How would you like a free 2-night/3-day stay for two adults and up to two children, ALL INCLUSIVE, at Marina El Cid?
How about helping those in need in our community at the same time? It’s a combination that can’t lose!
Desayuno de los Pollos, “Breakfast of the Chickens,” is this Saturday, December 7th, at 8:30 am. Tickets are 150 pesos each. Buy tickets from anyone selling them, from us, or purchase them at the English Lending Library downtown or Post-N-Ship in the Golden Zone. You can also donate some money (100% goes to buy food for the needy) using this link.
There are many more gifts than those below. Please join me in THANKING those businesses who have donated to support those in need in our community. Mention your appreciation to them next time you visit, won’t you? Let’s support the merchants who support our community!
Click on the photo to visit the business’ website.
All inclusive two days/three nights for two adults and up to two children at the luxurious Marina El Cid.
Two nights in the beautiful Casa Buena Vista at La Rosa de las Barras, on the beach in Barras de Piaxtla.
One gift certificate for a one-hour massage and a facial, and a second for a pedicure, at the luxurious Athina Spa. You deserve it this holiday!
A beautiful woven scarf/shawl/wrap, in a gorgeous print, from Casa Etnika.
Two gourmet breakfasts with a view for two people at the elegant Las 7 Maravillas.
A delicious breakfast for two people at Lauren’s restaurant in the chic Hotel Jonathan.
Original artwork of an ulama player by Armando Nava
A 300 peso gift certificate to Tippy Toes Salon or Marrakesh Spa
300 peso gift certificate to Il Mosto
Two facials and massages from María José Wong Loubet
Two beautiful handmade baby quilts
A handpainted wooden school desk
Click on any of the photos in the collage below to enlarge it or to view a slideshow of other prizes and auction items.
Three one-year agendas that includes a weekly photo of Historic Mazatlá
100 peso certificate for Cafe Allegro
Five certificates for 30 kg of gas from GasPasa
20 one month subscriptions to the Noroeste newspaper
A car wash from Joaquin and company
Several haircuts from Kaly
2 hamburgers and drinks at Beach Burguer
Gift certificate for 200 pesos worth of dry cleaning from Imperial Cleaners
One specialty pizza from La Rustica
Five certificates for chiropractic treatment from Diego Martin López
Well, since the SATs (college entrance exam for many schools in the USA) are held in Mazatlán only in the springtime, we drove to Durango this weekend so Danny could take the test. The last two times we drove that route, it took 3 and 3 1/2 hours for us to get from Mazatlán to Durango. This time, on Friday, it took 5 1/2! Granted, it was raining and foggy, and there was a whole lot of truck traffic. But we counted only 18 tunnels and 12 bridges that we crossed. We would swear that more of the new highway was open the last times we went. Perhaps more has closed due to damage from the recent heavy rains?
Needless to say, we arrived on Friday evening much later than we would have preferred, since we had to get up at the crack of dawn to get Danny to the test. But we had a great weekend! Unbeknownst to us, Durango is celebrating its 450th birthday (since summer), and right now is the Festival Cultural Revueltas—music, literature, dancing, theater. The streets were packed and all were having a grand time. While we have seen a lot of folkloric dancing in our day, it was the first time we’d witnessed ballet folkloric danced to banda music! (I post a short video below, if you’d care to see.)
We stayed in a beautiful hotel very near the American School, where the test was held—the Hotel Gobernador. Click on any photo below to enlarge it or view a slideshow.
Hotel Gobernador registration desk
Comfy corner of the lobby
View of the café
Outdoor seating in the café
View of the swimming pool
View of the lobby
Chandelier from underneath
Huge wooden chandeliers in the lobby
While Danny took the test, Greg and I spent a whopping 20 pesos to go round-trip on the teleférico, or gondola, one of four in Mexico. What a gorgeous day we had, and such incredible views! At the top of the route is the Santuario de Nuestra Señora de los Remedios, a beautiful, small, and very old church, dating back to the founding of the city itself (and worship at the site by native Mexicans even earlier). (Click on any photo below to view it larger or view a slideshow.)
Sign for the gondola
Sign for the gondola
Sign for the teleférico
Looking from the gondola
View looking down from the gondola
View looking down from the gondola
View of the city from up top
The teleférico
Nuestra Señora de los Remedios
Crucifix in the sanctuary
Inside the church
Bell tower
View of the city from up top
New cross to be built up top the cerro
On top of the cerro, a hole for the new cross?
View from up top
Kids inside the gondola
Sign for the church
Us up top the hill
At the top of the gondola, a group of folkloric dancers were performing. Many of them were the same dancers that we’d happen to see again that evening in the Plaza de Armas. (Click on any photo below to view it larger or view a slideshow.)
Folkloric dancers
Duck quickly!
Hello, lady!
Folkloric dancers
Acting out a funeral
Acting out a funeral
Acting out a funeral
Ready for action
The smallest dancer
Once Danny was finished with the test, we ate lunch at an incredible restaurant, Esquilón (Hidalgo #411, tel 618-811-1632). The space was awesome, the food was very, very good, and they have loads of private party areas. We highly recommend it. (Click on any photo below to view it larger or view a slideshow.)
Main dining room
Ceiling decorations
The front room
The patio
Patio
Our appetizer
A party room
Upstairs party room
View from upstairs
View from upstairs
Dianne’s lunch
Danny’s lunch
Greg’s lunch
Our dessert
Goofy and the dessert
Private dining room
Us on the patio
As part of the festival there was a handicraft market going on. As always, I was interested in the native peoples. There was a lovely Huichol couple doing beadwork, and several Tepehuanos sewing barbasca de pino/pine needle basketry. While we weren’t able to make it this trip, there is an Artesanías Tepehuana (O’dam) at Tuxpan 227, cel. 618-151-9862 or 618-116-8849. We also learned that there is an Indigenous Art and Culture of Durango Cooperative at Isla Acerralvo 211, cel. 618-171-9661 that sounds well worth visiting. Danny was able to buy a nice birthday gift for his friend, made of animal skin, so he was also quite happy. (Click on any photo below to view it larger or view a slideshow.)
Huichol couple
Huichol couple from the rear
Huichol lady beading
Tepehuano gentleman doing basketry
Tepehuano gentleman doing basketry
Tepehuano gentleman doing basketry
Our favorite part of Durango, always, has been the beautiful architecture. The climate there seems to be so much more forgiving than ours here in Mazatlán, and they light the buildings up so gorgeously at night! It is breathtaking.
An old doorway
Plaza IV Siglo
Church near our hotel
Church near our hotel
Night lighting
Night lighting
Cathedral and main square fountain
Siglo IV at night
Night lighting
Night lighting
Night lighting
Night lighting
Cathedral at night
Night lighting
Cathedral at night
Cathedral at night
Finally, let me share with you some various shots of children playing and other city scenes.
Bicycle
Ready and waiting
Playing in the fountains
Old convent hotel
Door to the old convent hotel
Great cena place!
Cucumber juice and tequila!
Cenando
Night lighting
Night lighting
Once the highway and the Puente Baluarte are truly open, they are predicting that the trip to Durango will take 2 1/2 hours. Even at 4 hours, it is well worth a visit!
Our first entry on the VidaMaz blog was June 14, 2008. At that point, I had been a lover of and frequent traveler to Mazatlán since 1982; Greg since 1993. We had been married here (at the Hotel Camino Real in its heyday), and we had already owned our home here for a few years. In 2007, we had made the decision to change our lives, and the country in which we lived. In June of 2008 we loaded our just-out-of-sixth-grade son into a car, drove south by southwest, and enrolled him into junior high school here in our adopted hometown.
And oh how we’ve loved it! Danny did not want to come. He didn’t want to leave his friends. He didn’t want to learn Spanish. When we woke him up for school on the one-year anniversary of our move here, he proclaimed, “One year since we made the best decision of our lives!” We have made so many dear friends, we have learned so many new things, we have experienced events and realities that have stirred our souls. Our son has become bilingual, bicultural, the children of immigrant parents. He celebrated his 13th birthday in our pool, and just two weeks ago he celebrated his 18th. Every parent says it, but where has the time gone?
We started this blog in order to let our family and friends back home, and worldwide, see a bit of our new lives here. What I really treasure about this blog is the way it has helped us keep a record of our journeys, of some of what we have learned, and most importantly, of the people we have met along the way. Mazatlán absolutely has some of the world’s friendliest, happiest, and most open-hearted people on the planet! Thank you all for allowing us to live here in this beautiful port city with you!
In looking at the blog’s statistics, I realize that the blog has become a source of information for many of our fellow expats. We didn’t plan it that way, but we are very happy to be able to be of some service to others. We have thousands of readers who come here to learn how to enjoy Mazatlán with kids and how to choose a school and live here with kids (one, two, three, and many more). Two of our most popular posts include last year’s Immigration Forum (not a topic we’d normally write about, but the changes in immigration rules were hugely important for all expats, and no one else at the time, at least in Mazatlán, was really writing about it), and Getting a Driver’s License in Mazatlán (information that has of course changed since it was first published, but our readers have kindly kept it updated).
Most of our posts, as you our readers know, are about events and people here in town. We definitely enjoy life here, despite or because we work more than full-time. Other popular posts have included:
Happily for us, posts about our favorite event all year—Desayuno de los Pollos, a charity event conducted by my good friend Yoly (one, two), are popular. We have participated in this event from the time we came down as tourists. Danny was maybe eight the first time we had the privilege of participating.
There are hundreds more posts—our observations and experiences of the culture here, dozens of other holidays, events and people. Please check them out.
Everyone, thank you for joining us! We work full-time, we have a son still at home, we enjoy nature, like to exercise, are always ready for a good time, and we enjoy the opportunity to record some of our pleasures here in this space. We are most grateful that you have found this blog interesting or useful. What has been your favorite post?
I think the above is pretty self-explanatory about my morning.
I was teaching a class online, and the earpiece of my phone kept falling out. I was focused, so I kept pushing it back in, each time a little more assertively. When the class was over, I looked at my earpiece. It was broken! When did it break? THAT’s why it kept falling out of my ear! After playing with it a bit, I realized the rubber cap that covers the hard plastic earbud was missing. Where had it gone?
After looking around my desk and on the floor, I realized that it was in my ear. I could feel something, very faintly, in there. It didn’t hurt, but I could feel it. I asked Greg to take a look. He didn’t see anything. Had to get a small flashlight. When he was finally able to see it, he said it was jammed pretty far into my ear canal. Oops! Klutz strikes again! I definitely felt like a toddler who’d shoved something up her nose, though in this case it was my ear.
Greg lovingly got out the tweezers and agreed to try to pull it out. Each time he’d get hold of it, the little rubber thingamajig would push against my ear drum or something inside there, and it hurt like the dickens. It began to feel like I had an ELEPHANT stuck in my ear! After a few more tries at getting the rubber piece out, I was near tears it hurt so bad. What to do?
Our doctor wasn’t in yet; this happened prior to his office hours. A trip to the emergency room would be costly, and rather silly. I felt like a three year old, with a toy stuck in my ear. It was embarrassing. And I kept giggling; this all felt so silly.
What about Dr. Simi, the doctor in the pharmacy? Yes! We took a drive down the street and, through the beauty of medicine here in Mexico, we waited ten minutes while the doctor helped two people ahead of us in line.
I embarrassedly told the doctor what had happened. She took a look with her little lighted scope. She closed her eyes to think. She had me lie on my side and filled my ear with oxegenated water, hoping the rubber would float to the top, closer to the exit of my ear canal. No such luck; the darned thing was wedged in there. The water did soothe the pain a bit though. And we sure did have fun laughing about it all.
Finally, she took a long hook-like tool, and turned the rubber thingy around in my ear canal to get a better grasp. She was very, very gentle, but MAN did that hurt! Darned elephant! She grabbed the ear bud cap with a long tweezer-like tool, I winced audibly, and then she stopped. She didn’t want to hurt me. She wasn’t sure what to do. I begged her to yank it out, she obliged, and oilá. I was free! The elephant was out of my ear canal!
The whole operation cost 40 pesos. It took all of 25 minutes round trip from home to the doctor and back.
God bless Mexico. One more reason I love it here. No paperwork. Not even a signature. The doctor gave me a prescription for some ear drops, as she said it was a bit swollen in there.
You bet I’ll be more careful with those ear buds from now on! Please do the same. 😉
What an absolutely beautiful, perfect day today in Mazatlán! Families picnicking on the beach, kids playing in the surf, and every kid with a boogie or surf board out, hopeful — the final day of Surf Nationals 2012! It’s a tough life here. We had some fried chicken and mashed potatoes from Puro Pollo, some ceviche, and camp chairs under a big shady umbrella on the beach. Another absolutely perfect Sunday in Mazatlán. Enjoy the slideshow!
¡VidaMaz! 