April 11, 2019 - Mazatlán, Mexico

Day 13 – Panama Canal Cruise

Our sunrise was beautiful in Mazatlán when we arrived this morning.

Mazatlán is known as the Pearl of the Pacific, not because of the gemstone, but because of the friendliness of its people and the beauty of its beaches. Mazatlán means place of the deer in Nahuatl, the language of indigenous people who pre-date the town's founding in 1531. The city itself was not actually incorporated until 1806 when German immigrants settled here. Today, Mazatlán has the largest shrimping fleet in Mexico.

We didn’t schedule any tours, but had decided to go to the historic center of town. We met one of the Mazatlán Tourist Aides, which was great!

The Mazatlán Tourist Aides are a group of American and Canadian volunteers who have organized themselves in Mazatlán, Mexico to provide a warm welcome for visitors. Armed with free information, maps and their own working knowledge of the port town, the blue-shirted Mazatlán Tourist Aide volunteers dispense smiles along with down-to-earth info about their adopted city. The group’s primary goal is to help cruise ship tourists with limited time experience the city and find the things they’re interested in.

Armed with one of their maps, we contracted with one of the “pulmonia” taxis to take us to the historic center of town. Unique to Mazatlán, pulmonias are gas-powered, open-air taxis that look like souped up golf carts! From the cruise port to the cathedral it was only $5.00 for the four of us.  Our driver was friendly and gave us a quick description of the area as we went along.

We saw them all over the city.

Construction of the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception located on Republic Square began in 1875 and was completed in 1899. It was the port’s second Catholic church.

After checking out the church, we followed our tourist map to the market before heading to the Malecón. We checked out the Hotel Posada Freeman Zona Dorada. We took their elevator to the 9th floor and walked up a couple more flights of stairs to their rooftop pool and an amazing view over the city!

We enjoyed seeing the architecture in the old part of the city.

 

We then headed back to the market to catch the bus to the end of the beach – ten miles and about a 45 minute ride! It was 11 pesos per person (about 60cents). The beach was beautiful and we saw a couple surfers trying to catch some of the waves.

Our lunch stop overlooked the ocean and included ceviche and shrimp quesadillas . YUMMY!! The restaurant brought out three flavors of tequila for us to taste – almond, coffee, and regular. We tasted them, but ugh, didn’t care for them!

After lunch we took the bus back to the port and were back onboard by 4pm.

Tonight after dinner we had reservations for the “Uptown” show in the theater. The Motown singers had the moves and voices! It was a great show and a great end to a fun day.