Mazatlan with Dan and Caroline

Toasting our arrival on the Playa Olas Atlas

In late February, Dan and Caroline were kind enough to Invite me and my wife, Nicola, to stay with them for a few days in Mazatlán. On Caroline’s suggestion, we timed our visit with the Carnaval although I did wonder whether we’d been invited to stay a full week. Nevertheless, that what Nicola assumed when she booked the trip. Either way Dan and Caroline were generous hosts the entire time making us feel completely at home.

Except for living as students for two months in Shanghai for two months in 1984, the understanding of a place my wife and I have gained through travel has always been superficial. We arrive. We utilize the public transit. We eat at local restaurants. We visit the local highlights. We leave. With our visit to Dan and Caroline, we were able to gain a deeper understanding of what it’s like to be immersed in a culture by living in it for half the year for seven years.

The "Girls," Ruby and Ginger

During our visit, I accompanied Dan on a number of walks. I would take Ginger and Ruby, two midsized cinnamon-coloured dogs that Dan and Caroline were fostering. Their goal was to socialize the two dogs so that they could be safely adopted into a new home. The theory was that they were sisters however no one can be sure without DNA testing. They certainly acted like sisters rough-housing and defending one another against perceived threats (especially Ginger.) Ruby’s favourite trick was to hold Ginger’s back leg in her mouth and attempt to pull her down. It never worked but they both enjoyed the game.

While I held the leads of Ruby and Ginger, Dan held Chico, a huge lab/mastiff cross and Luna, a short haired white dog with brown spots who looks like a hefty greyhound. As we walk, Dan says hello to all his neighbours. They all smile back and wave. Mazatlán is an exceptionally friendly city and the expectation of anyone who meets your eye is that you will acknowledge them with a hearty “hola” or, if not a “hola” at least a friendly smile. Nicola and I found this to be a sharp contrast to the haughty indifference of those living in Mexico City.

Dan and Caroline's Street

Dan and I pass “Burro Park” with paths that cross at alternative corners forming four diamond shaped patches of largely dead grass. At one end of the park is a basketball court on which we not only witnessed basketball being played but also girls and women dancercising. One morning, Dan charged me with holding his dogs, Luna and Chico, while he cleaned the park of garbage using leather work gloves and a large plastic bag. He inserted two of these bags into two garbage dispensers built with metal strips that provide the illusion of containing garbage but allowed much of the refuse deposited within to slip through the cracks. This whole process took ten, maybe fifteen minutes tops.

Interestingly enough, the park was still largely devoid of garbage when I helped Dan take the dogs out for a walk on our last day on Mazatlán. Perhaps there’s some truth the Broken Window Theory after all. Or else, the people in the area respect what Dan’s efforts and are following his lead.

Dan pointed out the nets on the basketball hoops. He told me that he’d replaced them. He said he’d asked Jorge, who lives next to the basketball court, to purchase the nets for him. Then, Dan reimbursed the man for the 300 pesos he claimed they cost. A year later the basketball nets were again in tatters and Dan offered to replace them again. Jorge told him where they could be purchased and Dan discovered the price to be 150 pesos, not 300.  Dan says, “You know Len, these guys’ll lie right to your face.” I guess a certain level of poverty results in a

New Mazatlan Olympic Swimming Pool 

certain level of desperation. Or maybe, at first, Dan was the outsider and now he’s not.

We arrived in Mazatlán on a Wednesday. On Thursday, Caroline took Nicola and I swimming at the new municipal swimming complex located next to the university. It had been decades since I’d been lane swimming for the Masters’ Club in Edmonton and even longer for Nicola. We met Caroline’s friend Sarah on the bus on the way. I was impressed with the complex. It had a 25 metre diving pool and a 50 metre lane pool. I’ve never been in a pool so technologically advanced. Instead of edges, the pool sloped at the end to prevent backwash. The pool was deep throughout and a shallow ledge allowed the swimmer a place to rest at each end. Yet, there wasn’t a clock at the end of the pool so the coach of the club filling the majority of lanes next to us was forced to yell out interval times to his swimmers.

I had an interesting conversation with Sarah on the bus returning from our second day of swimming. She told me that she really likes the ex-pat community of Mazatlán. She says it doesn’t matter what a person did before arriving everyone gets along with everyone else. Like church, I suggest and to my surprise, she says, exactly.

Street in old section

She told me that she was writing a book in German or about Germany, I forget. She said that when she needed to interview a butcher, she was able to find just the person in Mazatlán. He’d lost the use of his legs (or lost his legs, I’m not sure.) Anyway, she asked the man how safe it was to eat the meat in the city. He replied that, in a modern slaughter house, approximately 27 people will touch an individual piece of meat but where he buys his meat, that number is just three. He said, “you figure out which is safer.” Sarah told me about the reader’s theater. One of the expat actors for the theater had performed on Broadway and for that reason, or others, the theater would be packed for every performance.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t any readers’ theatre being performed while we were in Mazatlán. However, we did see a movie, “Three Identical Strangers” with Caroline and Dan in the same, small “black box” performance venue used for the plays. Fifty or sixty chairs sat on risers faced a large white screen suspended from the ceiling at the front. We found four of the few unoccupied seats about a third of the way up the risers. A few minutes later, the “projectionist,” plugged his iPhone into the appropriate cable and the movie began.

