We arrived to Mazatlan Friday, Dec. 19 and quickly found ourselves caught up in the bustle of the city with a shopping list in one hand, guide book in the other and our Garmin Nuvi nagivator on the dashboard.
downtown traffic At the top of our list was getting a cell phone. We'd been told by several people that TelCel, the largest cell phone company in Mexico had great service and an affordable plan where we could call the US for about $1 per 15 minutes. We bought the phone Saturday and spent much of our time trying to figure out how the darn thing worked. The phone itself, a Nokia, is just like any cell phone purchased in the US. But the service works differently here. The phone is purchased and "units" are prepaid. We were able to make a call immediately but were disconnected after about 5 minutes, after which when we dialed we only got a recorded message, in Spanish of course, that we couldn't exactly figure out. There is no "Press 1 for English, press 2 for Spanish" here! haha! We asked around and learned the phone needed to be "activated". Why didn't they do this when we purchased it? Why didn't the English speaking clerk inform us of this additional step? This step requires submitting an address, supposedly for security reasons so it can be confirmed that it really is YOUR phone. So Monday when we returned to the store to complete this part of the process, we dealt with a young woman who spoke perfect, almost accent-free English. We gave her the address of the RV park and filled out the necessary paperwork. She explained we'd need to wait 24 hours for the activation to be complete but around 7 pm, there was a message on the phone and it worked! We assumed all was resolved. Not! We soon discovered each call was deducting much more than $1/15 minutes. We returned to the store Tuesday and talked with the original clerk. She confirmed that our "application for activation" was on file but had not been completed because they have been selling so many phones with their Christmas promotions, it would take 72 hours to be activated! But we planned to leave Mazatlan before the 72 hours would be up! Even though the phones do "roam" here, it is very costly. When we reach our next destination we will need to go to a TelCel store in that area, purchase a new "chip" for that local region and go through the activation process again. Fortunately we will be at our next destination for one month. So, we should have cell service by the middle of next week. While it's a hassle, and it's frustrating, this is part of the adventure, right?
Mazatlan has grown considerably since we were here in 2000. In addition to the residential suburbs, the city consists of two main areas:
To the south is "old town" where the cathredral, the public market, museums, etc are located. It's a wonderful place to explore but the traffic is very congested and parking ranges from very difficult to non-existent, for big vehicles but especially to unload the scooter to get out and explore as pedestrians. As we drove around we noticed many of the old downtown neighborhoods are being restored by well-to-do Mexicans and immigrants. It reminded us of the many urban areas in the US that are experiencing similar renewal. Many of these buildings are more than 100 years old, some are hundreds of years old, dating back to when the Spainards were establishing their reign here. We vowed to return to the downtown area another day to do some exploring.
To the north is "The Golden Zone" where most of the tourist attractions, hotels, and restaurants are located. Five-star waterfront hotels line beautiful beaches that look out to the two uninhabited islands about 1/2 mile off shore. Dwarfed by the hotels are small shops selling T-shirts and beach bags, sea shells and ceramics to tourists who haven't yet learned that the same trinkets can be found at the downtown public market for half the price. We visited the Playa Mazatlan hotel twice to enjoy their beachfront terrace restaurant. The thing that amazed us everytime we visited this tourist area was the ABSENCE OF TOURISTS!!! The restaurants which would usually be packed, especially on a holiday week, only had 4 or 5 occupied tables. The evening news, which John had been watching to help him learn more Spanish, had reports about it, blaming the US "crisis económico" for the lack of tourists. The news even showed an RV park with empty spaces, a rarity this time of year!
The marinas where we stayed in 2000 are a couple miles further north of The Golden Zone. The El Cid Marina and Resort, where we stayed when we first crossed the Sea of Cortez, is as beautiful as we remember it. For old times sake, we returned for a pool-side snack. At that time, the "other" marina, Marina Mazatlan, was considered the low-rent location to stay. We stayed there on our north-bound visit in spring of 2000. Both marinas seemed "far" from town in those days. The dirt lots surrounding this circular-shaped marina provided parking for boaters and taxi cabs and displayed billboards promising future development. It has arrived. Boat masts are hardly visible amongst towering condo complexes and upscale custom homes. The marina has been restructured with new docks and a harbormaster office relocated in a new waterside office next to the Calypso Bar and Cafe. Further north of the marina district, the road parallels the beach and is now referred to as "The New Mazatlan". The Golden Zone is quickly becoming to Mazatlan what the original strip now is to Las Vegas. The RV park where we were staying is at the far north end of this new area.
