Arts and Crafts

grrr.

Blogger is being frustrating lately so I think I am going to take a little break from it until it works better again. It has taken me quite a few internet sessions since friday just to post that last post. So it's break time. Just e-mail us if you are worried about whether we are alive or not.

the lighthouse

We trekked to the lighthouse on Liam's birthday. The walk to the bottom of the hill where the real hike started was long enough but along the way we saw some neat stuff like a man on his break from his construction job who had caught a Giant Hawkfish with his hands. He also gave Liam a Brittle Star, which is like a starfish, but it has longer skinnier arms and they are brittle. We took some stairs to the bottom of a cliff for some exploring. And just before the climb to the lighthouse we came across a swordfish that was caught that day. The view at the lighthouse was all worth it. We could see all of Mazatlan, its beaches, ports, islands, and the mountains to the west. This lighthouse claims to be the highest naturally elevated lighthouse in America and the highest in the world that is still in use.

Jicama

Samantha gave us a strange vegetable the other day that was really tasty, especially with lime juice so we looked for it in the supermarket and bought some to enjoy again, with lime juice of course. It is called jicama. It's a root vegetable and it looks a little like an onion. It's like a sweet version of a red radish.

Happy Birthday Liam!

Liam is seven years old today. We celebrated with cake, pizza, some Kinder surprises and a piñata on the roof of our building with just us and the landlord's daughter Samantha, who has become great friends with our kids. I think she is about 13 years old. Liam and I found some cool Mazatlan-related Lego while perusing the Lego site after reading some birthday e-mails. I guess only the underwater theme is related to Mazatlan...there aren't actually any giant squid attacking exploration centers here.

our new passion

We only have to go about waist deep to see hundreds of fish. Rus was lucky enough to see a pufferfish yesterday. Liam said he saw "a fish like the one in that movie Finding Nemo" this morning.
That's me in the picture, in case you couldn't tell...

homesick

I have been feeling a little homesick lately and seeing this little curious cat peeking over the old boat at me reminded me of our cat Simon and it made my homesickness worse.

a fisherman and his tricks

In an issue of National Geographic Traveler, Rus showed me a good quote that was related to an experience we had. It was about how a man would rather give someone money to perform their native dancing than have him move into the city to work at a gas station. It made us feel better about this fisherman today who wanted money from us. He gave Liam a stick to hold and wrapped sea food skins around the end for Liam to hold up to feed the birds. He kept telling us to take a picture and we have laerned that if someone wants us to take a picture then they want money for it later and we kind of hesitated but we saw how fun it was for the kids so we just went along. We hate being pressured into giving someone money. Then we realized that we would rather give him money and have other tourists give him money for this so he can keep doing what he does than have him do something he might hate, assuming he doesn't hate what he does...

sea shell city, the golden zone, and feeling useful

We decided to venture into the tourist zone, the Zona Dorada (Golden Zone). It is what our Lonely Planet guide book describes as an "unashamed" tourist playground. We didn't stick around too long, although there would probably would have been some interesting dive/snorkelling shops if we had looked for some. We came across a huge store specializing in selling seashells and other sea treasures. It was ridiculous. I have never seen so many in one place. It made us a little angry though because all the seashells were there and not on the beaches for us to discover ourselves. They also had some funny coconut faces as you can see in the picture.
We also found a non-denominational christian church (second picture above) that offered free internet and phone calls to Canada and the US, for a small donation, which we didn't mind at all since it went to some excellent programs. They help kids go to school, they feed and clothe hundreds of people, they build water filter systems, they help with orphanages, etc. They told us that what they really need other than donations are people to go and play with the kids in the orphanages. I went to talk to the couple that runs the Salvation Army down the street but it was hard to communicate because of the language barrier, so not much came out of that. Our friend Mimi from "the breakfast club" is also interested in helping at one of the orphanges so maybe she can tell us something next time we see her. Despite our good intentions, we find it a little frustrating because of our inability to communicate (we are getting a little better) especially with kids because they seem to have a harder time understanding our heavy accents. We also find ourselves spending most of our time just keeping our own kids content and out of trouble.
One thing that I have started doing is working at the volunteer-run library in the old historic downtown. It is only once a week for a few hours, but it is something that I think I will look forward to each week. I feel at home in a library and at least a little bit useful. This has been easy work because the majority of the books and patrons are in english.
We have found quite a few Spanish language courses here but they are out of our budget. There are plenty of courses offered at home that I think we will look into when we return instead.

We're famous! "Crecimiento rapido" means "growing up fast" referring to Rus sitting in our kids' stroller. Me and the kids are in the background.

Falling in Love with Maz

A few of the things we like about Mazatlan:
1. all the animals we have seen - we found this pale little gecko in our room under a pile of clothes - the kids named it Gecka Gecko
2. beautiful tiled exterior walls on tiny houses - like the houses in Dublan, I have to limit myself with the number of pictures of tiles that I take
3. all the cheap intertainment - because this is such a big place, there are things like big malls with mini amusement parks - the kids rode these boats until they were sick of it for 15 pesos each
4. The cool people we meet - we have nicknamed some of our friends that we have met at the same restaurant "the breakfast club" because they all seem to know each other - this is a tiny restaurant kind of tucked away and the menu is simple, cheap and delicious - I don't even know the name of the place. Rus and I just call it Lerma because it is by the Hotel Lerma that we stayed at when we first came. The picture is of Liam and a three-legged black poodle he befriended by the name of Lola, owned by a Newfie named Mimi.

Isla de la Piedra

We met a local man in a restaurant a few days ago who had found some interesting things on the beaches of Isla de la Piedra (one of the above pictures shows a dried sand dollar -estrella del mar- and a recently dead and not so dry sand dollar). He gave these sand dollars and a couple of nice shells to Liam. He also showed us some bird skulls and a manta ray tail with the stinger on it which he would use as a knife. This inticed us into going to Isla de Piedra (Stone Island). We took a small taxi boat (note the picture of Liam in the boat above who will be getting another visit from the tooth raton) and were a little disappointed when we arrived at the beach and were bombarded by vendors. It didn't look as peaceful as we had been told. We walked past all the restaurants, ATV rentals and the RV lot to find the uninhabited beach area. The beach was beautiful, very soft sand, and on the edge of the beach was a huge coconut grove that stretched farther than we were willing to walk. We explored a little in the trees and watched some horses that lived in a fenced-in area in between the trees. A few of them looked terribly undernourished. Walking through those trees was worth the trip. And then on the way back, we saw a black dolphin. I have yet to capture a dolphin on film. There is also a bright green hummingbird that hangs out in the backyard around the flowering cactus (pictured above) that I have tried unsuccessfully to capture.

church?

We went to church yesterday morning only to find that the gate was locked and there was no one around, which we found a little odd because we had gone to that same LDS church a few weeks earlier at the same time and there was a service. It's a mystery...Finding ourselves with plenty of spare hours on a Sunday, we spent some time in the plaza in front of the cathedral catching pigeons.