Central Square and Church

There was a little hiccup partway through the film when the projector stopped working. We could hear the sound but see nothing. The “projectionist” checked the connection on his phone, tried the remote for the projector perched on a platform above the audience yet couldn’t diagnose the problem. Caroline suggested we just listen to the movie. Being a documentary, we didn’t necessarily need the video and she did get murmurs of approval from the 30 or 40 others in attendance. We’re in the process of contemplating Caroline’s suggestion that the projector suddenly flicked back to life and then out. That’s when Dan realized he’d been knocking the cord attached to the wall plugin next his knee. We all cheered and continued viewing a very good documentary about identical triplets separated at birth.  

The next day Dan took Nicola and I to the dog sanctuary where he and Caroline volunteer. Caroline stayed at home to complete contract work she does for a website. Dan had arranged to pick up a number of other volunteers at a local plaza. These included Bill, Donna and Simone. Bill had been selling tickets for the movie we’d attended the previous night. Donna was a retired lady and Simone was a sunburned German half a generation younger than the rest of us.

Lupita's dogs

The dog sanctuary is located on the outskirts of Mazatlán, on the way to the airport and not far from the local prison. Lupita, a fit, middle-aged Mexican woman, owned the land on which the sanctuary is located. It had once been her family’s dairy farm. Now, she shared rooms above an open car port with forty dogs. (Not a typo.) The rest of the dogs are housed in different fenced areas according to their compatibility. A few that generally get along with everyone are allowed to roam the courtyard. Of particular attention for Nicola and I was a little dachshund with shiny, light brown eyes. Knowing that our daughter might be looking for a dog when she moves to Victoria, I asked Dan about her availability. Oh, she’s one of Lupita’s, Dan says. Lupita’s allowed to keep eight for herself. 

Dan made sure everyone who came to the sanctuary had a job. Bill and I walked dots to the end of a dirt road, the location of a few crudely built hovels around which children played amongst roaming chickens and dogs tied to posts. Municipal police stood in the back of blue pickups, their faces hidden by balaclavas holding large automatic weapons prepared for attacks by any unseen enemies.  

Some of the other dogs. 

After the walk, Dan assigned me to remove rust from the frame of one of the old dog beds. Once the rust was removed, I was go spray paint them black. Nicola washed dogs and then held a tiny poodle suffering shivering from cold after receiving a treatment for mange and a bath. Once a job was finished, Dan was quick to assign another. He checked on my work with the dog bed frame a number of times, demonstrating the preferred method of spray painting which I claimed to know but obviously didn’t. Quick strokes, he told me. Otherwise, you get buildup and drips.

When the dog bed was painted and drying, Dan instructed me to wash Tofu, a large mastiff tied up in the entrance area to the sanctuary just inside the gate where our cars were parked. ­­­­He suggested that we bring Tofu into the common area to accomplish this task. Stefany, a very slim middle-aged woman in dreadlocks said she wouldn’t bring Tofu into the common area. Last time, they’d allowed Tofu in with the small dogs, she said there’d been a serious altercation. Oh my god, I thought. What kind of task had Dan assigned me? Simone, the “young German woman” had been bitten three times since we’d arrived. (Caroline told us later that this was very unusual.)

Nicola with puppy at market

So, we decided to wash in the entrance area where he was tied up. Donna, another very committed volunteer at the dog sanctuary, found a hose that would extend as far as the entrance and, with some apprehension, I held Tofu while Nicola and Sefany bathed him. Tofu loved the attention and showed absolutely no signs of aggression toward me or his bathers. Upon completing the task, Dan suggested I take Tofu for a walk. Accompanied by Nicola, I began my tug-a-war with this massive beast as he attempted to drag me in all different directions off the road. They should sell this as a workout, I joked with Nicola. We got nowhere near the end of the road where I’d taken the other dog before we thought it best to return. So, like all our other experiences in Mazatlán, our trip to the dog sanctuary proved to be a very positive experience.

On the Saturday, we attended the Carnival Queen Coronation (Reina del Carnaval) which took place in the Venados Stadium where the local baseball team, the Venados de Mazatlán (Mazatlán Deer) play. Dan had attended one of the games which he said he enjoyed. He told me that when the team hadn’t paid the city rent for the use of the stadium, the water had been shut off. A number of singers and a small acoustic group played warm up to the event and then, a walkway down the middle of field was lit and out came the 2018 Carnival Queen in a long white gown waving to the crowd and crying as she made her way from the stage down the walkway and out of the stadium.

