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.
Down near the radio towers, at the south end of the Malecon, is an eatery called the Shrimp Bucket.
It is right on the road and if you stick your arm out from a table closest to the rail that separates you from the road, a car will take your arm off your shoulder.
From our table Alan, Dave and I can see the Malecon, the beach, a rock hill where San Francisco type homes rise to give the grandest view for miles. After an appropriately long wait in a place where time itself is on a holiday, a waiter brings us a menu that is the same as it was in the 1950’s. There is, after all, no reason to change your Menu when everything on it is something someone once paid money for.
The marlin stew catches my eye.
After a large hotel breakfast, a bowl of stew is enough for lunch and if it is good for hangovers it will also be good for a travelers malaise that strikes at some point in every trip where sun, surf, new surroundings, different language, lack of sleep begin to take a toll.
Marlin stew is pungent and Mexican. It is packed with peas, carrots, onions, cabbage, green olives, and small reddish bits of marlin. The marlin has a distinct flavor and its taste is softened by queso piled on top of the soup and crackers broken and dumped in the bowl like you did when you were a kid. The stew is hot and spicy and comes with a cold local Pacifico beer.
After I finish lunch I want to cross the road, descend concrete stairs to the beach, lie down on a bench under a thatched shelter, take a long siesta, and dream of long winding Kerouac sentences that get lost in their own waves.
Us English majors have a thing for well turned sentences, short or long.
Hotels and restaurants dot both sides of the street that takes you from the Mazatlan historical center to the marina at the north end of town. If each hotel was represented on a map with a red pin, and each restaurant a blue pin, you would have a long
row of pins. You could climb up on the head of one pin and walk all the way to the marina without ever touching the road.
A half block down the calle, in front of the Hotel Playa ,is a colorful eatery that calls itself the Gringo Lingo
A kid in front of the eatery, holds a menu, stands on the sidewalk and talks us inside for a meal and a Pacifico beer – one of Mazatlan’s gifts to the world. There is world class fishing in these waters that drew Hollywood stars in the 50’s, taking time off from the rigors of stardom and Los Angeles. You see photos of John Wayne and Robert Mitchem in travel brochures in local shops and huge marlin dangling from the end of ominous hooks connected to dock scales.
This evening the three of us are enticed into the Gringo Lingo complete with bright primary school colors, hanging potted plants, and an extensive menu of Mexican and American favorites. There is only a handful of patrons when we enter and only a few come after we find a table. It is early in the evening and people are still recovering from sunburn and too many afternoon margaritas.
This evening we try tortilla soup and chicken wings. Ordering food is a tricky business in Mexico even though menus show pictures and have food descriptions written in English as well as Spanish.
Dining tonight in the ” Golden Zone, ” we eat what tastes good to us and look for movie stars.
Mazatlan, in it’s day, was where gringos went to speak their lingo to the ocean sunsets.
Mazatlan, today, has lost some of it’s charm. Now, it feels like a big marlin that has hung a bit too long from a big hook on the pier.
If places could just remain the way they used to be,mostly natural and undiscovered, we travelers would all be the better for it.
While the places I visit are new to me, there is no question that I have been preceded where I go by many.
If going someplace no one has been was my goal, I would never get out of my house.
Surprise, Arizona didn’t start where it is today.
Back in the day there wasn’t much here but tumbleweeds, cactus, rugged mountains, ranches, farms, a few dirt roads and lots of dreams.
The Happy Trails Resort was once nothing but a set of plans for RV lots, park models, a clubhouse and pool, and a golf course. It is now a place for those who have achieved the American dream to move to the desert from cold states that don’t see much sun in the winter. It has become a place for relaxation, socializing, barbecues, dances and ice cream socials.
Roy Rogers and Dale Evans lent this resort their aura and promoted it. In the Chuck wagon dining room, off in a lonesome corner, is a display of mannequins wearing authentic costumes worn by Mr. and Mrs. Rogers, and cowboy memorabilia from an era when Roy Rogers was as big a star as Hollywood could create.
Looking at the costumes one is struck by how small a man Roy Rogers was, and how petite a woman was Dale Evans.
