I love this time of year in Mazatlan. It is just now starting to get truly warm, with the afternoons getting hot enough to make you sweat, promising future mysteries like a tentative, clumsy first kiss. The heat has been enough to drive most of the gringo tourists and snow birds back north. The city has heaved a huge, collective sigh of relief and let its hair down.

Everything becomes a little more relaxed and carefree. You see a lot more spontaneous gatherings in the neighborhood streets. More people laughing, talking, and singing. Yes singing. The sheer number of people we see working or just walking down the street joyfully singing is staggering. I am not talking about humming or carrying some melody under their breath. I mean full-throated singing. And it's contagious. I've seen other walkers on the street join in, until there seems to be a full chorus going. It's great.

The music we hear in the evenings has changed as well. This past winter, we heard almost exclusively American classic rock wafting up the hill to us from the bars on Olas Altas. It wasn't unusual to hear Hotel California three times on any given Saturday night. Now we hear a lot more Mexican music, and many of the American songs we hear are sung in Spanish. I'm really starting to dig the Spanish version of "Love Potion Number 9".

Pretty soon, the big rains will start coming. There is nothing more thrilling than watching the big clouds boil from the mountains, bearing lightning and pushing wind, while enjoying a perfect, blazing, Mazatlan sunset over the Pacific Ocean.

I love the rainy season. In another month or so, it will really start to get hot, and the humidity will shoot up. When I wake up in the morning, it will be fairly pleasant. Then, throughout the day, the temperature and humidity will steadily increase, until the late afternoon when the sun is coming directly through the windows. I will be here sitting at my desk, with my fan pointed directly at me, thinking in one more minute, I will simply not be able to stand it any longer. That's when the wind will suddenly pick up and change direction, delicious coolness drying the sweat on my body. The skies open up and disgorge a deluge that cools everything off and brings the humidity back into tolerable levels and ready to start the cycle again for the next day.

We've already had some rain this year, and the reaction of the botanic world was immediate. All of the lovely plants that have been just hanging on through the end of the dry season are starting to flourish and bloom. A riot of color is emerging as Bougainvillea, Hibiscus, Mimosas and Plumeria don their Summer clothes. You can't see the leaves on the Golden Rain trees because of the masses of cascading yellow blossoms.

The fruit and vegetables also greatly improve in the Summer, both in quality and variety. We have been suffering through some pretty bad tomatoes at the end of winter, but now the tomatoes are red, juicy and perfect again. We also have kiwi, peaches, pineapple, papaya, star fruit, plums, nectarines, apricots, grapes as large as ping pong balls, and mangoes so perfect they will make you faint. All for dirt cheap.

We can also breathe a sigh of relief. We can walk the streets of Mazatlan and go to the central market without being absolutely crushed by cruise ship passengers trying to cram everything they can into the 9 hours they have in port. It also means we get better prices when we shop, because we are not competing for goods with tourists who don't have the time and don't know how to bargain.

And thankfully, the "social season" has ended. The winter is a blur of dinners, dances, and benefits. All of the gringo run charities have to do all of their fund raising while the snow birds are in town, and you can't sneeze without someone beseeching you to buy tickets to dinner, participate in a golf tournament, or buy raffle tickets for a worthy cause. There is also a plethora of bridge clubs, poker clubs, sewing circles and art groups.

But we actually find a lot more to do during the Summer. The annual Day of Music just passed. That is always a wonderful evening strolling around Old Town sampling different kinds of music from symphonic to banda. Free movie season is starting soon, with movies shown at the Angela Peralta, the Museum of Art, and even projected onto the sides of buildings. There is the Expo Oaxaca, outdoor art shows, and the Youth Festival. Summer is an endless parade of new experiences, most of which we stumble on by accident – the best kind.

We first visited and fell in love with Mazatlan in the Summer. When we moved here it was also Summer. In fact, this past Winter was our first, and was quite a shock to our systems. The city is so different. The landscape is the same, but everything else seemed so alien. It's nice to have our home back to the way our hearts like it best.