Just Ask the Locals

Hello friends!

I have a blog post already written that I am going to hopefully post today, but here are some pictures for now. Ernesto, my host brother, took me on an amazing tour of Mazatlan yesterday. I am can't believe that I have been to Mazatlan twice before now and never once went to any of these places. I guess it pays to know the locals.





This first picture is 1 of 3 canyons left over from when the Spanish were in Mexico. It is extremely old, and situated on a cliff overlooking the ocean.






We walked for a long time along the beach in the historical section of town where there are a ton of beautiful lookout spots. At one lookout point, there is a floating stairway up to a platform over the ocean where every hour on the hour, a man jumps from the platform into the ocean. It is quite a drop, and definitely not the safest part of the ocean, but it was quite impressive to watch. I looked over just in time to see the guy jump, or I would have taken a picture. I was there during the afternoon, but apparently at night they jump with lit torches.

Hey, remember when I described the weather in Mazatlan as being ¨as hot as hades?¨ Well apparently I wasn´t too far off in my description because it turns out that the entrance to hell IS in Mazatlan! And you all thought that I was just being dramatic. Apparently, ¨hades¨ is an underground tunnel that leads to the market downtown, but it isn´t in use anymore because it is too old, and apparently dangerous.



This next picture is a house that was built by Mazatlan´s mafia two years ago, but it was never completed because they were caught. It is massive, and has an amazing view of the ocean, but it is entirely abandoned. Ernesto said that it belongs to the State owns it now, but I have no idea why it isn´t being used or at least sold.










Finally, at the top of this incredibly beautiful cliff is the 2nd tallest lighthouse in the world, El Faro. I haven´t been up there yet (I guess it is quite the climb), but the view from where I took this picture was so beautiful that I couldn´t think of any words in Spanish to describe it when my host brother asked me if I liked it. Of course I have the vocabulary of at Mexican 3 year old at this point. :)