More about The House in Mazatlan

I capitalized The House because it is so special.  The original building is from the 1860's - one of many huge homes built by wealthy German immigrant families.  It was a complete wreck when the current owner bought it about 12 years ago, and was also much larger.  He divided up the building into three and sold off two.  Then he restored the house to historical standards for this old city area of Mazatlan.  The red tile floor you see here is original and extends throughout the house and patio.

The main house itself is spacious and open, with 25 foot ceilings.  It really has only one bedroom, but there is a loft bedroom too, with a small spiral staircase up to it.  Kitchen, dining, living, bathrooms, bedroom all lie in a row facing out to the patio and courtyard.  Across the courtyard (and I'm not sure this is an original building) is a two-story building with a full studio apartment on each floor (called casitas) and a roof-top patio above.  But the main attraction of this place is the courtyard with its many and varied tropical plants and trees and vines.  There is a fountain in the center which is not functioning now but still adds to the ambiance.

The patio and courtyard are wonderful for entertaining. Three huge iron doors (seen in the picture) open the house up fully onto the covered patio and courtyard, providing total easy flow between them.  We have hosted several cocktail parties and potluck suppers over the winter and it never fails that everyone enjoys themselves immensely and comments on the relaxed and beautiful old world atmosphere.  The house is truly the envy of many expats.  How lucky we were to be able to rent it, and at a reasonable price.  We have reserved it again for next winter.

This winter, my husband, Mike, has been able to work remotely from here on a consulting contract for a company back in Canada.  He uses one of the casitas to work from.  How wonderful the opportunity to do that has been for him.  I hope it can be arranged again for next winter!  I remember my first winter here (see my first post in the blog).  I spent most of the winter by myself that time, and it was a good experience for me.  But part of my motivation to do it was to lay the groundwork for future winters here, hoping that we could eventually design our lives to be: exactly what they were this winter.

Much, much later....

In keeping with the spirit of other blogger friends who have posted recently after a long break, I have decided to do the same.  My last blog post was so very dispirited and a teensy bit depressed, I was a little worried about following it up.  But enough time has passed and much has happened in the meantime.  Here is a summary of events since January 2011:

• Went back home to Mazatlan in January and stayed there until late April in a small apartment in old Centro at Villa Serena.  Mike continued to work on contract in California and miraculously was able to fly back and forth to Mazatlan most weekends (taking Friday and Monday as travel/work remotely days) AND have the client pay for the airfare.  This made everything sooo much better and he was being paid very well, so our financial situation improved too.
• Summer in Okotoks.  Mike worked in California until July and was then "between contracts" until Sept. 25.  This was both good and bad.  We did a lot of road-tripping around Alberta which was fun, but there was an interruption of income.  Luckily, we had saved well during his last gig and had paid down debts so it wasn't as bad as it could have been.
• Oct. 30 - yay! Back to Mazatlan via California.  Mike's "new" contract was same as the old contract - back to California with flights home on weekends.  One weekend we handed the keys to our house in Okotoks over to new tenants and drove with the dogs to California.  There I caught a flight with the dogs in cargo to Mazatlan to begin our winter stay in new digs - a gorgeous historic home in old Centro complete with courtyard and two extra studio "casitas".  We had found it before leaving Maz last spring and booked it for the winter.  More expensive than anything we had rented before, but with our house in Okotoks rented out to reliable tenants, our cost of living actually went down.
• December - Absolutely loving the house and life in Maz.  Mike's contract in California ended and he miraculously (again) found a new contract that allowed him to work full-time remotely from Mazatlan with period trips north to attend a meeting or two.  No interruption of income.
• April 2012 - Still here, Mike still working remotely, everyone thriving, parties in the courtyard, limited stress, new friends, dogs loving it and us loving having dogs with us.  Life has certainly improved 100% since my last post.  Mike and the dogs will be flying up to Okotoks on the 21st because the dogs can't fly in cargo later than May 1st.  But we still have the house here rented until the end of May, and our tenants in Okotoks want to stay there until the end of June.  So come the end of May, we will have to find alternative digs - it will be too hot here for us.  I'm thinking Canmore, Alberta for the month of June.  In the foothills of the Rocky Mountains close to Banff, Lake Louise, Jasper and other beautiful places.