One man and his flag

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Check out at this hotel is at 10am - rather early but our bus is at 11am so not too inconvenient. Today’s bus is starting at our pick up point so we assume it won’t be late - I hope that’s not famous last words! I had a reasonable nights sleep but Ian reports that his bed was lumpy. :-(

We are down in reception at 9.45am ready to check out. Given the place that we are, we have planned to walk to the bus station with the vague hope of flagging down a taxi on the way. We know there is no hope of flagging one down outside our hotel. The bus station is only four blocks away (10 minutes walk according to google) but the wheel on Ian’s bag is in a delicate state and we also need to cross a busy dual carriageway! Fortunately, the hotel owner has put in an appearance this morning. She speaks a little English and is able to call a taxi on our behalf. This hotels review rating has now gone up a notch. :-)

Our taxi has arrived and a ten minute drive, including a u-turn across the dual carriageway, gets us to the bus station. He appears to be asking for 40 pesos showing me four fingers, but that’s way over the top - I give him a 20 peso note and he appears to be satisfied. It may be that it was only 4 pesos but that is ridiculously cheap...or that he was trying it on and his plan was foiled. Either way, both parties are content. :-)

There does not appear to be an executive lounge here so we are stuck with hard plastic seats today but it’s a reasonable waiting area (apart from the annoying piped music). I show our tickets at the bus counter and, with the aid of our translator, the lady obligingly writes our bus number and range of stands on our ticket. They will begin boarding in 50 minutes.

Our destination today is Mazatlan, which is in the mountain time zone of Mexico so we will be putting our clocks back one hour. This means that the three hour journey I had been anticipating will actually be four. Not that the journeys have been at all arduous so far! We are with the Chichuahuenses bus company today, and I ‘think’ we are in the executive service. I guess we’ll know if we get a lunch pack!

Our bus leaves pretty much on time and we have boarded with our lunch pack. Today we get a club sandwich and a drink. Durango has been named as one of Mexico‘s most isolated cities because of the journey one must make either through the desert or the mountains to reach it. It’s a bit of a Wild West backwater and the birthplace of the country’s famous outlaw, Pancho Villa. We can’t say we are hugely impressed and we aren’t sad to be leaving. We are also now congratulating the chepe (copper canyon train line) for changing its timetable - we had to cut one day out of our Durango stopover in order to be able to make the train connection after they completely changed their schedules a few weeks ago!

Our bus journey starts off with more of the same from yesterday ie, desert, cacti and mountain backdrop. It is interesting that they have a toll road and a free road running right next to each other at one point with no traffic on the free road. Not that there is a lot on the toll road either. It becomes apparent why this is favoured route as we climb through the mountains. We have probably saved hours by using this route! The toll road is actually not quite complete so there are various roadworks along the way. In parts we have to wait whilst oncoming traffic is diverted onto our carriageway and vice versa. This involves a man, a flag and a plastic bollard. If the plastic bollard is in place, stop. If there is no bollard and the man is flapping his flag furiously, go. Just imagine if they adopted this type of traffic control on the M25!

Our route takes us through some stunning scenery - our photos cannot do it justice. The road is also a colossal feat of engineering with multiple tunnels and cuttings blasted through the mountains. This road also takes us from the central Mexico time zone into mountain zone...so we lose an hour. The four hour trip (which has now become three) passes very quickly and we are now in the thick of the Mazatlan traffic.

We have arrived at the bus station and retrieved our luggage. The heat hits us the moment we walk out of the aircon building - it’s like a sauna! The wheel on my bag has now disintegrated too! I think we might have to purchase some new luggage before very long! The taxis and golf cart (ie tourist taxi) drivers descend on us like vultures but we are not about to pay their inflated prices as we already have the Uber fare in front of us.

Our Uber turns up and we are duly deposited at our accommodation which is in an eco hostel very close to the beach. Our host speaks fluent English and gives us a map of the town explaining all the places we can visit and warning us not to use the taxis! Uber is much safer, he advises. Our room is very comfortable and even includes a mini kitchen with cooker, fridge, microwave and basic utensils. We also have three coloured recycling buckets. The beach is just at the bottom of the road, we can borrow a cool box, umbrella and beach towels if we want, and there are also two bicycles if we fancy a pedal along the boardwalk! What a shame we only have two days here!

We settle into our room and unpack. Thankfully it has a good air con! Now we are off to the supermarket in search of some simple-to-cook but healthy food. As we have a kitchen here we have decided to self cater for a couple of days and try to get back to a bit of healthy eating. Just the walk to the supermarket two blocks away nearly kills us. If this is Mexican heat in the north, we will never survive in the south! We decide on a Mexican favourite: ‘patatas al horno con atun, maiz dulce y mayones’, for our meal.

It’s 5pm and we would like to visit the old town but it’s still too hot. We decide to cook dinner now and then go down to the boardwalk later. Hopefully it will be cool down sometime soon. We definitely plan to be up early tomorrow!

It’s nearly 7pm. We’ve had the air con off for half an hour trying to acclimatise in order to go out. If we don’t go soon it will be dark! The humidity hits us the moment we open the door, but let’s go...best foot forward. We are heading for the boardwalk and our first view of the Pacific.

I am slightly disappointed that the boardwalk turns out to be a slabbed pavement above the beach - I was expecting something wooden, laid on the sand. Still it is a nice pedestrian path, away from the traffic and we have arrived just in time to see the sunset.

We take a walk almost into town. There is a pleasant onshore breeze which helps. The tide is almost in and the waves are crashing on the sand. There are still a few people swimming in the sea. I wouldn’t mind joining them! There is a relaxed ambience and everyone seems to be having fun. We turn around once we reach the outskirts of the old town. It’s now almost dark and the lights all along the curved bay are twinkling like a jewelled necklace. Funny how it somehow always seems longer coming back.

We have reached our apartment and make a mad dash first for the air con, then the shower!

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