palavrasinquieta: Sinaloa

Carnival Roman Soldier

My friend Dale spends most winters on his sailboat in the Sea of Cortez. He had shown me photos of Mazatlan after Carnival with the dozen or more paper mache statues lining the beach. On this weekend right after Carnival, they were still in place and they are impressive, huge, imposing, sometimes amusing, and after many years, in bad shape.

I spent Thursday night on the Baja Ferry. This one was not as luxurious as the one from Topolobampo. There was no lounge with Kareoke singer, the cafeteria was small and the 'seating' consisted of comfortable large chairs lined up like a movie theater with three big flat screens mounted on the front wall. They showed two American movies dubbed in Spanish. My seat was a single seat next to the wall, behind the back row. Even if I could have followed the rapid fire Spanish, I could hardly hear it for the roar of the engines. Behind our 'theater' there was the open deck. In the roofed section it was quite warm but smelled of diesel. Further out on the deck, the night air had a chill. After the second movie ended at 11:00, they turned the lights down and everyone went to sleep. Some stretched out on the floors, others laid across several open seats, and many lay down in the aisle which made getting past them on the swaying boat rather precarious.

I slept for a while with feet propped up on the chair in front, then tried lying on the floor behind the seats. I hadn't thought about bringing my towel for a pillow or blanket so used my lumpy purse and slept until too chilled to be comfortable. Quite a few people slept outside on the warm but stinky deck. Somehow the night came to an end.

There was a woman who came up to me and began speaking in heavily accented English. She looked a bit Mayan, very short, stocky, and with the cutest gnome-like smile. Her name was Mariluz. She was born in Chile but has lived in Australia for over forty years. She converted to Mormonism and married a widower with six children, plus she had two of her own. One of her sons is married to a Mexican and lives in Culiacan. She was headed that way to see her first grandchild.

Mariluz

We had a lot of fun talking on the boat, eating our two supplied meals, and then she stayed with me in my hotel since it had two beds, and there was no reason she should have to pay for a room of her own.

I love how this sort of thing develops with people in Mexico and probably other parts of the world. Backpackers hook up with each other, but it has been a rare occurrance in my lifetime. I suppose travel has made me regress to a younger outlook.

I had reserved two nights at the hotel online: Hotel Fiesta. It painted a lovely picture - across the street from the main bus station, someone at the desk 24/7 so supposedly it was more secure, inexpensive (cheap), and near the beach and restaurants. Sounded good. The cab driver however painted a rather different picture when he tried to convince us that it wasn't really suitable for two middle aged ladies. Bad area, crime, run down......Both pictures were accurate.

We went there anyway. It wasn't so bad, it wasn't so good either. The room was clean. The door locked only with a dead bolt. The inside part, where the dead bolt is held in place, had been broken, then repaired with a thin piece of wood that could easily be busted off if some guy were to throw himself against the door. I wasn't planning on making anybody that angry but still, I was not about to leave anything of real value in the room. Mariluz was a bit taken aback at the poor conditions, the sheets were thin, the toilet had no seat, there was no hot water....There were also no bugs and it was exceptionally clean. I had my towel but she had to ask at the desk for one.

View of the city

It was three blocks from the beach so that's the first place we went. We took turns sitting on the towel guarding the purses and played in the surf. A fine day with low breezes and few other beach-goers. Then we walked the full length of the beach, shopped at some of the little stands set up on the side of the road, ate lunch at a seafood place that was totally empty except for us, and then walked into the ritzier part of town. She had in mind to take a city tour and seemed to have gotten directions on where to sign up for it. It was a long and hot walk but we found the tour kiosk. The operator let me use his internet for about half an hour so I was able to check in with relatives and friends who hadn't heard from me in a week.

A Dairy Queen was right next door so we got a sundae and sat down to cool off. This part of town is rife with US stores and restaurants like McDonalds, Burger King, and Auto Zone. Across the street was a Senor Frog's outlet. It had water pouring down over all the windows making the brightly lit inside look like it was actually underwater. Nice marketing ploy. There were four other Senor Frog stores nearby, all selling clothing and accessories with the same frog design. Who knew such a thing could be so popular?

The Family sculpture, with a distant relative.

Mariluz wanted to go dancing but I was too exhausted and really did not feel comfortable being out very late at night walking back to the hotel in this strange potentially dangerous city. I think she was secretly glad I refused because she fell asleep by 9:00. We had taken a bus to return to our hotel, but neither of us were sure where it was. She could ask people and understand their instructions better than I, so it was just fine with her tagging along for a couple of days.

