Sun, Apr 7 - Driving to Mazatlán

 

 

We got up at six and were ready to leave when Steve, brother of the owner, Diane Carpenter, brought out a full breakfast for us!!   He had said he would have coffee, but he also had homemade savory tamales, fruit salad with yogurt and donuts!    We bade a sad farewell to Álamos as who knows if we’ll ever see it again at our ancient ages?

 

We left at 7:30 and set off towards Route 15, the north-south highway, passing once again through beautiful dry deciduous forest with views of the Sierra de Alamos, tiny ranches, and huge cacti.

We turned south on 15 in heavy truck traffic, past corn fields, large cloth covered “green houses”, tomatoes and several unidentifiable veggies.  Mexico is our #1 trading partner and a lot of it must travel up and down this four lane highway!     Hil drove the whole way!   She tried to stop for ice cream, but could only find dubious-looking heated up snacks, so we subsisted on the cookies and nuts we had fortunately brought along.

 

We could finally see the ocean and Hil’s phone guided us into Mazatlán and to the Playa Mazatlán Hotel.   There were masses of people arriving and checking in. 

 We had long since paid for our rooms, were quickly processed, and had red plastic bracelets clamped on our wrists.   I think this lets us into the breakfast buffet.   We went to room 354 which is right on  the beach, overlooking straw palapas, oompah band complete with tubas serenaded the beach goers.   Our room is rather bleak with no wall decorations, or curtains for the balcony, no hooks in the bathroom, and a dangerous camouflaged step in the middle of the room, but at least we have a room and it is right on the beach!  (We figured out that the hotel was refurbishing rooms and ran out of time before the eclipse!)  If the  sky is clear, we can see the eclipse right from our room!

 

This was the last uncertain step in this journey!   I hadn’t even brought any one of my many eclipse T-shirt as so many parts of this trip were unlikely to happen, starting with the online Mexican travel permit which said we needed six months (untrue) on our passports and we only have five.   Trying to get the car into the country, finding our Álamos hotel, and finally getting to and checking into the Playa Mazatlán and having them find our reservation!  Several people we know, and others we have met, had had their reservations abruptly cancelled!

 

We joined Hilary and her friend, Janet, with whom she had taken a river cruise last fall, at a table near the beach.  We thought we’d get a  drink and perhaps a snack, but that turned out to be complicated.  Our friends, Robert and Margaret and their friend Debbie,  joined us from their rented apartment.  The hotel refused to serve them as they are not staying here.   I had to go find a bar and order their drinks which Robert was allowed to pay for in order for us all to enjoy a drink!   I never heard of a hotel that refuses your money…I guess they are so crowded that they need any more customers!

 

At seven,  Hilary, Janet, Bob and I went to the hotel’s Brazilian restaurant which was mediocre but somewhat entertaining.   Tomorrow is Eclipse Day!!