Mazatlan feels like a “land” in Disneyland where we’re magically transported back by one of the old Pan Am Clipper flying boats to a tropical “destination” of the late sixites and early seventies… “Mazland”.
Going from a little mountain pueblo with ten taco stands and four beer “depositos” spread over two main streets to a beach city of 400,000 people takes a little bit of adjustment. In other words, the instant we hit Mazland… we were lost.
No worries. We eventually found our way… mostly by eliminating every other possibility… and pulled into our camp park. Well… what we were hoping would be our camp park. Here we found only two rigs camped… in a place that could easily hold a hundred large campers. That was cool. But the guy wanted $40 a night (US – when someone asks for dollars prepare to get hosed)… plus $5 for each kid… that’s $55… A NIGHT… and he wouldn’t budge on the price. That was not cool.
For perspective… we had friends in town who air bnb’d (did I just invent a verb?) a very nice three bedroom condo on the malecon (strand) in old town for $65 a night.
Anyway, long story short… we found a place two blocks from the beach with a lot more shade and a pool for $20 a night. NOW we’d found our camp park!
Initially I wasn’t a happy camper. Mazatland is a sensory onslaught. There’s cars and food and music and shops filled with everything that no one needs… EVERYWHERE! I lobbied for an early morning departure.
There’s one million (I counted) of these Señor Frogs “official” stores… in the Zona Dorada alone! Please someone tell me why!!
But… the rest of the fam ixnayed my hoped for quick departure. They wanted to stay and check Mazland out for a bit. So, we did. And… well, truth be told… after a few days the place started growing on me. The weather is awesome. The beaches are too.
The sunsets are world class.
Old town (Maz centro) is also very cool.
The beer was still VERY cold. And it turns out that Mazland is where Santa and Mrs Claus vacation.
BTW Santa was definitely out of character on this night. Not five minutes after taking this pic the kids and I and our friend Ky were talking to him. He looked right at me… for some reason… and asked if I smoked pot… in front of the kids. Further…coded discussion revealed that he was a little heavy on his inventory and that he needed to empty out his sleigh some before the return trip to the North Pole. Poor Kaila couldn’t understand why he was getting rid of his pots. “Won’t he need to cook when he gets home?”
Mazland is easily the most expensive place that we’ve been to in Mexico but to be fair there’s A LOT to do here and it’s still highly affordable. Up until this point we’ve had to work hard to spend $50 in a day (unless we’re driving… gas and tolls can easily sop up $50 alone). In Maz we’re averaging about $60 a day. Still, that’s not bad for a family of five.
This place would be absolutely frickin packed year around if Americans weren’t so afraid to visit. Note to the Mazland town council: You might want to double check that the Hawaii Bureau of Tourism isn’t behind all the fear mongering and bad press that Mexico’s been getting in America lately.