Our Week-long Getaway to Mazatlan

—Blogpost written by Bob 

In this blogpost, we continue our 6-month winter excursion in San Miguel de Allende (SMA), Mexico.  We arrived by car on October 15, traveling from near Annapolis, Maryland where we live on our sailboat.  This blogpost describes the first few days of our week-long getaway to Mazatlan on the Sea of Cortez.  

Wednesday, December 15

(San Miguel de Allende to Tlaquepaque)

Just before we left San Miguel de Allende our power went off--it was off over the entire Guadalupe neighborhood.  We had to be on our way, so we didn't wait for the power to come back on.  We got everything loaded into our car and were on the road by 9:45 AM, on our way to La Comer's (the supermarket) Cafe to get coffee and something to eat for breakfast.  We were underway again pretty quickly.

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The first part of our trip took us through Comonfort, a small town southeast of SMA and then around Celaya.  It was very slow going through this part of the trip and there were lots of serious speed bumps causing our car to hit bottom at almost every one.  (We tried taking them at an angle, taking them extremely slowly, but nothing seemed to help--we simply didn't have enough ground clearance.)

A map of our total journey to Mazatlan, traveling
through the four states of Guanajuato,
Jalisco, and Nayarit, and Sinaloa.

After getting past Comonfort, we found good highway conditions on a toll road.  The agriculture in this area was mainly corn crops, although there were other crops (maybe beans) we couldn't identify.

We arrived in Guadalajara (not Tlaquepague as intended) at about 3 PM following our GPS rather blindly.  As we arrived at our supposed destination, we could find the small hotel where we reserved the night's lodging--the street number was 113.  Along the street with the correct name, #113 was simply a house.  (For some reason the house right next to it was #95?)  We walked to the intersection and talked to some workers at a small factory (they produced women's plastic legs for clothing displays).  The workers were very helpful, despite the fact that they only spoke Spanish.  Eventually, we called the hotel and one of the workers talked to the hotel clerk on my iPhone and found the correct location--it was in another section of the city about 4 miles away.  (They "dropped a pin" on the hotel's location in MAPS for us!)

This navigation error was caused by me in not being careful enough on picking the right one of three locations with the same street number and name, all within a few miles in the morning.  (I simply picked the first one of the three, not realizing the difference between the listings.)

It was well after 4 PM when we finally got to our hotel, La Hacienda Tlaquepaque.  It was a very small hotel (only 5 rooms) in a very quaint neighborhood of Guadalajara.  (Guadalajara has a population of 5 million people and it is spread out like Los Angeles.  The 5-million population makes it as large as Chicago and Houston put together.)  

Our car parked inside courtyard of
our hotel in Tlaquepaque.

Inside courtyard of our
hotel in Tlaquepaque.

We were able to park within the hotel's courtyard, which was a nice treat.  However, our room was very primitive--is was a very basic 12 foot by 12 foot concrete room with no windows and a bathroom (with no shower curtain).

We decided to go out for dinner since we didn't have anything to eat since about 10 AM and the hotel manager recommended the restaurant next door.  

The sign above the restaurant next door.

Here, at La Vid, I had the best meal I've had since coming to Mexico--it was called Tequila Chicken.  (Maggie had a very good Fettuccini dish.)  I couldn't taste any actual tequila in my meal, instead it was like a balsamic reduction over a well-cooked piece of chicken accompanied by pieces of cantaloupe.  (I've always loved good mixtures of meat and fruits.)

Tequila Chicken at La Vid restaurant was
the best meal I have eaten in Mexico!

Since we had our doubts about the cleanliness of the hotel, we didn't use the shower.  

Thursday, December 16

(Tlaquepaque to Mazatlan)

We were up early in the morning and raring to get out of town.  The hotel manager (her name was Lulu) made us coffee and some scrambled eggs even though it was much earlier than was supposed to be available.  

It took us 1-3/4 hours to get out of Guadalajara because we were in the middle of "rush hour" traffic when we left our hotel (another big mistake!).  We eventually made it onto a toll road where our speed really picked up (110 km/hour). 

