This morning I was up at 0622, the first time, then again at 0845, to stay. Early, for me. Diane, of course, was up already, at my second arising, but not long enough to have made coffee. So, I had to wait. While doing that, we had a nutritious breakfast of imported cereal. And toast.

Then we went to the concierge and got shuttle tickets for a trip into town to look around a bit, spend all our money at the main shopping plaza, and meet new friends. The shuttle stops at the Pueblo Bonito Mazatlan hotel and it’s a fair hop from there to town, so we engaged a pulminaria (sp) taxi, piloted by Sergio, for $8 to get us there. It was a cheap ride, but not as cheap as the bus. We had a guided tour, though, so it was worth it. Sergio was very engaging, and full of knowledge, being a native Mazatlanian.

Walking the streets near the local resorts makes people like us targets for the hawkers, trying to get people to go view ‘their’ resort for their 90 minutes presentation. In addition, they will give you $300 which, I have no doubt, would be in the form of a discount should you agree to buy from them. These people drive by in cars and jump out when they see a target, and begin a serious hard sell that’s hard to get away from. Persistent “No Thank You’s” fall on deaf ears. One of the more congenial ‘vendors’, who had a table set up on the sidewalk, said when we walk out of a resort like that, it’s as if we have “… dollars signs hanging all over us.”

A pulminaria, a word Sergio taught us, but I’m not sure how to spell, is a VW chassis covered with a fiberglas body that’s open all the way around. Very breezy, which was perfect. He took us the entire 4-5 miles around the crescent shaped bay on which Mazatlan resides. If one is ambitious, one could walk the entire distance on the very broad cement walkway that keeps the beach next to the ocean. Very picturesque. There are a multitude of bronze statues along the way, but my favorite is a full size bronze rendition of the taxi in which we were riding, a pulminaria. I’m sure it was just painted bronze, but the effect was nice, and unexpected. Fun art.

We contracted with Sergio for a ride back to the shuttle stop at 1330 which gave us about 1.5 hours to shop around. The market place is a very busy place not only for tourists, but also for locals. You can get pretty much anything you want there. Mainly, for the tourists, it’s all about trinkets, and clothes. Diane bought a couple of dresses, and I bought her a beaded bracelet that caught my eye. We also bought a coupl bottles of water to lake our thirst. While in the market, we encountered Lourdes and Jim, the couple we originally thought were from Forrest Hills, but are, in fact, from Roseville. Not that far away, but close. So, sadly, my the entry in which I related this information was a lie, and I apologize. That does not mean I won’t lie again, today or in the future, but it means I’m sorry for that one error.

We spent the last 15 minutes of our downtown time in the Mazatland cathedral, a very nice way to end out trip to this very friendly city. Sergio showed up exactly on time, and took us back to the ‘other’ Pueblo Bonito where we had a terrific, over-priced lunch. I was very enjoyable, in an over-priced manner. Did I mention it was a bit over-priced? But, it was really delicious and a nice break from the imported food we’ve been eating.

Now we’re back in our room for a cool-down period prior to heading out to the pool area to rehydrate.

Beyond that, our day is pretty much done, and it’s only 1700. Go figure.

Here’s a shot of our small living room/kitchen area with Diane resting & reading. There’s a huge, very heavy coffee table that goes in front of the couch but the chairs are more comfortable for propping up one’s feet.

This was taken from in front of the couch looking the other direction. Very spacious.

These are some of the pet birds that live in their very own area of the resort. There are big pink ones, and much smaller white ones. I’m guess the white ones are very young and just haven’t had the chance to eat enough shrimp to turn pink, yet.