So - What is life like in Mazatlan?

I don't seem to have a "typical" day here.  That's something I love about it - I decide minute to minute what I'm going to do next.  But nearly every day includes most of these things:

I wake and rise when I feel like it.  I'm not an early riser but its usually before 9.  I know I should be more ambitious and get up to trot down to the beach for walk at dawn, but I don't seem to be able to.

I check my email and messages.  I try to drink a glass of water with the juice of 2 fresh limes before having coffee. I open my patio door and let in the sound of a multitude of birds and the sultry morning air.  I skype Mike if he is online while drinking coffee.  I respond to emails and messages. I work a little online. I think about breakfast.  Maybe I'll scramble a couple of eggs with chopped cactus leaf.  Maybe I'll just stir some vanilla protein powder into my coffee.

At some point in the day, I put on my bathing suit and beach cover-up, pack my beach bag with requisite items such as sunscreen, hat, sunglasses, money, book or Kindle, towel, and walk to the beach.  Its a pleasant walk through a nice neighbourhood, a mix of expats and locals.  I walk past a very nice RV park which is now 2/3's empty - the snowbird RVers have begun the migration home.  There are lots of lovely flowers, bougainvillia bushes, cactus, ficus trees shaped like animals or just in a box shape.  As I near the corner where the local 7-11 type shop is (called Oxxo), I note that the homeless guy is back on his spot on the sidewalk where he sits and puts out a hand as you go by.  There is his blackened tin can on top of a few old coals where he heats up water or food.  He doesn't seem unhappy, really.  Sometimes, he is across the street lying in the shade of a ficus tree.  I give him a few pesos once in a while but not every day.  Sometimes, he isn't there for weeks - maybe he gets rounded up and sent on his way.

I cross the busy street dodging buses and pulmonia taxies, cars, motorcycles.  Through the walkway beside a beachside apartmentment building/hotel and onto the beach.  I decide whether to park myself on the beach for a swim in the ocean (is it too rough today?) or walk down the beach to one of the hotel beachside pools.  Either way, I will likely buy a fresh, cold coconut from the local vendor at some point.  He cuts a hole in the top and puts a straw in.  It is cold and delicious.  When I'm done drinking the water, he takes it back, hacks its open and scoops out the meat into a bowl, adds fresh lime and chili powder, and hands it back to me with a toothpick for spearing and eating the pieces of mouth-watering coconut meat.

After a couple of hours at the beach, I walk back home and check email and messages.  I shower, make lunch, do a little laundry, wash a few dishes, work a little online.  Is today a social event day?  I go to two or three per week.  Two of them are happy hour get-togethers with other expats at local watering holes from 4-6. (The other is a ladies lunch on Wed.) We drink local beer, michiladas (beer with lime juice), wine (more expensive than anything else), margueritas.  Everyone has their regular.  Some drink agua mineral with lime (mineral water).  We shoot the breeze and marvel at how lucky we all are to be sitting there by the ocean, waiting for yet another gorgeous sunset.  Sometimes a smaller group of us will go on from there to have dinner at one of our favourite and cheap eateries.  Fresh fish, shrimp, tacos, guacamole, chicken in mango sauce, the choices are endless and delicious.  On some occasions, we carry on from there to another local watering hole for tequila and kareoke - semi-outdoors, by the ocean, by the busy road with buses, cars and taxis passing by, and pelicans flying in formation overhead and skimming along the tops of cresting waves with the gorgeous sunset in the background.  Another grand day in Mazatlan.  I hop a local bus home.