Tag Archives: activities

Update on Bicycling in Mazatlán

In June I wrote a post updating everyone in English about the planning for ciclovías/bike paths in town and the CicloNoches/night bike tours in this gorgeous port of ours.

I’m very happy to report that since that post, the city has joined so many other cities in Mexico and abroad, and has begun closing the southbound lanes of Avenida del Mar on Sunday mornings. Today was the second such Sunday.

Last week, opening week, we were joined by Governor Malova and Mayor Higuera, as can be seen in the video above.

The road is closed from Insurgentes to Monos Bichis, the Fishermen’s Monument. It gets closed about 8 am (though they’ve announced it’s from 6 am), and stays closed until about 10:30 or 11 am (though, again, it’s announced to stay closed till noon). Southbound traffic is routed to one lane, as is northbound traffic, both using the inland side of the Avenue. Thus, drivers are able to continue using the Avenida, and the bikers, skaters and skateboarders are safe in the oceanside lanes.

This is a wonderful chance to get out with the whole family, or with your friends and neighbors. Please take advantage of it! We definitely want to show the city how important this privilege is to us by having a good turnout. Hopefully this practice will continue long enough for citizens to learn about it and develop the habit of Sunday morning cycling, though we weren’t that lucky last time.

Something wonderful this morning was that police were loaning out, free of charge, 80 beautiful bicycles for people to use! Those wanting to borrow a bicycle were asked to leave their credenciál or identification card, in order to ensure they’d return the bike.

Regarding CicloNoches, they are now scheduled for the first Thursday of every month. September 6 will be the third such event. Meet in front of the Aquarium at 7:30 pm, for an 8:00 pm start. The plan this time is to ride down to the Escudo/the shield down in Olas Altas and back. It is a wonderful feeling pedaling the Avenida del Mar in the dark, looking out at the lights around the bay.

As in prior events, the road will not be closed for this event, but we should have a police escort and a wonderful turnout. We will be guided by a leader, and will be asked to stay only in the rightmost lane of the Avenida. You can see the rules here in the photo at the left. This is a group event, so participants are asked not to pass each other and not to go out into the left-hand lane, in order to protect everyone’s safety and enjoyment, and ensure that drivers can get by smoothly.

 

Children’s Day at Deportivas Juarez

The other really terrific Children’s Day event in which we participated last weekend was a huge festival for local kids from the more marginalized neighborhoods of town. It was held at the Canchas Juarez on Sunday. (I already posted about the terrific opening of the Marco Polo Park last Monday, which was Children’s Day here in Mexico.)

The festival at the Deportivas Juarez was very well organized: well-publicized, a published schedule, lots of organizers wearing colored shirts, Scouts present to help out. There were people at the park collecting donations of toys and gifts all week leading up to the event. They had a clown as a Master of Ceremonies who was just terrific, and the mayor and his wife and the full Cabildo Infantil 2012 showed up. The whole Juarez complex, by the way, is amazingly state-of-the-art: green grass on the fields, covered bleachers, large clean toilet facilities. Kudos to the city and the local business sponsors for building this new park for our kids!

The children on Sunday had so many terrific activities in which they could participate! There were sports events such as running races on the track, baseball games, soccer and American football games. There were carnaval-type games and face painting. There was music and dancing. There were gifts and prizes, from new bicycles and soccer balls to dolls and toys and books. We made a human fish and a helicopter arrived to take photos, to the delight of the kids. But the biggest hit of this party, hands-down, were the half dozen or so swimming pools that they had brought in and filled on-site. Some of the kids didn’t want to get out of those pools even to run and wave at the helicopter (though the helicopter was a HUGE hit)!

The event was organized by a long list of local grassroots organizations, and sponsored by a large number of local businesses. About 1500 kids had a really terrific time; an amazing turnout for a first-time-ever event, I thought. I was so proud to be involved. There were so many giggles and delighted faces.

Take a look and enjoy the slideshow above! If you’d rather see larger photos, click through to SmugMug. Some videos I took of the event have also been posted to YouTube, if you are curious. I’m sure they’ll be edited together in time; right now they are just raw footage. First one is here, and you can see there are about a dozen more if you’re trying to find something in particular. Enjoy!

