A Mazatlan sunrise is like no other I have ever experienced. Our position here, nestled in between the ocean and the mountains, does some strange and amazing things with time and light. I don't particularly like to be up early enough to see the sunrise – it's not really my style – but, whenever I am, I never regret it.

The predawn lasts a very long time, building so gradually that the eye doesn't register at first that there is actually light. The mountains cloak the light, making it a reflection of a reflection. Slowly, sneakily, shapes creep into discernible forms. I can see a tree, then the crumbling rock wall standing out against the sky, then the islands. The last thing to become distinguishable is the ocean, although my ears tell me it has been there the whole time.

As the light continues to build, it becomes a rosy glow, cradling everything in dusky pink. Little pink fishing boats skip across a pink ocean. Pink birds sing from pink trees. The clouds gleam with blush radiance, becoming more there than any other time of the day: so real that they are surreal.

Then, in that bare moment between breaths, like the mountains are a light dam that has been breached by a flood, the sunlight flows over the peaks, illuminating everything in sharp, clean brilliance. The ocean turns inconceivably blue; the surrounding buildings' effulgence dazzles the eye; the flowers leap out with impossible depth of color, unable to contain their own radiance.

In the next instant, everything settles to normalcy, and I am left wondering if the moment of god-like clarity ever happened, or if it was simply a trick of the mind, fooled by the sudden light.

And the day has begun.