20240409 Monday, April 9, 2024 Just another day in Mazatlán

Ben got his videos from the eclipse uploaded overnight. Although the hotel has wifi, it is atrocious, barely managing 2-3MBPS in the lobby, while connecting in the room is entirely hit or miss, with good 'ole dial up speeds from the early 1990's.  Many of the people we met here have been asking for images and videos because none of theirs turned out, so getting them up on YouTube was the best way to make what we got accessible.  

High tide was in the morning so we spent the morning down by the pool and in the surf.  Ben and Mark discovered fishing the beach at the Royal Villas Resort requires a technique combining body surfing with surf fishing due to the relative flatness of the beach and size of the incoming surf waves. They each managed to catch some yellowtail amberjack, which they released since we don't have any way to process or store fish in this hotel.  

And we did decide to join another hotel guest who has booked a fishing charter on Wednesday.  Spending that much time body surfing in the 72˚F water got us a bit hypothermic so we had to spend some time in the hotel's hot tub, which was more like a warm tub.  

After getting changed into street clothes, we grabbed a bite to eat at the Epa Epa Tacos, which is basically street tacos and similar fare.  Ben had two tacos while Janet had a quesadilla and a taco, along with a Pacifico beer each for $15US.  Despite being such a touristy location, while it's expensive by Mexican standards, it's been pretty affordable by US standards.  

We walked back towards the Malecon and found no more paramilitary garrison around the fancy condo we saw the day before the eclipse.  We saw the "Sea Shell Museum" which is just a huge store with in incredible variety of marine sea shells of all sorts.  Then we walked through a tourist mall and enjoyed some people watching on the beach looking down the Malecon from a small jetty.  There were people being hauled up into the sky in a Parasail, while others were struggling to flop over the gunnels of pangas beached in the surf to be ferried to Bird Island.  The staff had to time the waves and manually push and pull the boat once the outboard was tilted up to get it on and back off the sand.  It is quite a process, made harder by overloading the boats.  

After getting back to the hotel, it was time for a nap and relaxation.  We didn't feel particularly adventurous for dinner so we hit the Carl's Jr. across the street which was promoting a Godzilla vs King Kong burger special.  That was a LOT of food with the Godzilla being a triple patty bacon cheese burger and the King Kong a triple patty cheese, tomato and lettuce monster.  We'll hit the sack early because we will have to get up early tomorrow for the fishing charter.