Cerritos Mazatlan
We took the bus over to Cerritos and Playa Brujas named for the female Witch Doctors who used to perform their rituals here. It has some nice seafood restaurants and a small strip of shops with a nice coffee bar where you can buy freshly roasted and ground coffee. A few weeks back, we had come over here with a group of friends to have a Sunday Brunch as the restaurant offers a special deal for cruisers. Sitting in the restaurant, we dined while watching the surfers having fun in the waves off the point. A fine view with a filling meal cost under $10 for the two of us.
The area still has some Oyster beds and it is a great spot to find fresh Oysters. It is still has something of a fishing camp feel about it with Pangas drawn up on the beach. On the headland, tucked away behind the stores is a RV park full of vehicles with US and Canadian license plates. The park has something of permanence about it as people have built walls with windows to provide wind protection while still enjoying the view. The RV’s sit on concrete slabs; some even have extra rooms alongside the campers. In Mexico it is not uncommon to find these hideaway places where Gringos have found an inexpensive spot in the sun to winter over from the colder climates.
The sandy beach leads to offshore rocks where there are fine salt water pools when the tide retreats. As you walk around the headland from the Cerritos Bay, you can look down on the Brujas beach and the sand dunes with the surfers working the waves below you.
Back at the Marina, we have discovered the Palapa restaurant on the Island where on Tuesdays you can come and grill your own food and share in a cruisers potluck. It is the haunt of some British ex-pats some of whom hail from the part of England where I was brought up. One even went to the same school as me! We have had a fine time reminiscing about places we knew long ago.
Our weather is slowly improving for crossing over to La Paz and if it continues, we expect to be underway on Sunday. The marina has turned out to be in a convenient location and easy to get around with lots of local services with good local transportation for getting to stores or downtown. However, after spending six weeks in Mazatlan, we are ready for a change of scenery even though we have found this a pleasant place to hang out, relax, enjoy life and make new friends.