job underway which now seems finished: the Centro des Convenciones, the Mazatlan Convention Center. I have not seen any activity there as yet.

Hey: Maybe Tavis can organize there his next Internet Security conference??

Anyway, it looks pretty flashy, and on the north side of the building there is a huge mural. It does not seem to be a painting, rather mosaic or stonework with some areas or figures appearing as a brick work relief. Apparently it is a multi-artist project. Quite impressive...

There more and maybe better pictures of the Center and its interior features to be seen online.

Secure Living in Mexico?

Based on mail from my friends I take it that there is a common assumption that it is not safe to live in Mexico. This assumption is probably fed by bad news, and bad news of course travels faster than good news. Let's say, the good news is that I have very little concern about my safety. But then i am not living in Suarez near the US border where indeed, there is a security concern for all and where the narcos are maybe in command...

A young Canadian living here in the RV park was busted a few years ago - he had been dealing with drugs. In that case you get locked up, and I am sure a Mexican jail is not where you want to be, guilty or not. Anyway, the idiot eventually was let go, and his family probably paid dearly for that.

I am not dealing with drugs.

And then there are areas of town here where you see with amazement how productive, modern and fancy can things be. There is a development area nearby with some of the big international stores having built new facilities: Walmart, Liverpool, Sears. next door is a new conference center. The architecture of all these developments is very pleasing, the organization and facilities exceeding what we can find in, say, Vancouver. It is a 10 km bike ride for me to get there - either using modern and well built highway or bush trails. The bush trails will disappear slowly because more developments are planned or expected. Look at some of the pictures:

View from the Liverpool shopping center:

Another view: someone asked me whether there are any Christmas trees around. There sure are - big ones:

More new facilities along the horizon:

The food court is sparkling clean (still empty at 10 am) and compares with, or excels, any we have in Vancouver:

This shopping center is a bit upscale - and to keep away the casual drop-ins and unwanted crowds (of young people without money??) they are doing something unusual - they charge for parking!

Deep Sea Fishing - skunked

Yesterday I went with Randy on my first fishing trip. Some friend of his has a large boat with two 250 or so hp engines. The skipper, Jerry, you would expect to be an expert one, coming from the marine state of Idaho!

It was a wonderful sunny day, and the sea was amazingly calm. We went out some 50 km, loosing sight of the coastline completely, and we dragged our bait around for hours, hoping for marlin, sailfish or tuna. Jerry lives in a beautiful condominium right by one of the marine canals, so he can keep his boat within a few steps of his home. We left at sunrise:

Looking back at the beaches, Cerritos being way on the left...

While we got no fish to bite, some 30 km out on the wide open ocean we did see a lot of turtles - they were enjoying the day and floated lazily, usually with a sea bird perched on top! And then there were some structures a bit difficult to clearly identify during fast drive-bys: The one above seems to be a basking sea lion, others were sea otters.

And below is Jerry's residence with the docking in front and a golf course behind:

I wont be going on these fishing trips too often: we have to share the gas money and that adds up very quickly when you cover some 100 km on a trip!

My Winter Domicile

Here is my winter domicile: There is not enough room in the trailer, so i happily live in a tent (just making sure I keep it zipped up at all timers so as to prevent company from scorpions or snakes - as I mentioned already...

If I sleep in, some pretty birds may wake me up while noisily taking a bath nearby, right in front of some beautiful agaves. If you know the name of these birds - put them in the Comment below!

Then I get up and prepare my breakfast outside:

Westjet's Holiday Gift to Fort McMurray

Let me sneak in here something from back home in western Canada: You may recall that this place was Canada's news focus earlier this year when they had the huge fire that lead to evacuation of the whole region, where the fire eventually ended up covering an area as big as the entire Rhein-Main-region of southern Hessia. And where the weather situation today and a few days down the line is this:

The regional airline (the one that took me to Mazatlan recently) WestJet gave the community a bit of a Christmas surprise, raining not ashes and tinders but presents from the sky. See the video of this event by clicking on this link!

Wild Animals

In Mexico, when you live close to nature and not in an aseptic hotel suite, you have to worry about some "wild animals" .

So what do we have here: say, scorpions and snakes! I have not seem either so far, but when hiked the bush trail across the hill behind the park the other day I always looked where I was stepping and avoid a snake encounter.

Randy saw two boas (small ones,  about 1 m), one outside among the bushes and one insside the trailer - would you believe it? he thinks it came inside via a tree branch that touched the outside wall near a window... The one outside he tried to catch, and it bit him.that made him mad and he killed it. Otherwise, a boa is not a problem - to the contrary, it nicely controls rodents. The small islands of bushes and plantings around the motor homes may well attract snakes, including poisonous ones, and I cannt wait to find some...but please not around or inside of my tent  which keep studiously zippered closed. the other nitght i made a mistake when I pulled in a bunched up blanket: I suddenly realized that in this blanket a snake or scorpion might well have sought some comfy refuge. I quickly made a thorough search and found nothing...

Scorpions have been seen quite often. Randy saw three over the last seasons, and they of course may seek refuge in shoes or containers at night. But I use only sandals, so far, so I do not worry.

And then there are crocodiles: next to the Riu Hotel is a long lagoon, an crocodiles have been seen there. There are even reports of crocodile sightings in the sea. The lagoon connects to both the sea during high tides and, via a culvert, to the extended lagoon network across the highway. But I doubt that we need to worry much about crocs - certainly we have no lagoon next to the park. Searching for "mazatlan crocodiles" I found this video:

This place is a small distance south of here, now of course all built up.

Ok, cannot think of any other threats or dangers today...

Swimming

The Park is right by the beach, but I have not yet, during this first week, gone into the sea.

But a major addition here is a swimming pool. One might think that most people here would make this the major daytime meeting place and engage in Marco Polo games - but, no, it is deserted. Might this have to do with the fact that the water temperature is immeasurably low, say, ice cold?

It did not deter me, as a matter of principle (just so I have something to add to this blog), and I have been swimming in the pool each day...bravely. actually. While one might suffer from cold shock initially, it feels ok after a once back and forth.

Right in front of the pool is public access to the sea via two not so exciting sand beaches and to wave breaking rocks.

Local people have access down there with their families and enjoy their weekends: