We're Back!

Finally, we're back in Mazatlan! The murderous heat and the rain seem to have passed for the most part. The mornings are cool and brisk and the afternoons sunny and hot. What I think of this time of year are shrimp and ice-cold beer. In Mazatlan there are probably dozens of ways of preparing shrimp - camarones, in Spanish. Cerviche is a kind of cool salad made from peeled shrimp cured in lime juice mixed with onion, tomato, garlic and salt. Most often it's served on tostadas or tortilla chips but it's also delicious on crackers. Aguachile is a version made with red onion and cucumber and spicy green chiles, omitting the tomato. Bitter lime combined with the lush tomato, and meaty goodness of the fresh shrimp... perhaps the sharp bite of serrano chile, the latter half of aguachile's namesake, and one is set for an afternoon at the beach. Just about every party or get-together this time of year involves copious amounts of one or the other to feed the masses, along with a cooler of ice cold beer. Pacifico if you please...

Pacifico here is sold in cans, sometimes on tap, and in a variety of bottles. Ballenas are big, about 40 ounces. Next come the standard size bottles. Last but not least are the cuartitos', which is a 190 ml size. At first I didn't see the point to such a small size bottle. The true utility, if not genius, of the cuartito, however, is revealed during the hot season. At slightly more than 3 big swallows, a cuartito never has a chance to warm up. During it's short life-span (perhaps there are some who drink so slowly as to suffer a few warm sips towards the end) a cuartito stays cold and refreshing. One scarcely has time to grow accustomed to the bottle before it's time to reach into the icy cooler for another, as refreshing as the last...

We're Outta Here!

It's getting too hot in Mazatlan now so we've left for the summer. See you next fall!

I finally saw an Apple iMac for sale at the Mazatlan Sam's Club. It was a 20 inch 2.16 GHz Core 2 Duo model, for 21,658.01 pesos (about $1975US at the current exhange rate). The only other Apple computer I've seen was a 15 inch Macbook Pro at Sanborns for some outrageous amount - almost double US retail - if I remember correctly. I hope that a trend develops and Apple is more widely available in the area. Everyone uses Windows, many have never seen any other OS. I guess it works well for Microsoft. Mexicans are used to things not working well.

Brian at Cafe Memorial

Brian at Cafe Memorial
Originally uploaded by Brian Ellez.

Friday morning we decided to run downtown, do some shopping and have coffee. From the new house we'll be living in next year it's a short bus ride downtown, although it's harder to get up to the golden zone. I like it down in the Plaza Machado better anyway...

My new cell phone takes pretty good pictures.