Watching them ride the range on TV they looked larger than life.They fought evil on every episode and there was always time for a song around a campfire with the boys, a helpful hand for neighbors and friends. In the end, bad guys got what they deserved and good prevailed. Their costumes seem flamboyant, even now, but cowboy’s have a style all their own.
Happy Trails is more than a song and more than a resort.
It is a philosophy. It is a wish for good luck, a wish for the best for all, a hope that at the last roundup we really all will meet again under the best of circumstances, under a broad starry sky with a roaring campfire to gird us against the cold, some hot coffee and tasty jerky for a meal, and a good blanket to throw over us as we nestle our head against a saddle.
At one time Hollywood gave us real heroes, real role models. Now, life has become more gray, more conflicted, more questioning, more rebellious, more edgy.
Looking at Roy and Dale, I resolve to dig out a few old colorized westerns.
I resolve to eat buttered popcorn and think about the fall of Rome.
Fort Lauderdale is to Pompano Beach as Cadillac is to Ford.
Fort Lauderdale has location, money, reputation, retirees. The boulevards are a little bigger, the canals a little deeper, the yachts a little bigger, the bling a little brighter, the stories much much more full of deception.
Pompano Beach seems more comfortable, more downscale, more livable. Pompano Beach seems like an old pair of beach shoes that fit your feet perfect, don’t care if sand gets on them, and fit on the floor of your car like they were made to be there.
At Sand Harbor there is an ancient hotel that retains the charm of the fifties, a bar and restaurant that serves great fish sandwiches, plus a nice view of the Intra-coastal Waterway.
After lunch Ruth and I walk the beach and it reminds me why half the east coast moved to Florida and stayed. Ruth moved her 90 year old mom down to Florida from New York into a second floor condo above her.
It is a slightly cool afternoon and at a little snack bar on the beach folks are gathering to chat, have coffee, eat, lounge under palm trees and be glad they don’t have to work at jobs they did ten years longer than they should because their kids were in college.
Pompano Beach, this afternoon, is one of those old fashioned postcard shots that tells everyone you are in Florida and having a great time, and eat your heart out.
The bond between mothers and daughters is sometimes tenuous, but, more often, tough and durable.
Love and duty are inextricably linked.
Tomorrow, I fly back to the desert.
You stay in Florida too long, you start to get webbed feet.
According to Ruth, we are in a Mob Bar.
Everyone in the place is well dressed and it is questionable whether I should be let inside with Levis, a nice dress shirt, hiking shoes and uncombed hair.
South Florida is a place with comfortable weather this time of year and an inclination towards leisure and decadence. There are banks, mortgage companies, pawn shops, tattoo parlors, restaurants and hotels, strip clubs, car dealerships, lawyers and anything else you might want or need to keep your equilibrium.
Once you drive away from the Fort Lauderdale International airport you are welcomed by wide streets, manicured lawns, palm trees and canals, million dollar yachts, almost cloudless night skies and a full moon this evening. The parking lot of Ruth’s favorite lunch place is full and Coral Springs is a long way from Miami Beach, West Palm Beach, or any beach.
On Wednesdays and Thursdays, Travelino’s features live music or live comedy. Tonight, on a Monday, they don’t have a dinner that fits so our fall back choice is chocolate mousse.
When served, the dessert reminds me of Roman orgies.
The waiters in this club wear white shirts, black slacks and black ties. The bartender shows us a new tattoo on her left wrist. When tattoos appear on middle aged bodies one has to wonder how much longer our Republic is going to survive?
On second thought, maybe it was Al Capone I saw in the washroom talking to his accountant, smoking a Cuban cigar.
I didn’t see any bodies on the washroom floor with bullet holes in their forehead, but the night is still young.
While I enjoy mousse, my ears are cocked, listening for slamming car doors in the parking lot and someone saying the name , ” Vinnie. ”
Ruth brings her mom here for lunch, so it can’t be all that dangerous.
In fact, Ruth and I decide, after consideration, that this is the kind of place Al Capone would bring his own mom.
She would probably not have tattoos.
Towards the end of any visit, many travelers sort through high points, low points, things that didn’t work out, things that went well.
If you keep a journal, write a blog, take photos, or go with someone, you have a way to remember what you saw,did, thought during a domestic or international sojourn. Traveling solo is tricky because you get off the beaten track, waste time and energy, spend needlessly, don’t see or do things you should. You miss the pleasure of other’s company and chances to share memorable experiences.
