A trip to Copala

Yesterday we took the van and drove up into the Sierra Madre mountains to visit Copala, a little silver mining town at around 2500 feet above sea level that is over 400 years old. It’s very small but picturesque with a lovely central square and an ancient church.

Although it’s 65 km from Mazatlan it’s on the itinerary for the tour bus crowd from the cruise ships. We arrived at around 11:00 just as the big bus was pulling in. We’re not too sure how the bus managed to negotiate the twists and turns to get there, but we assume that the bus drivers are more experienced than we are at driving those narrow shoulderless roads. At the turnoff to Copala the road became cobblestone and very narrow. We weren’t even sure it was a road as it wound up into the hills past an old cemetery and through a creek. But sure enough, it ended in the little village square and we parked beside a huge bus that was unloading a couple of dozen tourists.

The very moment we opened our car door we were besieged by kids selling what looked like brown husks, but they turned out to be very sweet little wood carvings of the village.
Jan bought one for three dollars and here’s a photo of it.

The town itself is very lovely and the church is beautiful.
We went for lunch at a place that was built in the 1950s by an American named Daniel, who saw the potential for this town to attract tourists. He built a huge restaurant with the help of teenagers in the town, who are still working there as waiters and cooks. The restaurant serves very good food and an amazing version of banana cream coconut pie. Delicious. Here’s Jan and me enjoying our lunch.

After a walk around we met a fellow named Myron, who has retired to Copala with his wife and helps to raise money for children to get school uniforms. He was a university professor and they live in a lovely house built along a wall that is over 300 years old. Harry and he chatted for over an hour while Jan and I looked at the leather masks created by an Italian artist. Then Myron showed us his gorgeous house with its authentic Mexican kitchen, its lovely patio with a fireplace and its view over the hills. Very beautiful. We saw that these two have a pleasant life in a beautiful town but wonder how they manage without more than a couple of other English speaking friends. Myron seemed in fact to be quite a lonely fellow. It took a while before we were able to take our leave. It’s fascinating to see how different people from Canada and the US are creating lives for themselves in Mexico.

Beach day and a nagging concern

Our beach day started this morning with a walk on the Las Gaviotas beach by Harry and Maggie and me. Maggie did her usual game of playing in the waves while we talked to the guy who sells the shrimp. He and his son get up at 4:00 in the morning to go out on their boat to catch them. They’re sitting in buckets of ice, sorted by size. We bought about two pounds of medium sized ones for about $9, then took them home to put in the fridge so we could cook them for dinner.

Then Jan and I walked down to find out about taking a little trip across the bay to Deer Island. This island has a beach that’s sheltered from the waves and people go over there to explore, snorkel and swim. We took a lunch, some water, our hats, books and towels and made our way along the beach until we found Fito’s place, where we could get a boat ride over and back for $10 each. A lovely young woman took us across in a jet boat. It was quite an experience riding through the surf clinging onto her and then crossing the blue sea. It didn’t take long, maybe ten minutes before we landed on the sand. Nobody was there but us, and a couple of dogs. There is a house of sorts there where the dogs appear to live but not a sign of a person. We spent four hours there altogether—swimming, reading, finding shells, swimming again, and tanning—until Fito came around 3:00 as planned to take us back. This time we got to ride on his hobie cat through some fairly windy weather. It was lots of fun. Even when the waves splash over you it’s just lovely warmish water. So after our day of sand and sea, we’ll be cooking up the shrimp in garlic and butter. All in all a lovely day.

There’s only one thing that marred our day. One of the little dogs at the beach is a puppy with short curly hair, and she was just covered in nasty sharp burrs that I couldn’t get out with just my hands. I keep thinking of her in pain from these sharp things poking into her skin. Perhaps I’ll have to make another trip over there with a pair of scissors to cut them out of her fur and put her out of her misery.