The next morning we went on the city tour and it was a good trip for the money. The bus took us up to the top of the town's mountain, into the old city where the cathedral and huge indoor market are located, and we stopped to watch cliff divers. It gave me a better mental image of the town and how far apart things are. That interior map came in handy on Sunday when I went walking all over town and needed to be back to catch a bus to Guadalajara by 6:00.

Mass in the market

Mariluz left for Culiacan Saturday night. I found I missed her company. It's nice to have a travel companion, especially one as easy to be with as she. If I ever visit Australia, I had to promise to come visit her and stay as long as I want. I was flattered.

On Sunday the man at the desk agreed to "guard" my bags while I went off to explore the city. As everywhere else in Mexico, buses run all the time. One went directly to the cathedral in the old part of town, where of course Mass was being given. On the city tour we'd gone into the cathedral, It was tranquil, beautiful with 14 Star of David stained glass windows, 7 on each long wall, and chandeliers to light the interior. But on Sunday morning it was packed with people standing, sitting in pews and folding chairs. A loudspeaker blasted and echo'd the words of the priest. I couldn't understand anything but the occasional reference to Jesus.

Cliff divers

Next door to the Cathedral is the indoor market, a huge roof over open air stalls. Huge sides of beef were being unloaded from a truck. Strong young men carried half of a cow on their backs into the butcher shops in the very center of the market. Because the air flowed through so easily, the meat section didn't have the rotted odor of so many other Mexican markets.

Inside is every kind of stall imaginable: clothing (much of it with Mazatlan printed on it somewhere), furniture, pottery, weavings, fresh bread, fruits and vegetables, fish (some stalls specialized and sold only Marlin for instance), sweets, chocolates, etc. Many trinket sellers followed me around with plastic figurines of turtles, mermaids, frogs, or fish with Mazatlan printed on the base, plus a bunch of other useless crap. I could see buying a hand-painted ceramic fish made by a local person, but plastic junk probably made in China? Makes you wonder who buys that stuff.

Wandering on through town, eventually I arrived at the twelve kilometer long Malecon. It was mid afternoon so I stopped at a restaurant with a sign for their special Sunday meal: Paella. A half order sufficed and was loaded with shrimp, clams, chicken and a little sausage. The couple at the next table mentioned that their paella didn't have any shrimp so the waiter promptly brought them a whole plate of shrimp with two different salsas. I chatted with them a bit. They own a condo and have been coming to Mazatlan for about fifteen years. The man pointed at a huge structure down the street and said it was a mansion that has been sitting, unfinished, and empty for the last ten years. The owner is a notorious drug dealer now serving time in prison.

A Siren

This is how safe Mexico is..... The closest I come to a drug boss of the heinous Sinaloa Cartel is walking past his unfinished mansion.

Pleasant breezes came off the ocean so it never was very hot. Food vendors lined the Malecon and guys selling balloons, floaty toys, and kites wander up and down the beach. Around 6:00 I picked up my luggage and caught the bus. Another night of trying to sleep in a moving vehicle ended at 3:00am with the lights on suddenly. We'd arrived in Guadalajara.

The first fermenter for Pacifico Beer.

The empty mansion

El Fuerte's native son, Zorro.

Our hotel in El Fuerte was lovely. In the courtyard was a statue of Zorro, with his famous whip. El Fuerte was the birthplace of Don Diego de la Vega back in the early 1800s. His parents moved when he was still a child to the Los Angeles region of California where he eventually became the "Robin Hood" of Mexico with the name of Zorro (which means the Fox). That was the story printed out around town, explained on the metal plaque by the statue, and even his birthplace had a sign saying as much. But in truth, the whole story was just that, a novel created in 1919 by Johnston McCulley and made famous by Douglas Fairbanks in the first movie shot at his own studio. A wonderful fabrication for the tourists, and I'm sure it has put El Fuerte on the map.

It belongs on the map if for no other reason than it is one of the more beautiful towns in Mexico. I don't know how the townspeople have done it, but there is virtually no graffiti anywhere. The Municipal building, which houses every aspect of local and regional government is huge, restored to it's original splendor and seems too lovely to be a mere government building. The interior of the stair wells and other interior walls are covered with murals by a 'primitive' painter, a self-taught local. Yet, they are expressive and detailed, with scenes from Sinaloa's history and many historical characters.

The Municipal building.

