(Wednesday, August 9th, 2023)
No rest for the weary since we have three ports in a row. But no one was too tired to go on another adventure in Mazatlán. We didn't schedule an excursion at this port. Instead, we figured we could walk from the port to a nearby lighthouse. Got to start with a good breakfast. For those who don't cruise, the breakfast menu is different when you are in port than the days at sea. In port, they have the avocado toast with poached eggs on top. They are my favorite and I order them every morning.
In Mazatlán, there is a stockyard next to the port, so when you get off the boat, they give you a shuttle ride to the shopping area just past the yard. It only takes a couple minutes to drive over there. And then you are surrounded by shopping, which I didn't mind. Our goal was the lighthouse. You can easily see the hill from the ship and maps said it would only take us 20 minutes or so to get there on foot.
It was an easy walk and there was plenty to see along the way. We ran across several murals and June was happy to translate for us.
If you want to be a bird, fly, if you want to be a worm, crawl... but don't scream when they crush you. - Emiliano Zapata
I have lived thousands of lives...and I have loved a thousand loves. I have walked in distant worlds and witnessed the end of times...because I read. - George R.R. Martin
The lighthouse (Faro in Spanish) is on an almost island. There is a road that goes across to it, but I'm not sure if it is manmade or if there was a strip of land there before? But we found a little beach area there. Pearl had a goal to collect sand from each location. She collected sand easily in Puerto Vallarta as we got off the speedboats. Here, she collected sand down at the little beach area. She also found a dead puffer fish. Yikes. Don't touch.
When we got across to the Faro island, there was already a line of people waiting to hike up. Apparently it doesn't open until later in the day, around 12:30. (Although the website says much earlier) You have to pay a small sum to hike up, although we learned later that the fee (one American dollar) was to go out on the glass bridge. I think you can hike up to the top without paying at all? Regardless, we wanted to go out on the bridge, so we paid at the bottom. We waited for quite a while in line. While we sat, we sent a search party farther down the road to explore. Pearl, June, and Ivory found a rocky beach and not much else.
Finally, it opened and they started letting people go up. Are you guys ready to hike El Faro?
It starts as a very large trail and slowly gets more narrow. It is made of lots of switchbacks that slowly go up the mountain. Can you call it a mountain? Maybe a very small mountain or a large hill. Eventually the trail turns to stones and stairs. It is well kept and only slightly treacherous in a couple places. Meaning, keep your eyes on where you are going, but that is difficult since the views are gorgeous.
I'm not sure I understand the sign we saw on the way. It roughly translates to: Like a dragon, a cat sheltered in the rocks of graffiti. Halfway there, don't be late. Which maybe has something to do with all the cats, but we'll get there in a minute.
The actual lighthouse on top is not that impressive. You can't go inside and it doesn't look that big. However, it is the tallest natural lighthouse in the world. I think that includes the hill, since it didn't look that tall. But if you include the 2,440 feet up you have to climb to get to it...that is tall my friends.
The new attraction, as of 2018, is the glass bottom lookout. That is pretty cool and cheap. You do have to wait in another line. They only allow a few people out on the glass at a time. (Smart) And you have to take your shoes off. We had a lot of fun out there for the few minutes we had. (Apologies, all our pictures were mixed up on this day, so I'm just grabbing them in random order.)
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Since we were very focused on breathing and walking on the way up, I took most of our pictures on the way down. (It is a bit of an exertion to get up that hill.) We saw lots of cool things going up and down. Daisy especially liked the Prom Queen cactus.
Okay, let's come back to...the cats. There were cats everywhere. There were signs saying to not pet them. Okay. I guess they seemed wild, but some seemed very friendly. One in particular came down and we couldn't ignore him. Oh, we counted 17 cats on the way up. (That first one is a special type of cat: a CATerpillar)
Then we hiked back to the shopping area/drop off. We had a lot of fun looking for fun souvenirs. I should note that places like that often do NOT take American Express. With extremely bad timing, our Visa cards expired days before our cruise and the new ones hadn't come, so we used more cash than usual. In fact, I made a mad trip back on the shuttles to grab more cash. I could tell we were getting close to Cinderella time because I was the ONLY one leaving the ship. Everyone else was coming back. But we were happy with all our purchases. (Please note I've been trying to buy birds like these for years. I adore them. From top to bottom: Pepe, Faro, and Alas)
We had a little extra time in the late afternoon. Ivory and Beau went to check out the arts and crafts. I LOVE what they did with their scratch boards.
It was also laundry day. We couldn't find enough machines on our floor so we ended up doing marathon laundry where you hike up to other floors. (Oh, have I mentioned that we NEVER took the elevators the entire time. Not even with bags of laundry.) June and I ended up doing laundry well into the night and finished our books and cried and laughed and played some cards. The laundry machines are much easier to use by just scanning your card, but that doesn't solve the problem if someone stops your dryer and doesn't start it again. :(
By now we had the system down for dinner. We sat in our random order and I Made could basically get everyone straight. I think he liked Beau because she's easy to pick out.
Look, it's my hometown on the dishes.
The Rare Find was Gator Beignets. Everyone liked them, but the sauce was a little spicy. Ivory and Beau both felt the heat, but June didn't seem phased.
Ivory also ate muscles which seem weirder to me than alligator. She had trouble opening a couple, but she yummed those right up. Who knew?
I Made was the star of the dancing that night. Ivory joined in and matched him move for move.
We finished the evening with a show: The Rock Revolution. It was okay. But the song with the drones was so cool. They floated around and glowed in patterns. That was REALLY cool.
Phew, you made it through this day. Check out our cute towel friends. A bear and a...nother animal. Hippo? Rhino? You tell me.
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