Mazatlan!

We arrived in Mazatlan on April 4th. Mazatlan is on the Pacific side of Mexico about 350 miles north of Puerto Vallarta. We are hoping the extra distance north of the equator will result in lower humidity levels than what we experienced in Grenada - asthma issue. It was nice to get warm again after our short visit to Canada.

It cost 400 pesos (about CAN$30) for the 25 km taxi trip from the airport to our apartment. Our apartment is in a brand new building and everything was ready for us. We really like our new place. It is modern and has in-suite laundry. We are the first to live here - there was still a hint of construction debris in the corners of the closets. It was nice to unpack our suitcases again and get settled into those nice new new closets.

Both the owner (Eva) and the real estate agency (Rachel at OCCAN) are very friendly and helpful. Electricity, internet and TV are not part of the rent so we need to pay them separately.

Our apartment is larger than the one we had in Grenada and the kitchen is much nicer. But it doesn't have an oven so I guess home made turkey dinner is off the menu this year. Chicken burritos or fish tacos with salsa and sour cream on the beach sound pretty good too!

There is no pool in this apartment complex but the beach is a fifteen minute walk away and easy to get there along with a multitude of great beach bars and restaurants.

We are careful about using sun screen every day. We also have access to a huge roof deck where we can enjoy the view while painting...

Unfortunately the brand new washing machine had not been tested by the owners and the water level shut-off mechanism had a pinched hose. Water kept flowing into the machine and then onto the floor. We didn't notice until the water had flowed into all of the rooms. The dining table area where we were sitting must be the high spot ...good thing all of the floors are tiled.

We took our time to find an apartment where we could walk to go grocery shopping, and also be close to the beach without having to navigate any hills. In our area of Mazatlan everything is quite flat. We have started looking for used bikes.

Our first impressions of Mazatlan are of a very busy / fast moving city. We have two huge grocery stores, a Home Depot, our bank, a major mall, and many restaurants within a 10 minute walk. We have already visited many of the "big box" stores and were pleased with the quality and vast selection of goods at amazingly low prices.

It took 15 minutes to get new sim cards for our new phones and then another visit to register us on the system...the girl at the counter forgot to do that but all is well now. We loaded the Google voice recognition / translation function and it works great. It helps us learn Spanish too.

The buses are fairly modern (big change from being in the Caribbean) and they cost 11 pesos per person.

Mazatlan is a big city and there are many places to see and visit here. We are going to be busy finding our way around. So far, the weather has been perfect with our fans only on low when needed - we still haven't tried out the a/c system yet. Our first 4 days here have been perfect with pure blue skies, sunny, warm (27 C.) and no clouds in sight. Evenings are a cool 18 C.

We try to find a bit of shade whenever we have a break from our hectic schedule of enjoying sunshine at the beach and so we get something cool to sip on while we think about which direction to take for our next long walk on the malecon.