Cleaning up the Courtyard

My sister Jan and I used to garden together in Victoria, so what do you think was the first thing we did when we got into the overgrown courtyard in Mazatlan? Right you are. We started whacking back the dead branches and cleaning up the overgrown vines. Well—I actually asked her to bring her secateurs and gardening gloves, because I knew that we would have to do that work.

Yesterday morning the three of us cleaned up the outside of our little casita and made it just beautiful. Harry hauled out the dried up banana and palm branches, Jan pruned and I swept and cleaned. Then we strung up twinkle lights in the arbor and fashioned a little shade for the open bulb from a piece of cardboard. Now we’ve made the place ours. It looks just lovely and we eat all our meals out there. There's a funny kind of concrete table top built over an electrical box that has plants and bricks and pots and sculptures. We've created a little altar there....not that we're making sacrifices or anything, but it's very pretty. Here's a view of the courtyard from behind the "altar"....

This is in stark contrast to the garden in the rest of the gardens at Fiesta Apartments, which are so overgrown it’s like the deepest jungle. Also because of standing water it’s full of biting bugs. We wouldn’t ever have to go over there except for one thing—that’s where the wireless internet signal can be picked up. So a couple of times a day one or the other of us hoofs it over to what we now call Bugville to keep up to date on goings on at home.

It’s fun having Jan here as we can introduce her to Mazatlan. Besides walking the beach and swimming in the waves, we’ve gone down to the historic old town area for a nice lunch and a visit to a museum and gone shopping at the MEGA store. This is the Mazatlan equivalent of Save-On-Foods (with the addition of an extensive liquor section). Most Gringos do their shopping there as it’s huge and has just about everything including stuff that Mexicans don’t normally buy. They even have a fellow speaking English who goes around and asks Gringos if he can help them find something. We met a retired couple from Alberta waiting for whole wheat bread to come out of the bakery’s oven. There is even a section where you can buy imported cheeses like Gouda or Feta. It’s an excellent place for people like us to shop—and the prices are pretty good too.

The weather outside's delightful

We're sitting outside at Starbucks using their free wifi and listening to Frank Sinatra sing the old Christmas song that starts: the weather outside is frightful. I hear from my Victoria correspondents that snow is expected on Saturday. I hate to say it but that's not the case here. Every morning we wake up to blue skies and sun and we take Maggie for a long walk along the beach. We're settling in to a nice routine of housekeeping Mexican style (a lot of sweeping and wiping things down), walking explorations and siestas. The clouds do come through from time to time in the afternoon but they don't seem to bring rain, they simply cool things off for a pleasant evening. We want it to be nice because my sister Jan is flying in this afternoon for a week. We've got the courtyard all ready, just waiting for the mini-lights she's bringing (as we couldn't find any here). I'll post a photo once we've put them up.

Mexican Driving Tips

In Canada we have a few highway driving slogans like “buckle up” or “keep right except to pass” but in Mexico they take things to a whole new level. Driving the Mexican highways is almost like getting a driving lesson. Especially on the toll roads, there are signs every few miles that give you driving tips like "don't park on a curve," "no passing on the shoulder"or "don't obstruct the crosswalk."

Here are a few other examples:

Don't drive when sleepy

Moderate your speed, your family is waiting for you

And my favorite, don't leave rocks on the pavement.

I'm not sure why people would leave rocks on the pavement, although I seem to recall that it's a way to force drivers to slow down for one reason or another. I think that most of these signs are placed on the new toll roads because the speeds on these roads are higher and the driving style required is more sophisticated.

In recent years the Mexican government has built a big network of toll roads throughout Mexico. The tolls are quite costly for some of them--so much so that many residents cannot use the roads. So there continues to be a "libre" or free road between communities that is used by the regular folk. The toll roads are much faster and some of them even have shoulders--a new concept for some drivers. People tend to use the shoulder as another lane which leads to some interesting situations.