As we'd hoped, RVers here are almost as friendly as boaters so we soon met our neighbors. Eve (pronounced Evee) invited me to a "girls night out" with several other women here at the park. Many of them spend entire winters there and have formed a close-knit group. I was thrilled to be so quickly included. What an evening we had! There were 10 of us at final count who caught the 6 peso (about 50 cents) bus down to The Golden Zone. "Heather's Place", a restaurant owned by a Canadian woman, was our destination. Diners that evening had the choice of a turkey dinner buffet or Mexican buffet. The evening served up entertainment in the form of the best Elvis Presley imitator I've seen. There were moments I felt I really was sitting at a small Vegas show.
But the evenings real entertainment came from one of the women in our group. She enticed almost our entire group to dance while she interacted with others from nearby tables--and even with Elvis when she provacatively removed what Elvis and the crowd would soon learn was a pair of Santa boxer shorts! Until that moment I, and a few of my new friends, were wondering if Elvis was lip-syncing the songs, but when he lost his composure, laughing at her "striptease" performance, it was then I began to truely admire the entertainer's voice. At evening's end we all piled into the back of an open-bed pickup truck taxi (a tarp canopy covers the bed, with two hard bench seats lining the edges) and sang along with the Jimmy Bufffet tunes blaring on the boombox stereo. We all laughed and enjoyed the antics of the evening so much that by the time I got back to the trailer my face ached from the smiles.
But the evenings real entertainment came from one of the women in our group. She enticed almost our entire group to dance while she interacted with others from nearby tables--and even with Elvis when she provacatively removed what Elvis and the crowd would soon learn was a pair of Santa boxer shorts! Until that moment I, and a few of my new friends, were wondering if Elvis was lip-syncing the songs, but when he lost his composure, laughing at her "striptease" performance, it was then I began to truely admire the entertainer's voice. At evening's end we all piled into the back of an open-bed pickup truck taxi (a tarp canopy covers the bed, with two hard bench seats lining the edges) and sang along with the Jimmy Bufffet tunes blaring on the boombox stereo. We all laughed and enjoyed the antics of the evening so much that by the time I got back to the trailer my face ached from the smiles. John explained our opinion of Mazatlan in an email to his mom :
"Neither one of us has ever cared very much for Mazatlan, so we'll be glad to be on our way. It's just a huge city, and very congested. I'm constantly doing 3-point turns in the truck, and at the Banamex (bank) I almost got it completely wedged in their little parking lot. I think I actually moved their building a little getting out! Yesterday we went to the "Mega" for some food. It's like a Fred Meyer, (which is a nice grocery store chain in the northwest) but nicer. It has an inclined moving sidewalk (ramp) to get into the store, which is on the second story. Their shopping carts have a magnetic locking device that keeps them from rolling by locking their brakes. Pretty cool. We prefer shopping there even though it is next to a Sam's Club. (and by the way, an Office Depot and a Home Depot too)"
Most of our week in Mazatlan was spent trying to get the cell phone figured out, checking out the new marina and seeing if our sailboat was still there,and taking Gracie on lots of walks at the beach. Because of the holiday congestion we decided not to visit downtown on Christmas Day. We just are not "city folk" so spent most of our leisure time at the quiet beach near the RV park. Gracie is becoming quite the beach dog!!
Our last day in Mazatlan was Christmas Day and we were invited to a potluck at our neighbors. It was very fun! There were 9 couples and one widow. 2 couples and our single friend were all from the US, the others were all Canadians, one couple from Quebec so they spoke both English and French. This made for interesting conversation. Toward the end of the evening, conversation turned to politics, mostly Canadian politics. There is a long running tension between Quebecians and the rest. It's very interesting but also kind of sad that fellow countrymen have so much angst against one another. Comparing their conversations to what we hear at home, from both friends and the media, it is comforting to know that politicians and politics are the same everywhere. Who was it that said: "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely!" Truer words were never spoken!
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