I don’t think anyone has officially declared this “European Week,” but I hereby make the nomination. Mazatlán is quite famous in western Europe these days… I’m sure you’ve heard that our State Secretary of Tourism, as well as the mayors of Cosalá, El Fuerte and El Rosario, are in Madrid, Spain this week for FITUR, the International Tourism Fair, as part of the Mexican national delegation. The fair opened yesterday and goes through Sunday the 26th. FITUR is a huge event with enormous upside potential, with over 120,000 tourism professionals from 165 countries attending.
Just now I’ve learned that a crew from BBC (yes, British Broadcasting Corporation) has been here in town. So, the European connection continues! A director, producer, cameramen and two Irish actors, Dara O’Briain and Ed Byrne, are here for two days to film a documentary series on Sullivan C. Richardson’s Pan American Highway Expedition of 1940-1941 — the first successful attempt to drive an automobile from the United States to the tip of South America. Their route would eventually become the Pan American Highway. In 1942 Richardson wrote a memoir of his journey, titled Adventure South: Three Men and a Lone Car Blaze the Pan American Highway Route Down Two Continents to Cape Horn! Apparently the original expedition made its way through Mazatlán, and the book records that they had a very pleasant stay here. Richardson wrote of the warmth of the Mazatleca people, and the fact that his group spent the night down by the divers in Olas Altas, as they didn’t have money for lodging. They are filming at the diving platforms and the Hotel Belmar, as well as the Mazatlán-Durango Highway and the Baluarte Bridge. The series is planned to air on BBC this coming December.
Have you not seen them around? Here’s a short video clip that SECTUR assembled:
What next, everyone? May Mazatlán’s fame and fortune on the European stage continue 😉
¡VidaMaz! 