I have taken pictures of our room this time, but like every other time, each room is different and big! Our two bedroom this time was 2400 square feet. You can see that we have our computers set up so that when the mood struck we could work :) The bedrooms are large, comfortable and quiet at night. That is the most important thing to us, the quietness of the evenings. You can sit outside and hear just the ocean. That is what I try and remember when I get home...that sound. The island across from us is home to thousands of birds. Mazatlan is home to many species and it's great fun to just sit and watch them flying by us on the way to their home. The most common bird here I think is the Chara de Beechy or the purplish-backed Jay. Those are the ones you see in our pictures here...each morning and evening they sit on these wires. They are not noisy. There are many - from hummingbirds right through to pelicans. One morning the fog came in (first time I had seen fog here) and I had to take this picture of this building that they were working on. It just seemed to float. Tom took a picture of a picture of our hotel room. You can get a better idea of what it looked like from this one. As well, he had to take a picture of me sitting downstairs at the hotel computer. I think I was on the live chat with Art Drysdale for this one...we were lucky to have a high speed connection in the hotel so we didn't have to go downtown to pick up our mail. This had just come to the hotel the day we checked in so we were very pleased to see it.

We did some things this time that we hadn't done before. Because we were there during Carnaval we took in the big Fireworks display downtown. We had this wonderful little bus that came to the hotel and picked us up, then we headed to our restaurant for dinner and the display. It is based both on land and on water so fireworks were coming from two places, off setting each other. A huge display!

Now the bright outside pictures with all the people are those of the parade...so many people come out for this parade, both the locals and the tourists. I could not believe it when they said it started at 5 and ended around 11...how could that be? But they were right. Tom is seen picking up some sweet pastry for us to munch on...and later on in the line for mango...wow was this good! As you can see it started out light then got darker as the evening progressed. Interspaced between the floats were these huge buses with the queens riding on top of them...plus the floats had queens on them as well...there are many queens during Carnaval...do you see the fire truck from Santa Monica? It was a gift and I guess they were so proud of it, that they put it in the parade...some enterprising men had built stools and were selling them...we bought two so that I could stand on one to get a better view of the parade and let someone else stand on the other. Then we left them with two ladies as we were leaving so they could enjoy them.

Now we start out with a picture of Tom on the bridge by the marina and then a couple of rocks on the beach...and then to the Sand Castles! We had gone both Saturday and Sunday to this..what we saw on the Saturday might not have been there the next day as it didn't work for the artist or fell apart. Once they are built they mix water and glue together and spray them to hold them and then hope that they stay until the next day. The little church didn't make it for the next day.

Now the little gold mini was the start of our Homes tour that we took. We saw six incredible homes, all totally different and individual. I have to admit that the first one we visited, with the artwork, was just about perfect for both of us...we ended our tour at this wonderful little town that a grandmother put together for her grandchildren...and it just keeps growing and growing. This was all built so that the grandchildren could find out and keep the beautiful customs of the region in which they live, feeling proud about his origins and the culture that surrounds him. We finished off the tour with a nice lunch at the El Cid Golf & Country Club. The funds raised for this tour go to Pro-Mexico to increase the quality of life for persons with a deep respect for life, liberty and human dignity. They have a medical clinic providing health, dental, pharmacy and lab, a school of arts and crafts, elementary and secondary open classes in english, computing, sewing and culinary.

Every night like clockwork, just before the sun sets our feathered friends (those purplish-backed jays) come join us by sitting on the wires outside the hotel. They are not noisy though and by the time the sun sets they have flown off to their own home for the evening. Right across the road from us there is a bird sanctuary and we got to see many birds as a result.

Now we are on the Jungle Tour, something else we hadn't see yet...it starts with the cruise ships..we went by them on our way to the mangroves. Here again, I take many photos but once in a while there is one that just blows my mind....the one of the shrimp boats does it this time. Mazatlan has the largest shrimp boat fleet with over 500 of these boats and it seemed to me they were all here...a beautiful shot in my minds eye. The beach here is for turtles...they lay their eggs here. That is why it is so clean and pure looking. There were huge mango trees and each of them just loaded with blossoms. There was also a coconut grove here, the largest one I had ever seen. Coconuts take 7 to 12 years to reach maturity, then they will produce up to 500 coconuts per year, each taking about three months to ripen. He said by four months they are ready to fall off the trees. The crowning glory on our trip back were the pelicans, they were sure cheeky and as you can see by the one hanging off the top of our canopy, not at all shy about grabbing food.

We finish off with a few floral pictures, a couple of benches and our footprints in the sand...until next time...