There are several marinas in Mazatlan.
The northern marina tends towards pleasure while the southern marina gravitates towards work.
This Sunday the only event that draws skippers off their boats are NFL playoffs on high def TVs in bars and restaurants close to the water.There are security gates at each boat ramp that lead down to slips where boats small and large are tethered. On Sunday, yacht owners aren’t busy. Some of the sailing craft here, be they sailboats or yachts, cost in the hundreds of thousands.
On a window near the bar where Alan, Dave and I have lunch, there are For Sale notes for more modest craft. Someone looking for a cheap place in Mazatlan can buy a 30 foot Bayliner with a diesel engine for eight thousand and park in a slip for twenty four cents a foot per day year round. You have it all – security, socializing, proximity, alcohol, sun, and surf.
All in all, this marina leaves the impression that some people have too much money and it needs to be distributed. That thinking, though, needs to be scuttled.
It is bad policy to worry too much about what other people have, and how they got it.
Only politicians keep sipping from this straw.
The shopping mall is not only a metaphor for the Christmas season, but a melody.
Jingle bells ring from inside closed stores as a security pickup patrols and deliveries are made to the back door. Stores open at ten in the morning and stay open till ten in the evening.
Palm trees and oranges mark this territory as Southern California but this shopping mall could also be in Arizona or parts of Nevada, Texas, or even Florida. Malls, once a new concept, brought customers out of neighborhood stores to shop in retail fantasy lands, closed down mom and pop places that had higher prices but kept neighborhoods together. Malls gave big business a chance to grab market share, streamline operations, centralize and advertise their brand. They changed America.
Christmas is promoted here as far as my eyes can see. Windows have nativity scenes, garlands are draped over light poles, decorated trees have presents wrapped underneath, snowflakes are sprayed on windows.
The last time Los Angeles saw a real snowflake was when Hell froze over.
High on a ladder, a painter keeps up appearances.
In California, there is no room for wrinkles, sags, or cracks.
California dedicates herself to the pursuit of Dionysus and when Santa rolls into town with his reindeer, real soon, he will be wearing yellow speedo’s, a bright red stocking cap, and a pair of dark sunglasses that would make a gangster proud.
On a Montevideo city bus headed back to Ciudad Vieja, Christmas decorations catch my eye. I take a detour off the city bus to enjoy them closer.
This Plaza is not far from Independence Plaza. Today, there are spectators lounging on park benches, not in any hurry to move down to Independence Plaza and face the huge imposing statue of General Artigas surrounded by government offices and fancy hotels.
This little intimate plaza belongs in Alice in Wonderland.
There is a funny looking Christmas tree that is so perfect it is not perfect. There are three pink flamingos in a pond that has nothing to do with Christmas but adds the right color. There is a balloon astronaut five feet above the ground. There is an airplane and little butterflies. A fountain that was dormant has been filled with water for the Holiday Season.
The most satisfying Christmas depiction I witness is three wise men on camels. There are some who doubt there is even one wise man in this world, but, that is too harsh. There may be as many as ten.
I sit on a bench like the others this morning and wait patiently for the wise men to say something profound.
They don’t say a word, and that, to me, is as profound a statement as you can not make.
On vacation, where it is warm and people lay on the beach, you forget about Christmas.
Christmas comes in December no matter where you are in the world. In this Punta Del Este shopping mall, Christmas has arrived, decorations are out, Santa has been puffed up, and all that is needed is more customers and a brisk buying season.
During Christmas season we set time aside to do nice things for people we may not be nice too other times. This is the time of year when bygones are to be bygones, when wrongs are forgiven, when giving and getting are almost on par,when open hearts overtake our baser instincts.
Santa waves when I see him.
Everyone knows there is a Santa Claus and he lives in a big house at the North Pole. He has been working all year to make presents for all those who have been nice, not naughty. Ramping up operations, his reindeer are rearing to go but he also uses Fed X, Amazon, UPS, the Post Office, and DPS to help him complete his mission. He has look alikes sit in shopping malls and let kids sit on their knees and tell what they would like for Christmas. Everyone knows Santa can’t be in all places at all times.
Weather doesn’t have anything to do with Christmas. Christmas is a time to celebrate the birth of Christ whether it is hot or cold, dry or wet, spring or winter.
It remains odd, however, that more people these days worship Santa than Christ.
The noise draws you. With stands visible, and walls keeping people out, this spectacle is a city road race. There are cameras and cameramen strategically placed and, in retrospect, the best way to see the race is to see it on television.
Despite what Juan Carlos says, the cars are loud and there is the smell of burning fuel. I get a General pass in the nosebleed section, way around on the opposite end of the track from where I buy my ticket, and show the little blue band wrapped around my wrist to a gate guard in the D section.The stands are full and a warm up car is leading all competitors around the track in a get to know you lap.
Fans are ready for action, standing at the rail, lounging in chairs in grass areas near the grandstands. There are portable toilets, a food concession, parking, and if you want shade you can find it under the grandstands. It is a long oval track and sheet metal walls containing it are tall enough that you can’t see the race unless you are looking down from a second story balcony of one of the hotels across the street.
My ticket calls the race the Grand Prix of Punta Del Este .
Beautiful models get out of a van. They are gorgeous. All made up and dressed in official racing outfits, they are walking to the finish line till a winner is declared and then they will get their pictures taken for the newspapers and honor the winner with multiple hugs and kisses.
Kisses are powerful motivators.
There are car wrecks every minute, somewhere in the world.
This is the first one that almost hits me.
