January 16 to 19, 2011; Juarez and Mazatlan

JAN 16, Sunday, shopping in Juarez
A beautiful day today, sunny and warm! We took the bus to Juarez, a suburb of Mazatlan, to check out the open market. Our bus driver was a bit in a rush to get us all there and even read the paper while driving...only in Mexico! The market was quite huge and we walked most of it. It was situated by a church/Cathedral and we tried to see the inside but a mass was in progress and the place was packed jam; people were even standing outside. We were also in sight of a big prison and could see the walls and guard towers. We didn’t buy anything as most of the stuff either was too old, too small or just useless to us. We tried to find a restaurant to eat but couldn’t so ended up taking a taxi back to the Gold Zone and ate there. We came home impressed with our adventure


JAN 17, Monday, wash day!
A very quiet day! Val did laundry in the morning then we went for a drive and a walk with Louise and Dave. I had my afternoon snooze and that’s about it. Happy hour then home to cook fish on the BBQ.


JAN 18, Tuesday, Mazatlan Centro
Sunny and warm again! Louise wanted to go to Centro Mazatlan and look at the cathedral so we hopped on a bus and headed out. We visited the market there and ended up buying a few things. The vendors were quite pushy and most spoke English so obviously, used to gringos. We walked through the meat market and surprisingly, there were very few flies if any.
We walked over to the cathedral and went in, took some pictures then decided we were thirsty and hungry. We asked around and found this little restaurant about 4 blocks away which turned out to be very quaint and clean. We satisfied our thirst and hunger at a reasonable price then headed back towards the market where we hopped on a bus back to our home. Louise and Dave had to stop at Mega so went on their own. When we got on the bus, we realized that it was the same driver we had when we came down...what are the chances, huh!???


JAN 19, Wednesday, Mazatlan
We got up to fog again this morning and it was thick as soup. Everything out and under the canopy was wet. The sun did burn it quickly as the morning went on but it soon returned. Val and the girls cooked a turkey for tonight so everyone was busy. We spent the afternoon reading and just relaxing. The sun did shine through all that fog eventually warming things up a bit.
We had a great dinner all together with all the trimmings that come with a turkey dinner. Louise made a fruit cake which was delicious and afterwards we sat around the fire. The evening was much warmer tonight.