Mazatlan Day Two: Fellowship of the Road

June 16 2017

After a bumpy ride composed only of my own insecurities, I’ve fallen in love with the Funky Monkey hostel—its constantly-shifting crew of travellers arriving, bonding, partying and departing, the grace and friendliness of its barefoot staff who seem a breath of wind away from travelling on themselves. 

Gisele, a manager, blew in from Venezuela and stuck,
at least for the moment

It took me two days to figure out who the owner was, he so resembled a fellow hosteler in appearance and participation (and I won’t give it away; he prefers it that way).  But the hostel is also a clean, professionally run place with comfortable beds, working wi-fi, functional kitchens and refrigerators, and regular organized activities. 

The insecurities were all my old ones: the traveller guys are all muscular and tattooed, the traveller girls sunkissed with a loose-limbed, tangled-hair self-reliance, the traveller age just enough below mine to revel in blasted rap music and beer consumption in metric tons.  The very walls of the hostel, painted with elaborate murals, calligraphic messages, and bas-relief lizards, speak to a Bohemian nomad world from which I, fifty-year-old square, was long ago exiled. 

Daniel and Kyle

But it didn’t take long to realize that I was welcomed just as I am, and that in the medley of English-language accents from all over the world I had finally found the traveller community I’d been seeking.  When Kyle, from Colorado, rolled in on his saddle-boxed black motorcycle, bound for Guatemala and points unknown, I felt less crazy about my own endeavor, and when Australian Marianna solicited advice about where she should go in Oaxaca and Chiapas from Fabian, the German who’s been all over Mexico, and Oscar, the Mexican native who struggled with his English, I spread open my National Geographic Mexico map on the coffee table for assistance and took rapid notes, encouraged by all. 

In short, it was in short order that we were all friends.

Waiting for the taxi to the chicken wing dinner

So this stop has been less about Mazatlan the city, more about overcoming my own ambiguities about where I’m going and what I’m doing.  I’ve stopped here for the longest stay of my trip so far, and even as the rest has been a needed relief, inside I’ve been rebuilding a head of steam for the adventures ahead.

On my first night I joined the hostel outing to the all-you-can-eat chicken wing dinner, and it seems a good opportunity to mention Mazatlan’s unique system of taxis.  They have these little red pickup trucks in which the bed has been gated in and outfitted with an awning and benches—a slightly more regulated form of how most Mexican groups travel.  It’s a great fun way to get carted around the city.

The wing dinner turned out to be something of a disaster—the restaurant was hosting another large party, a wedding group, and was completely overwhelmed, to the point where one side of the table got multiple baskets of wings and the other side none.  But it was still fun.

Yesterday I begged off from the group outing to the water park, which struck me as kid stuff, and decided to go on my own to the Aquarium.  Well, I got my own version of the water park, as it was a much farther walk than I’d thought along the beachfront promenade, and it was the hottest muggiest part of the day. 

By the time I got to the Aquarium the shirt I was wearing was so soaked through with sweat that my first action was to hit the gift shop, buy a souvenir T-shirt, and put it on in the rest room.  Well, it wouldn’t have been a trip to Mazatlan without a walk along the beach, and I wanted a souvenir shirt anyway.

Then, of course, the Aquarium turned out to be quintessential kid stuff, populated mostly by little children.  I browsed its fairly small offerings mostly for the shade and air conditioning, then took a taxi back along the beach road.

After the rest of the group came back from the water park sunburned, bruised, and drunk, there was a much more successful outing in the cool of the evening, to dinner at a patio seafood restaurant called F.I.S.H.  The walk, through the back streets of the neighborhood, took us down quiet cobblestone streets past lovely houses with gated courtyards, tile roofs, and gardens.  And the restaurant was superb.  I had a plate of four seafood tacos—shrimp, scallop, octopus, and Mahi Mahi—each of which was delicious, while carrying on an intense conversation with Gisele about life and travelling, having to speak at high volume over the live reggae band. 

I even finished my liter-sized tankard of beer.