Taking a walk down the Rambla, this accident happens on the roadway at a spot I just passed. I hear braking,turn, and watch a white delivery van moving crazily down one lane of traffic, swerving, balanced on two wheels, looking like it will hit parked cars on the curbside, which it does. It is like a stunt man driving in the movies except this is an average Joe who is going to be lucky if he walks away without a scratch.
People converge on the accident scene to make sure the drivers are okay, talk about what they see or didn’t see, who is responsible and who isn’t, and wait for police. I don’t know what caused the accident but the cops will take interviews, pictures, piece together a truth that will be torn apart by lawyers if it goes to court.
A police car almost loses control as it passes me with lights and sirens operating, dodges a car that doesn’t get out of their way, does a U-turn, then shuts down the roadway at one end of the accident scene. An ambulance,already here,tends to an older man in a small car involved in the accident.
The one they need to check on is the working man who climbs out of the upside down delivery van and slaps himself on the top of his forehead with two hands, lucky to be alive.
This could have been a disaster instead of a photo op.
This is my next to last day in Montevideo, and, it looks as if it it didn’t come too soon.
Travel is not always safe.
On Sarandi Street are groups of people, dressed to the nines, standing in my way as I pass on a sidewalk past a woman’s fashion store,
Happy couples exit a bland doorway, into the sunlight. They are jubilant.
When more smiling couples come out and take photos, throw rice, hug and toss flowers to the next lucky man or woman, it is certain this extravaganza is about marriage, a traditional and good institution, if there ever was one.
A closer look at a little bland sign on the bland building confirms that this office, next to an upscale clothes retailer, is the City’s Office of Matrimony
As brides and grooms pose outside for their wedding pictures, some with professional photographers, others with friends or family who have phones or fancy cameras, some couples do dramatic hugs and kisses. Others are subdued.
On this occasion it would be a sacrilege to remark that not all of these newly joined couples will be together in five years.
The search to find someone who will live with you, for better and worse, is worth the effort no matter how it ends.
The next historical development in weddings will be to get married at a drive up window, in street clothes, with a cooler of beer in the trunk and passes to the opera in the glove compartment.
Most marriages begin happy but their success rate is still only fifty percent, regardless of who marries you, where you get married, how much money you have, what God you worship.
Odds, as Las Vegas knows, are hard to beat, but odds don’t stop people from getting married.
The Urban Heritage group are Old City real estate developers.
Jesper and his wife Olenka, partners in the Group,host an art exposition on the evening of November 7th, 2014 to promote their vision for the area to investors and business people and lovers of the arts.
At seven, art lovers, friends, associates, clients, friends of the band, hired help arrive to celebrate art, business,and throw a grand party. In addition to art by local artist Roberto Ybarra, there are posters of Urban Heritage properties prominently displayed that show what can be done to change abandoned industrial properties into good looking functional living and business spaces.
Roberto works with wood, string, metal, paper, leather, and found objects. He is an older man but does young art, Roberto’s show blurs differences between reality and art.
When does an object belong in a museum? When does art become just a bed you can’t sleep on? Is art more than materials that make it? Is art a way of looking, or a way of living? Is art what we see or what goes on in our own head when we look at it, or both?
” Violinista”, a small work I buy, is now hung on my dining room room wall at home and brings back memories. I swear sometimes that the violinists bow moves and makes a trill so soft it would make a conductor cry.
When I see my violinist and remember Montevideo, I start to hum a slow sultry tango.
For all I know, people who live, visit and work in South Beach look this way all the time.
It is the middle of the afternoon on a Saturday and skies are threatening rain.
One side of Ocean Drive is dedicated to tourists and locals who want to walk, ride bikes, stroll hand in hand down a concrete promenade that parallels the Atlantic Ocean. The other side of the street is left to those who want to eat, drink and be merry. This afternoon there are cobwebs and skeletons as far as my eye can see. You can bet this scene will be crackling this Halloween night – like a light bulb in a power surge. The girls are already being party girls but an older man takes the cake when he strolls down the sidewalk flaunting his bare butt.
It is all in bad spirit and even hardened old timers seem pleased with this guy’s boldness, chuckling and saying ” this is messed up. ”
Girls, loving him, chase our bad boy down the sidewalk and pose with him while their boyfriends take their picture with him.
What this says about their relationships is suitable for Cosmopolitan, or discussion on ” The View. ” This experience gives new meaning to the phrase ” End Times. ”
Oceans, at the end of land masses,seem to bring the crazy out of people.
I order a drink to meet this place half way.
The Hotel Element is close to the Miami International airport.
Their standard room has a refrigerator, a color flat screen TV, acceptable wi-fi, hot and cold running water, a door that locks, a clean bathroom, clean sheets, and, especially important in Florida, air conditioning. I don’t see ghosts and goblins running the halls but Halloween is coming towards us right on schedule.
I take an elevator up, slip my plastic card key into the hotel room door handle and let myself in, test the bed, get horizontal and slip into a car chase dream on a twisted road to Uruguay across a world map like the one on the first page of Scotttreks.
The next morning, for breakfast, us hotel guests are greeted by a diminutive She Devil with horns who is busy making sure we have our drinks, muffins, breakfast sandwiches and sweet rolls. Even in Hell you have to eat.
She poses for me and wants to change back into her cute red devil shoes for my snapshot. I tell her I am okay with her the way she is, part in our world and part in her demon world.
I get a few more scary Halloween photos after breakfast of two hotel desk clerks who are dressed to kill. Both of them suggest I visit South Beach since my rescheduled flight leaves late tonight and I have time on my hands.
God’s and demons, or fate – if you prefer, is always part of a traveler’s life.
I let the killer girls call me a taxi.
No respected travel blogger would pass up a chance to go to South Beach.
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