We traveled by toll road (supposed the safest) for the remainder of the day's trip.  We drove through many different agricultural areas with fields of tomatoes, sugar cane, corn, as well as many large fields of blue agave (for making tequila).  In fact, most of the land we saw was dedicated to producing blue agave--it must have been most lucrative.  (The fields looked like the pretty color of the water in the Bahamas!)

Fields of blue agave plants.

Along today's trip we were stopped along with everyone else on the toll road for inspection by the national guard--they simply asked us about carrying fruits and we were quickly on our way again.  We saw a large National Guard presence which seemed out of the ordinary--we suspected it was to provide resistance to the drug cartels.

We arrived in Mazatlan at about 3:30 PM (Mountain Time?) and had a lot of difficulty finding our AirBnB for the week.  We had to call our AirBnB host for detailed instructions.  

Our car parked inside the "front porch"
at our Mazatlan flat.

We finally got settled into our very modern flat about a block away from the ocean and instantly felt "at home."  The combination of the sea breeze, higher humidity, and lower altitude were felt very positively almost at once.  (Clearly, we are not "mountain people.")

Finally, lots of windows!  We have three windows
like shown plus two sliding glass doors
and they can all be opened!

Friday, December 17

A simple task we couldn't figure out in the morning was how to use the induction cooktop in the Mazatlan flat we rented.  The problem turned out to be a power switch (hidden beneath the kitchen countertop) that had to be turned on before use.  (We found this after finally texting the AirBnB host and after our googled instructions for the stovetop was unsuccessful.)

After a light breakfast in our apartment, we walked along the Malecon toward the large collection of pangas (fishing boats) on the beach at Playa Norte.  (It was quite a walk but one that Maggie did twice today already, once for her morning exercise.)

Pangas along Playa Norte

The fish cleaning station
for the fleet of pangas.

Freshly caught fish awaiting cleaning.

We had lunch at a seafood restaurant (El Muchacho Allegre) on the beach-side of the Malecon.  We each had a delicious shrimp dish and there was no doubt about the freshness of the shrimp.  Most of the diners around us were Mexicans but probably from out of town.

Shops opposite Playa Norte.

After lunch we caught a white (open air) tourist buggy back to our apartment and downloaded our recent photographs and got caught up on our blogs.

Looking down on the rocky shore
near our apartment.

Saturday, December 18

We could hear the ocean waves hitting the nearby rocky beach in the morning--it was so relaxing.  Everything about this place was peaceful and relaxing.

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While Maggie was out on her morning (exercise) walk, I took a cold shower (because I couldn't get any hot water this morning) and I was playing Guantanamera on my iPad (a Cuban song because it was the closest music I had on my playlists to Mexican).

A scene through our living room
window, capturing some of
the colors of Mexico while
focusing on the extreme 
needs for security.

Our goal for the day was to visit the Marina Mazatlan.  During our delicious lunch (pizza and a salad) at nearby Angelina's, we discussed our options for the remaining 3 months of our time in Mexico in an attempt to figure a way so we were no longer staying in San Miguel de Allende.  Thinking that we couldn't get out of our six-month lease, we opted to extend our springtime stay near Puerto Vallarta by a week, making it two weeks.

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After lunch we hailed a little white open air buggy for our 2-mile trip to the marina.  We found out that there were two marinas and we focused on the Marina Mazatlan, the largest of the two marinas.

A trimaran on the t-head of
one of the docks.

All the gates to the individual
piers were locked.

One of the about eight floating piers, 
this one with mostly sailboats.

We met a liveaboard sailor (his name was Marvin and he was 84 years old) and his wife on one of the main docks--he owned a catamaran which took up two slips.  His cost was $400 per month (which was cheap for two slips by East Coast standards).

Radio towers on a rock hill just
north of our apartment,

We got back to our apartment by 3 PM and proceeded with our Happy Hour. Stay tuned for our last four days in Mazatlan.  

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