Cruise Part 2: Mazatlan

As previously mentioned, Mazatlan was my favorite stop on the cruise. Mazatlan was actually a city before it was a tourist destination, so it has a lot more history than Cabo and Puerto Vallarta do. We ended up taking a van tour through the city. Our driver/tour guide knew just about everything and everyone. He was hilarious.

The first stop on the tour was a lookout point in Old Mazatlan, where we could view the Princess Islands and the second largest natural lighthouse in the world:

Our second stop was the city's cathedral, the Church of the Immaculate Conception, which was beautiful. I took several pictures of it, a few of which are below:

Also in the neighborhood was one of the city's main markets, which was pretty much identical to other markets I've been to in other Mexican cities. In a Mexican market they sell everything from shoes to shot glasses to poultry and beef. You need a pig's head? How about a cow heart? Needless to say, it smelled pretty gross, and I found myself wondering how Mexicans don't all die of food poisoning. I guess that much contamination breeds really strong immune systems or something...

Anyway. Next stop on the tour was the Zona Dorrado (Golden Zone) in the new part of the city. It is called the Golden Zone because there is jewelry store after jewelry store after jewelry store. And I'm not talking street vendors with silver bracelets for a buck. These are high end jewelry stores. New Mazatlan is the tourist destination, so it is stock full of resorts and big hotels on the beach, such as this giant one:The hotels in the Golden Zone are actually pretty affordable. The ones that are directly on the beach range from like $50 to $200 (USD, not pesos, though that'd be pretty cool!) per night, but there are some that are only a block away from the beach at are $15 to $30 per night. Vinnie has already started looking at prices for flights to Mazatlan, because he really wants to go back. He would not stop saying how much it looks like his home town in Albania.

For funzies, the waves:

We ate at a restaurant on the beach. Mazatlan's main industry after tourism is shrimping, so Vinnie was determined to have fresh shrimp. I like shrimp, don't get me wrong, and I found that fresh shrimp is MUCH better than the frozen stuff we get at home, but to be completely honest I was more excited about the fresh salsa they served us:Now that is real, authentic, mexican salsa!

That's pretty much it for Mazatlan. That night we got back to the stateroom to find this: I'm not sure what it's supposed to be (an ant eater, maybe?) but it was funny. I'd heard that they fold your towels into funny things on cruise ships, but this little guy only appeared in our room once. Good times!

The next installment will be Puerto Vallarta, which, sadly, we didn't get to see too much of. I think my attitude toward the place may have been soured by the fact that the first thing I was able to see was a Wal-Mart...