El Fuerte means Fort, and like Zorro, there is a fort up on the hill, looking for all the world like a classic Spanish fort - right out of Disneyland. It was built on the spot where it's thought the original fort might have been. And inside, it is both a museum and the enormous tank for the city's water supply. The museum is full of real historical objects, guns, vehicles, photographs, and artwork. Very much worth a visit.

Some on our tour opted for the early morning boat trip down the river to see birds and other wildlife living in the natural zone on the other side of the river from town. They saw dozens of species of birds, turtles, iguanas and other indiginous species. Some went on the city tour which included the home of Zorro's birth. Several of us went on the afternoon tour of a small Mayo village. The Mayos were the people living in Sinaloa and the western edge of Chihuahua when the Spanairds arrived several centuries ago. They too were devastated by the diseases trailing after the Spaniards like rapid dogs. But they have maintained a semblance of their former lives, still celebrating many of the ancient rituals and customs, and scratching out a living from the arid soils.

Too pretty yard at the Fort.

We visited a curandero, a man who is the local herbalist/healer. He showed us various objects and plants that treat different diseases, including snake skin to ward off bad dreams. He had powdered oregano, dried mushrooms, various leaves and stems with which to make teas, and powdered rocks. He also made his living raising butterflies for their cocoons. After the butterfly is gone, he collects and dries the cocoons, then fills each with tiny pebbles and sews them together on long strips of cloth to be wrapped around a dancer's legs as rattles. I hadn't thought the noise would be very loud but with fifty or so cocoons, it made a substantial noise. Around his house were many vines and bushes with butterfly cocoons attached. They'll emerge in April and he'll have a whole new crop.

We then went to another home where the women were making tortillas and gorditas over a comal. The comal was white and very slick. Our guide showed us how they get it that way. He took a piece of dry bone from a cow and rubbed it on the surface of the hot griddle. You could smell the bone 'melting' onto the surface. After it 'fires' on, the surface is slick as teflon. We got to look around the house. It consisted of several small buildings with a single door and roof. One had a concrete front porch but the others were dirt all round. Connecting the buildings were long ramadas, branches put up over poles stretched between upright poles to provide shade. It was quite nice temperature-wise, but it was still winter. I can't imagine how much relief there will be when the temperature soars in the summer. They had an outhouse off to the side of the walled yard that consisted of some draperies over poles to provide privacy.

Our hostess, cooking tortillas over a hot fire.

After we had eaten some tortillas with chile and salsa we were given a short lecture by the home's owner about how the Mayos live now, what their economy is like, how much the government has helped them to survive the drought, and about some of their overnight rituals. Then a man came to dance for us. Another fellow played the guitar and a harmonica for the first dance depicting a coyote prowling around. Later he danced as a deer. Each dance told a rather elaborate story and during the overnight festival, the ceremonies end with the deer dance. It was quite moving, and the man did an excellent job of mimicking the movements of a deer while it grazed, drank water, and in its death throes after it was shot by a hunter. Three men accompanied the deer with rhythmic beating on a stick laid over an upside down gourd which produced an amazingly loud drum beat.

Back in town, Felicia and I went in search of a paleta or ice cream cone. At the Michoacan ice cream store we found paletas (like a giant popcicle) made from the pulp of the little oranges called narajitos, plus a generous addition of chile powder. They were fantastic and a welcome cooling off for what was becoming a pretty hot afternoon. Wandering around we found the produce market, various stores, a bar with a sign that said nobody in a uniform may come inside, and a Chinese restaurant called Chinaloa!

The river with city on one side, and
natural preserve on the other.

We had stored our bags with the hotel, and were waiting around till almost dark to take a bus to Los Mochis where we were destined to catch the ferry for an overnight ride to La Paz. Evan and I went for a photo expedition along the river. There was an interesting structure that appeared to be an outdoor room on the roof of a house, covered with netting for drying meat. I knocked on the door of the house. A bunch of dogs and a couple of cats dashed out when the woman opened the door. She sold me a large bag of the shredded jerky which I think is the best I've ever eaten. What I don't understand is why all those animals wanted OUT of that house!

The river walk is a nice concrete roadway that probably will be expanded in the future because it only went about half a mile. Along the way were homes with orchards of those naranjito trees, sprays of bougainvilleas, blooming fruit trees, and plenty of farm animals inside large pens. The town seems prosperous and well cared for. There was little trash, few run down homes, even the vehicles looked fairly new. For a state as infamous for drug cartels as Sinaloa, it appeared this little town had never heard of them, certainly nobody was quivering in fear.