After three delightfully relaxing days availing myself of Jim & Bettina's hospitality, catching up with family news, being taken out for breakfast, lunch and dinner, drinking more fruit & veg juice than I had previously done in my entire life and generally being spoilt, it was time to move on. It was clear from my woeful 'planning' (yeah yeah, Iwan, cork it sonny!) that a complete lap of Mexico was a little bit unrealistic. Instead of biting off more than I could chew, I decided the Pacific coast and Baja California Sur were destinations 'A' & 'B', mainly as I was looking for some high quality and intense loafing along with a chance to go diving and this plan seemed to fit the bill. After all, this section of the trip had been earmarked for 'wind down', right? (Errr...which bit of this trip is earmarked for intense activity and hard graft?)
So off I set by bus again heading for Mazatlan (not to be confused with Matalan, a whole different kettle of fish altogether). It's a Mexican (as opposed to being overrun by Americans) resort town on the middle of the western coast. It's also where I could get a ferry over the Sea of Cortez to the Baja peninsula. The descent from the central highlands north west towards the coast was impressive and you could see the vegetation and landscape change from upland temperate to coastal tropical, Mazatlan being on the Tropic of Cancer. I'm sure, had it not been for the teeth chattering air con, I could have felt the skip in the thermometer too. [Memo to self: take sweatshirt on air conditioned buses in future for fear of hypothermia.]
I had a day to kill in Mazatlan waiting for the next ferry so wandered around the town with a view to setting my eyes on the Pacific Ocean for the very first time. I was excited. Following my guide book map of the town I headed west through the colonial quarter. At the end of the street (Flores) was the wide Pacific Ocean in all its glory. There it was, this amazing cobalt blue strip in the distance, a quite uncommon colour, especially given the leaden sky. I was amazed. And above the fantasic coloured sea there's a dirty grey streak, perhaps that's the Baja peninsula in the very distance. But the Baja's 18hrs away by ferry, surely that can't be right? And sure enough it wasn't. The eye catching blue strip was the concrete promenade and the dirty grey smear was the Pacific Ocean. I sat down to take in the majesty of it all anyway and a giant cockroach dropped from nowhere onto my leg and got me all dancing about and slappig my thigh like some crazed latino Bavarian. Ah well.
No comments:
Post a Comment