This morning, on a wall in a local San Jose coffee shop, just under the cash register, is comic strip wallpaper. The wallpaper is a series of square boxes with pictures and words in each square. This comic strip features a hard boiled detective narrative and has gangsters shooting each other when words fail to change behavior. Each little square, on the wall, advances the story towards a dramatic end.
Scotttreks tells its quiet stories the same way as this comic strip, one post at a time, one square at a time, a hundred to three hundred words maximum,building a little encapsulation of each travel locale, it’s people. places, things and happenings.
When I look back at the places I go and things I do, they don’t always remember the same.
My memories, it is clear, don’t always change in the same direction as my mind wanders.
Costa Rica is far from a prosaic gangster story.
This country is much more a nature poem.
One of the draws of this San Jose, Costa Rica hotel is a serve yourself buffet breakfast.
It is not only a buffet breakfast with choices, but you get famous Costa Rican coffee, deep, dark, flavorful, in a big cup. The breakfast runs from seven to nine every morning. Guests pick up their meal pass at the front desk, present it at the dining room door, and bring their appetites.
There is just about anything here a picky breakfast eater could want. You have rice and beans, omelets cooked on a grill with your favorite ingredients, papaya, pineapple, bananas, bread and sweetbreads, ham and cheese slices you can turn into sandwiches, fried banana slices, juices, hot coffee or tea, and other chef specialties to fill gaps on your plate. You can go back multiple times.
The times I have stayed here, in past visits, the menu has been different each day,but always with an eye on basics. Travelers need a good breakfast. Growing hungry in the morning, halfway up a rain forest mountain trail, is not where you want to be.
This morning is gratifying because food in Uruguay was not one of its stronger points..
Knowing what you are going to get at the Hotel Aranjuez buffet, and getting it the way you like it, is worth getting up at six thirty in the morning.
Even though airline food is made for a small eater, in a miniature container with small utensils,it is appreciated.
The passenger seated next to me feels like talking, listening costs me nothing, and, at 30,000 feet up, since I’m not going anywhere except where this plane goes, I listen to my fellow traveler.
One pleasure of travel is meeting other people who are travelling too. Some people travel for business and have little choice about their trips. Other people travel because they like thrills and can pick their destinations. Some lucky people manage to combine both business and thrills.
Luis confides to me, as I peel back my lunch container’s cover, that he immigrated to the U.S. from Uruguay thirty years ago, and became an American. He self finances trips to Central and South America to take medical supplies to small towns and country folks who don’t have access to medical care. He runs medical training sessions for leaders, in little remote villages, so poor people learn to take care of their health crisis themselves.
When our plane reaches Lima, Luis transfers planes to make connections to San Salvador and New York.
On the runway, waiting for passengers to leave and others to board, I close my travel book on Uruguay and open the next Scotttreks chapter which will be Costa Rica.
Why, still stuck in this plane’s belly, waiting to lift into the air again, do I sometimes consider giving up a perfectly good life in my own country to be an outsider living in someone else’s country? Is there really a country better than the one I always return to?
After talking with Luis, another question, I ask myself, is why do some people feel such a heartwarming need to give back, while others just obsess on taking?
This coffee is cheap, but not the best.
You buy a dollar token at the hotel reception desk, drop the token in the coffee machine’s slot, slide your cup in position, choose your poison, push a button, and wait as a small drizzle of coffee fills your paper cup almost to the top. The machine knows when to cut off so coffee doesn’t go on the floor.
Things introduce themselves all the time. You go about your business, not thinking about much, or looking for anything, and then something comes your way like a present arranged by a benevolent cosmic force that knows you will be delighted. This bold colored sign by the coffee machine is such a present.
” Drink Coffee,” the sign exclaims, “you can sleep when you’re dead.”
While we are waiting for our expiration date, coffee makes the waiting tolerable.
This sign takes me back to the fifties when even the thought of traveling to Uruguay was no where in my mind. Uruguay was just a country on old stamps in my dad’s collection in a box in the garage.
When you sleep in your childhood crib, you don’t have a clue where fate and your feet will take you.
If i had known where I was going, when i was in school, I would have paid more attention.
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