The history of Mexico in dance.

The 2019 Carnival Queen followed an entourage of beautiful boys and women into the stadium from the direction where the 2018 Queen had disappeared. Upon reaching the stage, they disappeared and then reappeared on a high platform at the back. The queen sat in the middle while her female entourage stood on either side. Then, we enjoyed a dance performance celebrating the history of Mexico with changing costumes and backdrop to represent the different eras. And then, fireworks, an intermission and the featured performance by banda musicians and performers with a number of singers, electric guitars, keyboards and brass. They played a lively set of songs that the crowd loved with very few remaining in their seats for the entire performance.

Old time crusher

What visit to Mexico is complete without a visit to a tequila distillery? Not being located in the tequila region, the agave liquor we drank couldn’t be called tequila but it was. Situated in the quiet hills just north of the city, the Los Osuna distillery was a lovely retreat as well as an educational experience and a taste sensation.  Jorge, an older man with excellent English, guided us through the distillery nestled under the cool shade of tropical fruit trees. We passed various machines used to crush agave over the ages. Vivaldi played from speakers located next to these large wooden barrels where the agave is left to ferment. Jorge told us that the music was good for the yeast. He said different types had been tested and classical was considered the best. I was skeptical so Nicola googled it later that night and discovered this claim to be true or at least true enough that other distilleries did the same.

The vats serenaded by Vivaldi

At the end of the tour, I wondered about the location of an industrial size distillery like we’d seen at the Jose Cuervo distillery in Tequila where we’d been a number of years ago. The, I realized, this was it. Real artisan stuff where the workers apply the labels by hand and write the lot number on each bottle.

We retired to the inevitable bar area that’s part of every distillery and brewery we’ve visited (and we’ve visited many.) Seated at benches behind a table constructed from a giant slab we sampled shots of the distillery’s different types agave liquor. To our surprise, we all preferred the younger Reposado to the older and more expensive Anejo with the lower alcohol content to that made for export to the U.S. American laws require hard liquor to have 40% alcohol per volume whereas their award-winning “tequila” is only 37%. Stupid. Suffice it to say, Nicola and Caroline each purchased a bottle of the Mexico Reposado.

Garden

Dan and Caroline didn’t try to entertain us all the time. One afternoon, we spent on Stone Island which isn’t an island besides a rocky outcrop at one end of the peninsula. The beach stretches for miles thirty some miles all the way to the airport. Dan suggested we visit the garden just past the RV park situated on the beach filled with large motorhomes from North of the border. The garden was closed but Nicola and I snuck in anyway. Lush green vegetation surrounded two large pools. It was a nice retreat from the usual bustle of Mexican life. Eventually, a gardener approached and said something in Spanish and then made a call on his cell phone so we decided it was time to leave.

Restaurant on beach

We hung out for a couple of hours reading our books, drinking beers, and munching on fried shrimp, tacos and fresh salsa in a seaside restaurant. After a swim in lovely warm water protected from waves and chop by the bay, we walked to the beauty of Mazatlán’s colonial downtown. We spent a couple afternoons wandering the lovely old plazas with buildings freshly painting in vibrant primary colours, visiting the shops and museums and, of course, sipping margaritas.

Caroline told us that the Carnaval fireworks were a must to see however she and Dan would not be attending. They’d stay with the dogs who would be spooked by all the noise. We were told where to buy tickets to reserve a rooftop view so that’s what we did. Dan said the fireworks show commemorate a famous sea battle.

On the night of the Carnaval Combat Playa Olas Atlas, dense crowds filled the coastal road called the Malecon and we were relieved to have a spot on the roof of the Puerto Viejo Restaurant.  Like almost every other firework display we’ve been to, this one didn’t start on time. When, it did, it was of an intensity like I’ve never seen before. Rockets swooshed and banged from different locations on the coast and barges in the bay. When it finally ended, we all had to wipe fireworks debris from our hair and shoulders. Amazing!

On our last night in this lovely city, we watched the parade from the balcony of a restaurant at a table that Caroline had reserved. As the sun set on the horizon over the water, Dan told us to watch for the green light. “There’s a green light that will flash just before the sun goes below the horizon,” he said. Unfortunately, on this particular evening, it didn’t make itself visible to us.

The parade started after dark beginning an acrobatic troop twirling batons, hula hoops and metal bars lit with fire. Very impressive. Very professional. Not a drop made by one of them. Then the floats appeared, lit from their multi-tiered top to bottom with carnival queens both past and present waving from the decks with an entourage of beautiful men and women. The most spectacular floats came at the end, one with an entire mariachi band perched on a balcony built over the front of one of the floats. All the floats were towing a generator.

In sum, our visit to Mazatlán was great.