| We walked along the Esplanade Olas Altas where most of the Mazatlan carnival events take place (earlier in the year).
It is also the site of many monuments. |  |
| The esplanade is several miles in length and goes all
around this bay in the foreground. |  |
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Besides tourism, fishing is still an important industry here with many small
boats pulled up on the sand. |
| This is the Fisherman's monument. It is not
immediately obvious why, but the figure of a man on the far side is wielding
a net. |  |
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Now a view of the huge size of the main bay. We are camped somewhere out on
the far end of this shoreline, about eight miles away. |
| We found a maze painted on the esplanade. I started
walking it but it turned out to be a regular pattern so I got bored. |  |
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The sight of the dessert seller offering carved pineapple and mangoes on
sticks reminded us it was lunchtime so we started looking for somewhere to
eat. It's a bit difficult to be sure the seafood in the beach restaurants is
safe, especially when all the places are empty of diners, again mainly
because most of the winter visitors have gone home.. |
| Eventually we picked one and had an excellent fish
meal for about £5 each |  |
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Shade is important here so you rent a thatched parasol rather than the
deckchair. Each of these had a few (fully dressed) people sheltering
underneath. After all, only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday
sun. |
| Jan was fascinated by the thatch which is done with
palm leaves. Even when dry the leaves remain attached to the central spines.
This is the underside and below is the upper side, which looks very much
like a very untidy thatched roof in England. |  |
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You just need plenty of it to keep the rain off in the rainy season. |
| Moving on we passed the monument to brewing. Light
beer is more common here than wine. You do see a lot of tequila in the shops
but almost no whisky. We have found a decent dark beer in Negra Modela.. |  |
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More monuments as we continue our walk along the promenade. By now we are
getting pretty hot and tired and have probably walked six miles. |
| We could have taken a pulmonia like this but then we
would not have seen so much. These are very common and many of the
drivers/guides speak good English. |  |
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At the end of the esplanade is this amazing collection of buildings which
actually turned out to be a nightclub and restaurant. We couldn't even get a
drink there. |
| So we sat and looked back along the way we had come.
Just off to our right are the three islands in the bay, Wolf, Deer and Bird
islands. |  |
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.We felt a bit like the Family monument. Time for a rest. |
| I suppose we could have taken a limousine back like
this stretched Hummer, but we actually took the bus. At least we knew where
that would end up. |  |
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