Rise and Shine and hit the beach!

We both woke up at sometime before 8, but were both too tired to stay up (duh, after less than three hours of sleep). At 11:30, we were both up for good and made our plan for the day. If we could leave the house by 12:30, that would be great. We still would be gambling on the bus schedule from Culiacán to Mazatlán, but that was a risk we’d have to take.
I knew there was a place we wanted to eat for dinner and it would fill us up, so I suggested we eat breakfast at the house and do all we could in Mazatlán and then eat dinner there. Ashley wasn’t sold until she realized it was already lunch time.

We scarfed our breakfast, packed our backpacks, and headed out to the bus. This time, since I already had Ashley with me, I decided to gamble with the bus that passes by my house. I thought this bus would take me from my house straight to the station without having to go downtown first and change buses. When Ashley was arriving, I didn’t want to make a mistake, so I went ahead downtown.
I was RIGHT! We took one bus and got to the bus station in about 30 minutes. We bought our tickets and had less than 10 minutes before departure. Perfect timing!
The bus ride was two hours plus, but it’s a decently pretty ride. I don’t think we slept much on this ride, but we had all night to sleep.
We got to the Mazatlán bus station and grabbed a pulmonía (a glorified golf cart-like taxi) to our hotel. Jesús was the bellboy when we pulled up, but we each only had a backpack and a pillow, so we didn’t really need him. We checked in at the open air lobby and then Jesús carried both of our backpacks upstairs to the 4th floor for us. In the elevator he asked if we were here on vacation (in Spanish) and I explained that Ashley was visiting me form Nashville but that I was living in Culiacán for the year. He asked how long we’d be there, etc. Then he complimented my Spanish in a big way. I was proud. As he walked in front of me, I might have raised the roof a little.
He let us into our room and checked everything out. I gave him a nicer tip than usual due to the compliment. Ha!
I had been in Mazatlán and this hotel before, so I made sure Ashley went out to the balcony to see the view: the two pools, the Jacuzzi, the bar, and the beach. It’s a pretty breathtaking view.
We immediately changed into bathing suits to sit by the pool until the sun went down. It was 4 when we got to the pool, and no one else was out there because it was “cold,” but we were going to take advantage of every minute possible.
Since I was pretty well wrapped with my brace (although my burn was getting better by the day), and since Dr. Brother had told me swimming in a pool would be a bad idea, I was ecstatic at the weather. It was almost chilly as the sun began to set. There’s nothing worse (okay, probably there’s something) than tanning in a yard with no pool and just sweating the day away. You just can’t last long. However, when it’s cool enough and you don’t sweat, you can go hours and hours and still end up with a tan! This was that kind of weather. Amazing.
Around 6 the sun started to set, so we went for a walk on the beach in hopes of catching the sunset. When I was here with Mabel’s family, Mabel, Alma and I had gone up the beach to grab a drink and the sunset was amazing from there. The only issue, of course was that the sun set behind the island directly in front of our beach. We decided to walk far enough to see the sunset. We had to walk farther than I had anticipated, which would’ve been fine had we ended with a beautiful picture of a sunset. The problem was that there were low clouds. We couldn’t even see the sunset. Oh, well. We got our exercise and worked off what we were about to scarf down for dinner.
As we walked back to the hotel (this time via the sidewalks instead of the beach), we stopped in a pharmacy to buy me some more gauze. While we were there, since we knew it would take a bit to get showers and get to our restaurant, we bought some magnum bars. Then we bought phone time at the Oxxo. Finally I found one with air time!
Meanwhile, back at the hotel, we got cleaned up and into long sleeves. Being by the beach is so nice at night because it’s actually cool.
We walked for about fifteen minutes so Ashley could see the Malecón (the walkway by the beach) going the other way form our hotel. There were vendors on the sidewalks (jewelry, souvenirs, etc) and lots of people out and about. I wasn’t 100% sure where this restaurant was that I’d been to with Mabel and Alma, and Mabel hadn’t answered my text, so I was going on memory. We hailed another pulmonía and I told the guy that we wanted to go to a restaurant but I couldn’t remember the name or location. But that I thought it was on the right after turning at a traffic light. He tried to sell us on a tourist seafood place, which likely would’ve been delicious. However, I knew this place was good, and it was filled with nothing but Mexicans when I was there last. To me, that’s a good sign. I like the local places. So, we arrived about 7:50 and apparently it closes at 8. I guess it’s more of a lunch/late lunch kind of place (remember that dinner here isn’t usually until 8 at the earliest). We felt bad once we realized we were keeping them open, but we enjoyed our meal anyway. We were very American and ate and left as opposed to sitting and enjoying the ambiance (probably because by this point there was no ambiance). We ordered shrimp pate, fried shrimp, and shrimp tacos to share. We each had a drink and our bill came out to less than twelve dollars. I mean, I love this country!
Realizing how close we were to the hotel, we just walked back. It was a good thing we did because I had eaten so much I needed to stretch out my stomach and digest.
We got back to the hotel and crashed. It was 9:00 when we were in bed, watching the Oscars or Emmys or Golden Globes or whatever the music show is. It wasn’t doing the trick, so we looked for a movie, but Hitch loses its oomph when my Will is speaking Spanish with someone else’s voice. We decided to just call it a night.
The hum and cold of the air conditioner coupled with the fluffy and warmth of the bed made for a great night of rest following a night almost without rest the day before.