The Adventures of Andrew Maurer

Woke up early as the tour was scheduled to pick us up at 9:25am. Breakfasted at the same place as yesterday – huevos diverciados for me (“divorced eggs” – there was a red salsa one on one side of the plate and a green salsa one on the other side, with a layer of beans through the middle) and huevos con chorizo for Katie. Both plates were good.

We were ready in the lobby at 9:25am. By 9:30am the truck still hadn’t come and we talked about how long we should wait until calling it quits. Just as we were talking, the truck came – around 9:35am. We were so excited! It carried about 10 ppl max – full with other Mexican non-English speakers. It took us to a jetti where a boat was waiting to load us.

We boarded the boat along with many other truckloads worth of people. It was probably around 100 people or so total. A bartender came around with non-alcoholic beverages. It turns out, out of the 100 people on the boat, Katie and I were the only non-Spanish speakers. Luckily the tourguide did a complete translation of all his commentary over the hour and a half tour.

After the tour of the bay in Mazatlan, the boat dropped us off at Stone Island – home to thousands of palm trees – harvested for coconuts. Once on land a tractor pulled us to a big palapa-style restaurant (thatch roofed with no walls). We were given the choice of banana-boating, boogie boarding, horseback riding or kayaking. We ate lunch first – chicken with rice and vegetables for me and quesedillas with rice and vegetables for Katie. It was plenty of food. Along with an open bar, our time was fabulous. We started off drinking a “sex on la playa” (sex on the beach) and followed with many beers and a mai tai.

We chose to go kayaking around the bay and by the end Katie wasn’t so worried about deep watered oceans. While kayaking back towards shore I spotted a buoy floating in the water. As we got closer Katie realized that it wasn’t a buoy at all – it was a massive dead pufferfish floating by. It was pretty cool to see. Coming back into the beach we were picked up with a wave and we hit it perfectly – surfing it all the way into the beach. That’s the first time I’ve caught a wave kayaking before.

The boat brought us back to the mainland after I requested one more cerveza “por la calle” (for the road). The 10-person little red truck drove us right back to our hotel and we siesta’d for a while.

We suppered at the same place we’ve been having breakfast – 2 stores down from the hotel – 4x 3 tacos for 20 pesos a plate (80 pesos total = $6.40 US) which was plenty of food. We preferred the machaca and the birria tacos to the chicharon.

We had to make it back to the hotel lobby by 6pm. We managed to have a hair braider from Stone Island come back to the mainland of Mazitlan to braid Katie’s hair with trenzas. They came right up to the hotel lobby and everything. It turns out that the hair-braider was the wife of the friend of our tour guide, so while Katie was having her hair braided our tour guide and his friend and I went for drinks at a beer hall a couple doors down. 3L of Pacifico beer and an hour passed and Katie’s hair was done.

Now back at the hotel planning our next few days. Thinking about heading up to Dorango but maybe not because of the sketchy roads.