Mazatlan...fun at Stone Island...

Hello from Mazatlan.....
This is Mazatlan's finest...."Kah Kah" Island....

This picture was painted with spray paint!!!! Read below...This artist was truly incredible!!!

These sea lions were really cool and entertaining to watch! Some cool Marlins hanging in the bay.
Hooray! I did it!!!

My self portrait of a dream come true.

My handsome hubby atop his horse/mule.

Mazatlan brought it's own day full of fun and adventure.

We first started out the day by taking a "taxi" (riding in the back of a covered truck) to another area in the marina. We then road a catamaran across the bay to a place called Stone Island. It's a pretty big island, a little dry, but had nice sand and beautiful palm trees.

After getting off the catamaran, our guide, Polo, told us we would now get to ride in Mexican Limousine...A tractor pulled trailer with benches for sitting. So we rode the limo around the side of the island and through and EXTREMELY humble town, to a giant restaurant type hut. It was here that we were able to relax in lounge chairs and choose several activites to participate in during the day.

This little area we were in was enclosed by a small wood fence. Around the outside of the fence and in the opening to the beach, were of course...more swindlers!!! It was almost comical how they would try to get you to buy something. The land we were on was owned by the tour company, so these people could not come in and bother us at our tables. Instead they stood at the gate and held up all their products hoping you would come and buy something. Matt and I took our towels out of the gate, closer to the water to lay on after getting in the water, and the second we sat down we were immediately surrounded by vendors....more of the same products..."you buy bracelet for the lady? You need towel to be dry?" After having 3 or 4 of them come up to us, I told Matt, "Just play dead!" And it worked! If we layed there still with our eyes closed, they walked right by!! (of course we didn't have our money out there with us anyway! It was in a safer location...behind the fence...) The part that got me rolling in laughter was when a large group was coming back from a kayaking tour. There were probably 50 or more people coming in from the ocean and getting off their kayaks. The minute they stepped onto the beach they had dozens of vendors crowding around them. I laugh because most of these people didn't have any money on them! They had just been out on the ocean in a kayak! They didn't have their money rolls with them!!! It was really entertaining to watch every person say "no thank you and walk past." By the end of the day, we found a great way to make it from the gate to the water without being bothered...RUN!!!

Then we decided to go horse back riding. It has always been one of my dreams to ride horses on the beach. There is something so romantic or magical about galloping through the surf and sand. We walked over to the horses and got ready to ride. They looked very small and a little like mules. I had Matt ask the guide (in Spanish) if they were mules and the guide said, oh no, they are mules mixed with horse. Oh great, a horse equivalant of a mut...a hut. Lovely. That news disappointed me a little since my mule riding experience the day before wasn't so great!

But with a little background in horseback riding I was determined to have a great time. After getting a few other people on their "huts" it was off to the beach for my dream come true!

Well, it wasn't that dreamy. My "hut" was a little faster than the mule, but he was obviously the bully in the group and pulled his ears back and threatened to kick any other horse that came near him. So it was nice I could be in front. All of these mule/horses were VERY stuck in their ways and would not deviate from their normal trail for ANY reason. When we got close enough to the water to go running through it, the guide shouted, "No get in water! Keep to trail!" I guess the salt water can rust their shoes. Even if we could go in the water, I don't think my little Paco, would have ran anyway! He knew the path and stuck to it. In fact, when we were out on the beach, I tried to stop for a minute to hand Matt the camera to take a picture of this dream come true and neither horse would stop!!! So, I resorted to a ever so beautiful self portrait!

Even though the experience wasn't quite like I had dreamed, it was still enjoyable and a beautiful ride. The ocean was sparkling and the palms swaying. The ocean breeze was refreshing and the horse was stubborn.

After the horse back riding, we decided to go on the boogie boards. There were some decent waves coming in and it looked like fun. We got our boards and made our way out in the water...BBRRRRR!!! This was our first time getting in the ocean this trip and the water felt like ice bergs could float by! Matt told me you get used to it after a few minutes; I was hesitant, but jumped in anyway. He was right, in about 10 minutes, my body turned numb and the water felt great! We both caught some fun waves!

Matt was able to snap a few photos of me "boardin'" but when I came out to photo him, our guide was telling us that it was time for our "limo" to leave. So we gathered up our stuff and said goodbye to Stone Island.

When we got back to the catamaran, we got to take a little ride out to a few interesting sites off the coast a little waze.

The first one was a little island with a neat looking cave in it. Then beyond that was another island. All the rock on the entire island was almost completely white. Polo told us this was called" 'kah kah' island, cuz it has lots of s! (those were his words) And he was right, lots of birds had made this place their home and it was really covered with all of their poop!

After passing poop rock, we continued out further into the ocean. Way out in the middle was a tiny little rock. As we got closer, I could see sea lions sunbathing on it. We were able to get very close to the rock and hear the sea lions barking at us. Manuel got everyone on our boat to bark at them and then be quiet and listen to the sea lions bark back. It was pretty funny. They are beautiful animals and they were really fun to watch.

After the short "tour" of Mazatlan bay, it was back to the taxi to go back to the ship. After getting off our catamaran, we noticed someone had just caught some Marlin. They were hanging next to the dock with blood gushing on the ground. Beautiful fish...but stinky from rotting in the sun.

Before we got back on the ship, we wanted to call Sadie because we called the boys in Puerto Vallarta, but didn't have time to call her. So we hunted EVERYWHERE for a pay phone that you could use an international calling card on. Every phone we tried was broken, (big surprise) so we resulted in using our cell phone. Before we left we set up our phone to make international calls. I was surprised the call went through fine and I was able to talk to Sadie and my Mom for 4 and 1/2 glorious but very expensive minutes!! (Actually it was less than we thought, $1.00 per minute)

While we were walking back to the ship, we saw this artist working on his beautiful artwork. It was the most unique artwork I've ever seen. All of his pictures were done using spray paint. He put on a mask and began spraying many different colors. He would spray on a color and then use newspaper to smear the paint into the shape he wanted. Then to cure or dry the paint he would blow a blow torch on it. He repeated this process many times until the picture was complete. It was so cool.

After a long day of playing, there's nothing nicer than coming back to a clean room where your room steward has folded all your clothes and lined up all your shoes and left a bowl of fresh fruit out waiting for you to devour. Soooo nice!

We ate another delicious dinner with, of course, tons of dessert and saw more fun shows. We really liked the comedian this night. His name was Troy Thurdgill (reminds me a little of Cuba Gooding Jr., but fuunier). Soooo funny. He told some really funny jokes about teenagers and the stupid stuff they do. He talked about when your at a traffic intersection and the teenagers never wait for the Walk or Don't Walk signs. They just cross the road whenever they want and if you're driving you slam on your breaks and honk and the teenager throws their arms up in the air saying, "Hello? Don't you see me? I'm just crossing the street here? In the crosswalk? You got a problem?" And then the comedian says, at this point is when I just run over them. They need to learn their lesson. He was really funny.

Just another fun day on vacation!