We spent over $20 on tolls just between Culiacan and Mazatlan. It's worth it though as the road is wonderful and you can make very good time. The only stops are for the toll booths. When you come up to a toll booth or "cuota" there are signs telling you far in advance so you can slow down. The important sign to watch for is this one:

Vibradores are rows of big metal domes in the road that force you to slow down to a crawl. Then as you line up waiting to go through the booth you're a sitting duck for all the little kids who want to clean your windshield or the people selling food or CDs or trinkets. Everyone is always very polite though and a shake of the head is usually all that's needed to deter the salespeople.

Harry was captivated with these little cuties. Still, he managed to keep his sales resistance.

Getting our Bearings in Mazatlan

Now that we’re settled in our apartment, we’re finding our way around the town. We went to a couple of the big stores to do some shopping. One is the Mega store, which has moving sidewalks going up to the second level and down. It’s a huge grocery store along the lines of Save-On-Foods, but with many Mexican specialties. We stocked up on basic foodstuff along with fresh pineapple and mango and papaya for ridiculously cheap. It’s interesting that yogurt is about half the price it is at home, while cottage cheese is twice the price. I think it’s that cottage cheese is a Gringo food and yogurt is a Mexican favorite. We try to eat local foods rather than pay a premium for imports, but cottage cheese is part of our daily breakfast and we don’t want to give it up.

Today we went to Walmart. Finding it was quite a task though since we haven’t yet found a map. We asked four different people for directions and each time ended up driving back and forth from one barrio to another. Finally we made it. It’s a lot less organized than the US stores. Things seem to be shoved together with a different logic than we’re used to. We were looking for a few things to give our courtyard a festive look--like sparkle mini lights, candles, lampshades—but it appears that few of these things are available (either at Walmart or Home Depot). Or maybe they’re already sold out. So we’re asking my sister Jan who is coming to visit on Friday to bring a few sparkly things.
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We also found that it’s no more expensive to get your laundry done at a lavandaria than it is to take it to a US style Laundromat. That’s ok with us. Who wants to spend their afternoon sitting looking at the dryers go around? Especially when there are flowers like this to look at.

Maggie is settled in now and feeling comfortable in her courtyard. She loves going for a long walk along the beach and running in and out of the water after sticks. There are few, if any, sticks on the beach though so we have to bring our own from the garden. I’m trying to teach her to body surf. We saw a little Jack Russell Terrier that loved to go run in and catch a wave on the way back. Maggie managed to do it once when I timed it right tossing the stick in. She looked very surprised to be propelled shoreward. The timing is pretty critical though.
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Tourists along the beach are often very interested in knowing how we managed to bring our dog along. Many of them have dogs at home and are thrilled to visit with her and find out about her journey.

Changing apartments

This is our second day in Mazatlan and it’s been a bit confusing. We arrived yesterday morning before noon as the drive from Culiacan was quick. The Fiesta Apartments, which we booked off of the internet, turns out to be a very FUNKY place. It seems to be the lifetime work of a fellow who loves cement and clay. There are 14 little apartments set in an overgrown tropical garden, chock full of stuff. Even the artwork on the walls is made of cement and tiles.














The apartment we rented is right in the middle of the overgrown area and felt very gloomy and claustrophobic. The space itself was ok but it was in the middle of a construction zone—as they are building a second storey on the building. Sunday when we arrived it was quiet but Monday morning the workers arrived right outside our bedroom and started sanding the walls and pounding on the ceiling.

To make a long story short, we managed to get moved to another apartment—this one is more like a little casita complete with its own courtyard, arbour with bougainvillea and even a big wrought iron gate that we can close. This works much better for Maggie because the resident dog Popey was extremely territorial and snarly. Now Maggie has her own yard and she feels a lot more relaxed. So today was spent repacking all our stuff and transferring it to our new place. Now we are settled though and things will be just fine.













We are three blocks from the beach, the water is warm, the skies are blue and the temperature is hovering in the high 70s to 80s. Maggie just loves playing at the beach and so do we. Tonight we twined our mini-lights through the arbour to make a darling little dining area. We think that we can be comfortable here for the next few weeks.