Monday, July 17, 2006 - 06:04 PM | 549 Reads

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Mazatlan- the misconceptions

Mazatlan is a small town. From everything I've heard and read I expected a small town with a central downtown area, probably around a square. A few main roads. Some sprawl as things spread out along the coast and of course the newly developed tourist and resort areas north of town.

Mexico is unsanitary. I've been told countless times that Mexico, as an undeveloped country, is unsanitary. That the larger restaurants and hotels may be okay, but you should be really careful of the small restaurants and extremely careful of food carts and street vendors.

Bribes aka La Mordida. Everyone tells me how careful I need to be and how much the bribes are going to cost me. Every officer and official I deal with is going to be looking for a bribe. I will be stopped for no reason other than to extort a bribe.

Crime. I will need to watch out for pickpockets, petty theft, people targeting the gringos in all sorts of ways.

Sweltering Heat this time of year. It is so hot in Mazatlan this time of year that most residents leave town for the summer. Those few, brave souls that remain sit around hugging their air conditioners and praying they will make it through.

Electricity is unreliable. The power will go out frequently and will flicker with voltage spikes and drops.

It will be hard to find food or products from home. While you can find some things, many others will be hard or impossible to find. Some staples like pinto beans, cheese, etc. included.

Mazatlan- First Impressions.

I will admit to being a little dismayed at first. Mazatlan is a very big city. We drove around for an hour or two thinking that there were no street signs and wondering how anyone found their way around or knew what street they were on. Traffic seemed horrendous- cars, buses, scooters, motorcycles, and every other vehicle you can imagine (and some you can't) barreling their way through town at impossible speeds all driven by complete lunatics. Add to that a heavy mix of pedestrians and bicycles waiting to jump into the street at any second. Many of the streets are impossibly narrow and small. It is not uncommon to turn down a street and start fearing the Explorer is too big to get down the road and around the next corner. The town seemed more rundown than I expected and there is a fair amount of graffiti.

What I've learned- in less than a week.

First, I'll start with the misconceptions.

Mazatlan is a small town. This couldn't be further from the truth. Mazatlan is a very large city. Large enough to have several of each of the 3 large chain grocery/department stores local to Mexico as well as Wal-Mart and Sam's. Despite the size, Mazatlan does have a very small town air. Almost, everything is mixed residential and commercial use. Every neighborhood has businesses mixed in with residences. There are 3 small stores within a block of our house here. They are like little general stores with a mix of everything and very reasonable prices - in some cases better than the large stores.

Mexico is unsanitary. I've found quite the opposite to be true. In a lot of ways, Mexico seems more sanitary. Start with bathrooms - Many faucets, instead of knobs for the tap, have a lever dangling down from the spout. You simply put pressure on this lever with your hands under the spigot and it turns on the tap. Simply washing your hands keeps the water on. Then urinals - an idea so simple and yet, I've never seen it in America. Instead of a flush lever, a foot pedal that you step on to flush the urinal. No need to touch anything with your hands. Since much of life in Mazatlan is outdoor living because of the wonderful climate most of the year, many of the restrooms are outdoors. At home, this is not usually a good sign. Here, the outdoor restrooms are often cleaner than indoor restrooms back at home. Food service is at least as sanitary here as back home. Jennifer commented yesterday that she loves the fact that every woman working in a restaurant has their hair in a bun, and then a hair net over that. Whether they handle food directly or not. Because of the small town feeling, many of a business's patrons are their neighbors, whether a sit down restaurant or a food cart in the street. Also, most of them are family run. Unlike a faceless company at home, hiring some teenager who just wants some money and doesn't care about the job, or whether the company makes money or not, these are people with a stake in what they do. People who want to succeed and understand that if you make your neighbors sick, they will stop coming back and you will be out of business. We had dinner at a local food cart last night as an example. Only one person handled money, and he never touched the food directly. The only contact he had with food was using tongs to turn meat on the grill, or handing bags of wrapped food to customers. At one point, he was stoking the fire on the grill and had to use the tongs to move the grill surface back into place. He immediately put those tongs down and grabbed a new set before moving any of the meat. Their were two women their who handled the food directly with their bare hands. They both did nothing else. Just the food, never money, raw meat, or anything else. The food was truly wonderful.

