Mexican Travel Blog, part 2
Mazatlan, April 5-10 (minus April 8)
Luckily, the domestic flight to Mazatlan was rather uneventful, my luggage arrived quite quickly (much sooner than in the Mexico City airport) and I took a taxi to the address of where my apartment was supposed to be: Calle del Atún 1.
Well, there was a nice house at Calle del Atún 1, but it was already inhabited by an amiable Mexican gentleman who assured the taxi driver and me that, while this was indeed the correct address, it was not for rent. Only after the person from the accommodation company—José—arrived and called me did we find that the apartment complex was in the cross street—Avenido del Pulpo—and didn’t have an actual street number1. Anyway, I could check in and was then asked how I was going to pay the rest of the rent.
Also this guy didn’t accept credit cards, so I proposed PayPal, but also this was very difficult (read: impossible). I explained to him that I wasn’t going to carry some $1,000 in cash with me, for risk of either losing it, or being robbed, or pick-pocketed. Highly unprofessional.
Eventually, the next day I walked to a Banco Santander—the only local bank where I could use the ATM—and got the full amount in cash, then informed José who then drove by to get it. Keep in mind that this included a deposit of 2,000 pesos which José would pay back to me when I was checking out. So far, so good.
Yet on the day of check-out, José didn’t show up—supposedly because there was some emergency with his grandma—and I had to scramble to get a taxi to get me to the airport, while dropping of the keys to the apartment in a local dropbox. I’ve repeatedly texted José and his boss Christian to send me this deposit via PayPal, later via the Wise app, but to no avail. Another €110 gone to these rip-off artists, which wouldn’t be so bad if the apartment was fine.
Well, the apartment itself was fine: a double bedroom, large kitchen annex living room with large refrigerator and plenty of cooking equipment. The problem was the utilities. From the start there was no hot water. Since it was 30°C and higher in Mazatlan, I made do with the lukewarm water for showering. Then, right after the eclipse, the internet connection failed. And then, a day later, the water supply started to fail. I noticed just in time to get a bucket and a few pans full of water, so I could flush the toilet (I still had mild food poisoning).
Since the eclipse went well (oh well, spoiler…;-), I was but all too happy to leave the apartment and get back to Mexico City (where the utilities in the apartment worked without a glitch). Long story short: try to avoid going to places in Mexico when there is a huge event taking place. Accommodation prices will shoot through the roof and vague, shady accommodation suppliers will try to rip you off, not just by charging too much, but by refusing to accept credit cards, taking deposits that they then ‘forget’ to refund, and other shenanigans. At least that was my experience in Mazatlan. In Mexico City they were professional; that is, the accommodation supplier I dealt with there (ULIV).
Then Mazatlan itself. This is basically Mexico’s version of Torremolinos or Benidorm, but then eight times bigger. In Spain, Torremolinos near Malaga or Benidorm near Alicante are basically tourist resorts; that is, a long row of hotels, apartments and resorts scattered along a long beach, interspersed with restaurants, night clubs and beach party shacks. This is where many western Europeans go for a beach holiday. As far as I could see, Mazatlan is the same things in Mexico for Americans and Canadians. One long stretch of beach with many, many hotels and resorts, restaurants, night clubs and party shacks. However, where both Torremolinos and Benidorm have a population of about 60,000 people, there are some 500,000 in Mazatlan, and according to the local paper there were some 750,000 visitors for the eclipse.
Truth be told, I would have rather witnessed the eclipse more inland, but decided against that because of the problem Mexico has with drug gangs. If you’re held up by a drug gang somewhere inland in Mexico, they might not only rob you, but shoot you, as well. I wasn’t about to take that risk, so stayed in safe, party central Mazatlan.
Luckily, I found a small park just two blocks from my apartment. There was a church next to it, and it was visited mostly by locals (albeit that a considerable amount of these locals were, as far as I could discern, expat Americans enjoying their pension there2). I could relax and do a bit of writing there, and decided to watch the eclipse there, as well, mainly because the beach, with all its party-goers and loud Mexican [bands = see Guardian article] didn’t really appeal to me.
Keep in mind that I did stay quite a bit away from the old town of Mazatlan, and didn’t feel like going there—even after the eclipse—because of my mild food poisoning. In that case it is essential to have an accessible toilet nearby; that is, within a quick walking distance. So, quite possibly, the old town might be very nice. But outside of it, I found Mazatlan to be Torremolinos (or Benidorm) squared. Not a place I’d normally go to. Nevertheless, it was—apert from inland Mexico—the best spot to see the eclipse climatewise. Texas would have been an option, but I only got my B1/C1 visa renewal a month before the eclipse, meaning I had already booked and committed myself to Mazatlan. A good thing in retrospect as the weather in Texas was not good on the day of the eclipse.
Amusingly, though, I found out a month later—when I was in Sydney, Nova Scotia for the day job—that the weather at the east coast of Canada had been great, while this was the part with the worst climatalogical conditions. Once more proof that weather is not climate (even if I will always prefer a location with the best climatological conditions).
Author’s note: writing this post as I am in Cartagena, Spain, where I chanced upon a fantastic Mexican restaurant. More about Cartagena in a future Travel Blog post. Tanks for reading!
This seems to be quite normal in Mexico;
We have such ‘pensionados’—as we call them—in Europe, as well, in particular in Spain, where many northerh Europeans move to Spain because of the much milder winters (and relatively cheap housing);