Mazatlan Day 2

On our second day of beach side chilling we woke up lesiurely and had breakfast on the way to walk up to the lighthouse. The sign at the top of the very large hill we hiked up claimed that the Mazatlan lighthouse is the tallest natural lighthouse in the world. Our guide book says it is the second highest, until we hike up the tallest, we will go with the sign at the top for offical blog purposes. The walk out to the lighthouse was lovely, all along the malecon, or beach path, and then, up a hill that used to be an island but is now attached to the main land with a man made peninsula. The only unpleasant part was just before beginning the accent, you have to pass by the water treatment plant and it is pretty stinky. When we arrived at the top there was a giant iguana waiting at the gate to greet us. The wildlife fun continued as Michael tried to take pictures of the buzzard like birds soaring overhead searching for unsuspecting iguanas, or tourists who couldn´t make it all the way up the hill. After soaking in the view of the whole Mazatlan area we headed back down which was a much easier proposition. On the way down the steps we had yet another exciting wildlife encounter. We heard a slight rustle in the bushes and suddenly a snake lept out into the path in front of us. It was at least 17 feet long and we are pretty sure it was an Anaconda. Michael was only startled for a mere second before valiently whipping out the machete he has taken to carrying with us on our journeys, and lopping the snake into two. He saved my life for sure, and probably the lives of 50 or more children, Anacondas are known to eat two or more a night for months on end. When we recovered from our reptile encounter, we headed back down the hill for our hotel where we rested a bit before lunch. We ate lunch in a yummy juice bar type restaurant that served salads! Salads, as with many other vegtables are hard to come by here in Mexico in any quantity. It is one of the things I am most looking forward to on my return, is eatting healthy vegtables again. After lunch we swam first in the ocean then in the pool. The evening was fun too. There was a Taiko show nearby and Michael chatted with a friendly couple from the bay area and watched the group warm up while I went for a run. After a dissapointing sushi dinner we went back for the first half hour of the taiko show which was lots of fun and drew a huge crowd. It seemed to be part of the same arts and culture festival that the "humor" exhibition was part of that we saw the night before.

This morning we woke up and had breakfast at the juice bar again. I ate whole wheat waffel with fruit and cottage cheese on it, mmmm. Then we headed for the bus station and took a bus to Los Mochis. We arrived here about a half hour or so ago. The first city we have arrived in without reservations, and of course it was fine and we got a good discount at a hotel recommeded in the lonely planet. The bus ride was on a cushy line with foot rest seats and we watched "The Queen" and a Middle Eastern film called "The Turtles Can Fly," despite following what the characters were saying, we were a little lost by the plot, it took place during the first part of the current Iraq war, and we think a lot may have been lost in the dubbing.

Tomorrow morning the taxi driver who took us from the bus station will return to our hotel at 4:30 to drive us to the train station, which leaves at 6am. We will probably sleep a bit more for the first few hours which aren't supposed to be very spectacular, before waking up to soak in the scenery on our way to to Creel.