If you’ve been following along, you probably read the last post that we ended up at the Las Jaibas RV park in Mazatlan (north end). Mazatlan is the Pearl of the Pacific and shrimp capital of the world!

We spent the first couple days just chilling and figuring out our new environment. The RV Park is a flat, mostly grassy park that is less than a 5-minute walk to the beach. Although there are around 100 RV spots in the park, there are maybe 15 spots in use by RV’ers! Within the first 24 hours of arriving, all the neighbors in the back area introduced themselves; once again, everyone is either from AB or BC. The park is on the north end of the city, which is not very touristy at all, the beach is pretty empty, and the beach hawkers are very minimal. There is a bike path in the center median that takes you from one end to the other and its a 5 km long path. We ended up using this bike path almost every day; its also a great way to get to Cerritos beach for all the live music entertainment. Our neighbors were a great resource on letting us know about restaurants, the bus, the markets, live music and other tidbits like checking your shoes for scorpions (if you leave them outside).

After a couple days of chilling at the beach, (https://rumble.com/v61q2iw-mazatlan-beaches.html) we figured it was time to venture down to the main Malecon. Although we can jump on the public (chicken) bus right outside the RV Park, we opted to drive down in the car to determine if we could / would want to ride our bikes down on the main Malecon; the Mazatlan Malecon is one of the longest, its 7 km!

Thursday was a noticeable hotter morning and after our bike ride, we loaded up our trusty Costco cart and headed to the beach for a few hours; who doesn’t love a beach day! Apparently, Dec 12 was The Day of the Virgin of Guadalupe. We went down after dinner to Historic Mazatlan to find Plaza Machado. This was a cool square with some vendors and open-air restaurants and the roads were closed to driving. We kept walking through the historic area and stumbled upon the Cathedral of Immaculate conception; the church service had just let out and it was crazy mahem! The Plaza Republica turned into pop up vendors everywhere, bake sales, taco sales, toy sales…a typical Mexican evening. Todd was on the hunt for Churros and he was pretty happy when we found some!

It was time to do a bit of food shopping, and we had been told by a couple of people that there is a huge market in centro historico; so, we headed down that way to find some goods. As we got closer, the traffic became really crazy and honestly, I don’t know how Todd keeps his cool in the chaos! We parked and headed down to the market; it was beyond overwhelming, and we ended up leaving and walking over to the Shrimp ladies – a 1kg bag of fresh caught shrimp was only $14!

On the Saturday it was my birthday, which started with a walk on the beach. The neighbors told us about an Alan Jackson tribute band at Mr Lionso’s bar down by Cerritos beach. So we hopped on the bikes and rode down there around 2 and the show went til 5. Fake Alan Jackson announced it was my birthday and they sent over a colorful shooter and a piece of shitty chocolate cake that I was supposed to shove in my face! Along with a guy in a freaky mask that was supposed to assist. I went along with it and fake ate the cake, enough for everyone to think I did it (since I’m gluten free!), then Todd ate the rest! It was a fun couple hours and we headed back home; bike riding after 2 margarita’s is not the easiest task, but we made it, and Todd BBQ’d up a fantastic surf and turf. The neighbors came for a fire pit and gluten free cake (I planned ahead and made my own cake the day before!).

Our first week has been taking our time getting to know the area and the day usually includes either a beach walk or a bike ride or both! Here’s some pics: https://rumble.com/v61psdh-mazatlan.html

There is a place that is part of but not part of Mazatlan called Stone Island; its not really an island, since its attached and I’m not sure whey they call it that. There are a couple of RV parks over there and when we were researching them we opted not to stay there, but still wanted to go check them out. Many people take a water taxi from the Mazatlan harbor over to Stone Island and hang out on the beaches for the day. We opted to drive around to see some sights; it took 45 minutes to get there. It was a cloudy day, not a super warm beach day, but we walked it to check it all out. The beach is very wide and long, full of beach restaurants and also has 2 RV parks. It was a cool place to visit for a day, but not our jam.

The next celebration on our December agenda is our anniversary; yeh to 13 years! We got all dressed up and headed back down to Plaza Machado to see where we would have a lovely meal. We were checking out menu’s at the restaurants when we had an older fellow tell us that if we chose this specific restaurant (Pedro y Lola) we would not be disappointed by the service or the food…especially the Filet Mignon! He was from Edmonton, and he convinced us to check this place out! We sat on the patio and took our time ordering our 3-course meal. The service was impeccable, and the food was delicious…we quite possibly ate the best (tortilla) soup of our lives here! As you can imagine, we didn’t order the Filet Mignon…we didn’t come to Mexico for the beef! We did have Shrimp and Octopus Chorreadas (sinaloan street food), coconut shrimp (Todd) and Mahi mahi (Jill) that was all out of this world! Check out the plaza here: https://rumble.com/v61q5yn-plaza-marchand.html

Last weekend we rode our bikes down to Friends diner in Cerritos for some live music and found our neighbors there as well. A great night out and home by 9! Here is the band, they were good! https://rumble.com/v625sat-the-band-at-cerritos.html

Our daily beach walks and sunset walks to the beach and bike rides are awesome – we’ve seen pods of dolphins and whales breaching out in the ocean. Our regular rides along the Malecon indicate that the Mexican’s must be doing well financially…there are at least 19 cranes, building condo high rises in the main area and on our north side is probably another 5 towers being built. It could also be cartel money too….who knows. Speaking of Cartel….we aren’t really travelling outside of Mazatlan to explore what else there may be, due to possible Cartel activity BUT we did want to go check out the Tropic of Cancer point 15 km north of the city to see if it was equally as cool (and touristy) as the same spot in Baja….turns out its not a big deal here!

Baja major tourist spot (left) Big cement ball in highway brush north of Mazatlan (right)

As we creep closer to the Christmas season, the beaches are getting busier but not as busy as we thought they would. There is also nightly fireworks going off and we can hear traditional live Spanish music around us, as families celebrate Las Posadas (the journey of Mary and Joseph asking for a place to stay). Our first two weeks here have been exactly what we needed: sun, sand, sleep and tacos (and tequila!)! As we celebrate the festive season down here, we wish you all a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!