A Hike on a Foggy Morning/El Faro Dentro de la Niebla

I’ve told you before about the wonderful lighthouse we have here in Mazatlán. We hike it once or twice a week, and we so enjoy the families, young couples, exercise groups, and elderly people, too, who make the climb up one of the ways they stay healthy. It’s a gorgeous view, and a terrific group of young Mazatlecos has been working hard to keep the area clean and maintained. I’ve heard the lighthouse is owned by API, the port authority. If so, Mis Estimados Señores del API, sure would be a wonderful community service for you to invest a bit of money in making this a better tourist attraction and community gathering area….. It’s so beautiful, it wouldn’t cost much… Just an idea 🙂

Anyway, yesterday morning was pretty foggy here. As we made our way down the malecón toward the faro there were lots of oyster divers and panga fishermen out, despite the foggy conditions. We are so spoiled here with clear, sunny weather, that seeing a bit of fog once in a while seems so absolutely gorgeous!

We wondered as we approached the lighthouse hill if we would be able to see anything as we made our climb. It sure did seem to be heavy fog.

The harbor had more boats than usual, it seemed. We guessed that perhaps people had brought their boats out in preparation for Semana Santa.

As we started our climb it seemed we weren’t going to be able to see much of anything. It was pretty cool, sort of like walking in a spook house. In the photo at left, we SHOULD be seeing, or are used to seeing, all of Isla de la Piedra/Stone Island. Not today!

The cacti and vegetation, which are so gorgeous this time of year, were shrouded in veils of fog, making for a very mysterious feeling. There were way more hikers, bikers and runners on the trail than is normal, however. Again, we guessed that people are getting in a holiday mood.

As we reached the top of the lighthouse hill the fog had moved a bit. We couldn’t see much of anything of the city, but the teeny-top of the hill on Stone Island that I showed you above, much more of it was now visible. Kind of a nice change of pace to have changing scenery, when we’re spoiled with consistently perfect views…

Despite the fact that the view from the top was still foggy, the weather at the top was very clear and bright. I took a shot up, through a tree. You can see there was no fog whatsoever up high.

And one of the lighthouse’s many resident iguanas was more than happy to sun himself, more than ready for the R&R and hopefully increased sales that Semana Santa will bring for our local economy.

Wednesday Hump Day

 

Mid-week. Wednesday. “Hump day.” We decided we needed to get out, see a bit of the “interior” of our beloved Mazatlán that we hadn’t seen in a while. Not like we don’t often do that, but, hey, it’s Wednesday and we’ve been working hard …

We ended up driving toward Infiernillo. We were so very psyched to spend time noticing just how clean everything looks, we suppose after it was cleaned up from the flooding last year. Danny’s Scout troop has gone out there many times cleaning up. But this was obviously a clean-up of larger, more mechanistic proportions. Well done, city!

We stopped at a little mariscos and taquería that Greg had noticed yesterday, when he was refilling the gas for the grill. It is called El Pariente, and it did not disappoint.

The owner was very gregarious, and worked busily on the outdoor grill. His wife worked the indoor kitchen.

Despite the pull of the ceviche de jaiba and other cold dishes, we all ordered shrimp: camarones rancheros and

camarones a la diabla. Both were really tasty, portions were huge (we couldn’t finish), and

prices were definitely right: 80 pesos per plate.

Plus, the view was very pleasant!

After lunch we drove around the other side of the estero, past the fishing pangas,

the waterfowl,

the recycling truck,

the gas delivery truck,

the roof dog protecting a roof-top camper shell (?),

and a hand painted and festively decorated mural of the Virgen.

All in all, a most welcome mid-week respite to recharge our batteries and ground ourselves in the reality and security of our beloved city before we headed back to work.

 

El Buki Show Last Night

We were very pleased to be invited last night to the second annual taquiza party which takes over the street in front of our friends’ Cathy and Bill’s house. This year we celebrated Cathy’s retirement. They must have had 100 friends show up, all locals. It is so wonderful to see how generous these two are to their friends, and how much their friends here care about them. One of them set up a disco móvil, the neighbors grilled carne asada, and the state police offered to shut down the street to make us more comfortable, so we were well taken care of.

After dinner, we were surprised to see a very familiar face: Marco Antonio Solis. No, not really. But he sure did look like El Buki! He is a friend of the mechanics next door, and he was more than happy to entertain us by singing karaoke to a few El Buki hits.

Above is a video of him singing. Unfortunately the photos and video are taken with a cell phone in the darkness outside, but you’ll get the idea. This is what I love about living here. You think you’re going to a low-key event where you’ll get to dine outside under the stars, spend quality time with some very cool people, and you end up also being entertained by a rock star.

I had to get my photo taken with him; you never know when I’ll have that chance again, lol!