Bribes aka La Mordida. We have yet to be approached for a bribe. So far the only contact we have had with officials was at the border. Everything was quick and efficient, with no hiccups or need to pay extra for anything. We have not been stopped by an officer at all. The agents at the checkpoints we crossed were also quick and efficient - there is no cost, and they quickly waved us on.

Crime. Really doesn't seem to be a problem. Again it goes back to the small town feeling. You see many things left open or sitting outside unattended. The only times I have felt uncomfortable about the money in my pocket have been in the Golden Zone, and then it wasn't a concern about pickpockets but rather all the people hawking goods at overinflated prices to all the tourists with money. It is funny, once you get near the results, prices quickly change into dollars and some prices seem based on how much money you might have. Not really different than some places I've been in the States.

Sweltering Heat this time of year. Yes, it is hot. Temps in the upper 90's with 65 to 70 percent humidity. However, It is really much more pleasant than similar temps are at home. First, you almost always have a cool breeze coming off the water. Second, because so much living is done outdoors, Everything is built to take advantage of the natural cooling. Also, all of the stone construction means that buildings hold the cool much longer than they would at home. Jennifer doesn't usually deal with being hot happily, especially when trying to sleep. We have central air conditioning here, however it is currently stuck on 72 degrees. The repairman is waiting for a part to replace the thermostat. So we can turn the air conditioner on or off, but always 72. It is amazing how often Jennifer is willing to turn the air conditioner off. We have started leaving it off overnight. Compare this to home where we have a window unit in the master bedroom to supplement the central air that is set on 69 degrees every night.

Electricity is unreliable. We aren't living in a modern area of town. Most plugs in the house are still ungrounded, just like older parts of Fort Worth. Still, the electricity here seems more reliable than what I enjoy in Fort Worth. I'm only aware of one brief power outage since we arrived and that was in the middle of the night. Without equipment to test it is hard to say for sure, but judging from the behavior of the UPS we have here, the voltage is more stable as well. I don&apst see a problem living with Mexican electricity in the future, and in fact think I will be able to quit saving for that generator I've been needing in Fort Worth.

It will be hard to find food or products from home. There is some truth to this and some myth. First, even if you don't speak Spanish, if you are at all good at picture reading you will quickly identify the products you need. Much of the time, you will be able to look at a label and not only know what it is, but even though the label is in Spanish and the name is different, identify exactly what product from home it is. For example, a bag of Sabritas. One glance at the bag and you know that not only are you looking at potato chips, but no matter what the label says, these are Lay's potato chips. There are a couple of things we haven't been able to find here. Dr. Pepper and horseradish are not to be found. Even though I thought those would both be big issues, I find I don't really miss them. Because so much cooking is done from scratch, prepared foods like TV dinners are harder to find and more scarce. This means that if you don't cook, life will be a little more difficult. However, there are so many food carts, or small restaurants serving inexpensive, high quality food, you don't really have a need for tv dinners. There is still takeout and delivery so you are even set if you don't want to leave the house.

First impressions aren't always correct.

There are street signs. They are very cute plaques mounted on the wall of the building on the corner at a about first floor roof level instead of on signs. Traffic is still truly interesting. However, first of all, everyone is paying a lot more attention to driving than people do at home. No one is looking to run you over. While a bus might blow past a pedestrian with a scant couple inches to spare, they see the pedestrian and will not only wait for them if necessary, but at busy intersections will signal that they see you and let you know when to cross. Many of the streets are narrow, but there really isn't any difficulty getting around in the Explorer. Part of the narrow sensation is high walls, and all the tall buildings right at street side. That said, we also find that we don't bother driving. It is easier and perfectly pleasant to walk most places we need to go. In some parts of town there is some graffiti, but some of what I took for graffiti doesn&apst seem to be so. For instance, a spray painted pictogram on a wall above an electrical junction box warning of danger. There are some businesses that are closed. Although in some cases, with this being a tourist town, I think they are only closed for the off season. Also, some buildings that look run down on or plain on the outside are still beautifully maintained inside.