Friday, February 24, 2017

Mazatlán

Mazatlán indicated in red
The five of us, including Rosalia's parents, recently arrived home from a few days in Mazatlán, a seaside city in the north of Mexico. I say north, I find it difficult to judge what actually counts as the north in Mexico given its oddly contorted shape, and when I look at a map I'm not convinced that Mazatlán is all that northerly at all. I'm assured however, by those in the know, that it is culturally part of the north, with above all a distinctively northern accent and cuisine, including importantly ever-so-slightly larger tortillas than in Mexico City. As an aside, tortillas here are generally much smaller than the ones we're used to in Europe. About 10 cm in diameter I reckon (I really should have done my research and measured one, I know). They're also normally made from corn rather than wheat. Mazatlán tortillas are probably about 12 cm on average, in case you were wondering. Only 2 cm difference, but once you get your pi r-squareds involved I suppose that's actually quite a bit of extra tortilla.

Fun in the sand
Early-morning dip in the pool
While Rosalia's parents stayed with family living nearby (there's basically family everywhere), and made the epic decision to drive 13 hours to get there, the less insane of us took a short flight and stayed in a hotel by the beach. I quickly got over my disappointment at the pool bar being closed at 5.30pm when I realised I could still order cocktails from the restaurant direct to my sunbed. Noam enjoyed early-morning swims and playing in the sand with us, but for the most part spent lots of time with his grandparents and great-uncle and great-aunt, even spending a full night away from his Mum for the first time since he was born (against all odds he slept better than ever).

Plazuela Machado
Rosalía and I spent plenty of time lounging around the pool soaking up the sun. I read "Soccermatics", a great book by an Uppsala professor about the mathematics of football. Every now and then we ventured outside the confines of the hotel, enjoying a couple of nice meals in the centre of the beautifully preserved old town. We experienced the music of the region, played religiously at every bar, restaurant, and street corner: shit elevator-music-style covers of classic rock (think Sweet Child O' Mine with its soul ripped out).

Mazatlán is famous, naturally, for its seafood, and the prawn chilaquiles didn't disappoint, even if they were a bit on the heavy side at 7.30am. Machaca, a dried shredded beef, with egg, was also an instant favourite. And finally, in a new twist on putting slithery animals inside bottles of tequila, there was this:

Yeah, that's a massive snake in the bottle. Photo taken approximately 30 seconds after I tutted at the loud group of Americans at the next table who were posing with the tequila in exactly the same way.


2 comments:

  1. Sounds like you are having a lot of fun! Doesn't the snake actually make the tequila poisonous? Or maybe the tequila poisoned the snake.
    I and Mina enjoyed reading your blog. Give us more!
    -Meghdad
    Why am I F.J.?!?

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    Replies
    1. Good questions F.J! It's been a week since I drank the tequila and I'm still going strong so hopefully it wasn't too poisonous. Send my regards to Mina!

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