Ole!

No seatbelts required. The seats for this TAXI are in the bed of a red pickup truck.

Off to a bullfight! Although this is not bullfight season, Mazatlan always holds a bullfight during Carnaval. This is said to be the Super Bowl of bullfights. We were to see Pablo Hermoso de Mendoza from Spain face off against Gaston Santos from Mexico.

Hey, you can't park here!

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The stadium was full to the brim but not everyone in Mexico likes the idea of a bullfight

Not everyone agrees with bullfights. They can be hard to watch. In fact we arrived with a group of ten but only five of us stayed until the end.

Santa likes bullfights... and Pacifico!

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The women received red carnations to throw at our favorite picador.

.Pablo got my red carnation!

Candy... Peanuts...Cigars...

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The event was 3+ hours long and these guys never took a break!

It seems like every single event here has live music. Love it!

Picadores. Gaston Santos (Mexico) is in white. Pablo Hermoso de Mendoza (Spain) is in blue.

Each man has the opportunity to face off against two separate bulls. Pablo has the first and third bull and Gaston gets the second and last bull. The bulls were between 400- 500lbs!

As the bullfighter remains on a horse for this match, he is called a picador. Each picador must maintain a solid relationship with his horses (they each use 2-3 horses per fight) but also must be able to accurately anticipate the bull’s next move. The horses do not wear armor.

Excite the bull

The bulls are bred to fight and bred to be angry.

Tire the bull

Each picador rides on his horse and strategically plunges a series of barbed red and white sticks into the bull’s flanks. This is intended to weaken the neck and shoulder muscles. The whole time the bull is taunted to charge at the horse several times to tire the large animal.

Aye Aye Aye!

Before the final slaying, a group of bull wrestlers enter the ring. They stand in a single file line and the first man in line taunts the bull. Once the bull charges he grabs the horns and the men behind him all pile up on the bull. The last guy grabs the bulls tail. They need to do this 1-3 times per bull. The first guy in line wears a metal plate in his red sash to prevent injury. Still, the ambulance lights were on after the bullfight.

Here is the video I took of one of the bull wrestlers getting attacked by a bull!

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Celebratory drinks thrown from the crowd

Although the crowd enjoys the fight, they appreciate the brevity as well. Bulls should not be made to suffer for longer than necessary. Points are awarded for accuracy. Two ears is a good score. Two ears and a tail is the best score.

We were told that the meat is donated to local orphanages.

 

Carnaval Mazatlan 2012 Part III

FAT TUESDAY. The last day of Carnaval. The day that makes you WANT to give up drinking and/or any other vices for the next 6 weeks.

On our way to the Plaza Machado we decided to get some dinner and music in a busy but less crowded bar, GUS GUS before we headed in to the craziness. This restaurant bar is popular with the expat community. The band played Summer of ’69 and everyone on the dance floor sang with enough conviction that we knew they were all recalling their own memories of the summer of 69. Lots of drunk patrons, most notably a woman who repeatedly hiked her dress up over her hips (yes, she thankfully did have underwear on) so her husband/boyfriend/future one-night-stand (not sure which?!) could give her a piggy back from the bathroom to the dance floor. There was also a constant barrage of vendors trying to sell us goods. Gum, barrettes, or a song. I’m convinced that one boy was just pretending to sell songs so he had a reason to ask people if he could play Angry Birds on their cell phones. All the vendors looked to be 10 years old or younger. Very sad.

We made friends with a young couple sitting at the table next to us who turned out to be pretty interesting. Very fun and nice people except for the fact that every time either one of them went to the bathroom the other would tell us ”their side of the relationship” story. This was going to be a veeeery long vacation for the two of them.

Daytime photo of a pulmonia

Regardless, the four of us grabbed a pulmonia (a golf cart taxi)and headed towards the Plaza Machado. We found a bar with great music, dancing, and ridiculously overpriced drinks.

One of the 5 piece bands in the Plaza Machada

Next we headed out of the bar and to the plaza. The heart of the celebration. There were 2 large main bands and at least 10 five piece bands playing music in the streets around the plaza sometimes as close as a few feet away from each other. It felt like a Battle of the Bands and each band had couples dancing to their music. I think locals are just born with the innate ability to salsa and deal with VERY LOUD MUSIC ALL THE TIME!

We had a fabulous time, finally dragged ourselves back to the hotel, and slept the whole next day. Carnaval Mazatlan was fabulous and I’m so glad it’s over now!

Carnaval Mazatlan 2012 Part II

Fiesta de los Imperios

For our next event we went to the Aguamarina Hotel to watch the parade with cruiser friends.  The theme of this year’s Carnaval in Mazatlan is Fiesta de Los Imperios, or Celebration of the Empires. China, Russia, Rome, and France were represented. It was reported that the crowd was 400,000 strong and we were happy to have reserved seats for the parade. It was definitely a safe family event without too much drinking and nobody was rowdy. My sister’s Carnaval experience in Oruro, Bolivia sounded a little more lively! (here is the link to her travel blog).

In Mazatlan, helicopters with men carrying large machine guns on each side flew back and forth along the Malecon. A couple of years ago somebody decided that it would be a funny joke to yell GUN and let off some firecrackers. The crowd started screaming and running. Although there may have been some minor injuries, everyone was OK. They never caught the guy who played the practical joke on the crowd. “No one sees the hand that throws the rock in Mexico,” we’re told. If a crime is committed innocent and guilty alike flee the scene. Again, this year was very safe and there were lots of kids present.

Photos I took can be found HERE.

This is the best snapshot video I found of the parade online.

This night it only took us 1 hour to get home including the time we spent IN the parade to skip past the crowds.

Carnaval Mazatlan 2012 Part I

Carnaval. A week where waking up smelling of tequila, gun powder and covered in confetti is totally normal.

On the first Saturday of Carnaval we found ourselves on Olas Atlas trying to explain to a cliff diver why we weren’t willing to give him 150 pesos to jump off of a 60 foot rock in to 9 feet of water. Not five minutes before we had run in to another cliff diver who was on his night off. He showed us the deep scars on his arms, lower legs, and told us about the 18 stitches that he had to get in his scalp one time.

So, no, tonight our 150 pesos (less than $15) would not be responsible for a man risking life and limb.

Moving along with Wayne from SV Music (Wayne’s account of the night on his sailing blog) we discovered that we were roughly 7 hours early for the fireworks show. Time to bar hop- it’s Margarita Time! We listened to live music, watched over excited American men try to dance with hot locals, met a bar owner from Alabama, and watched the local vendors set up their booths. Tacos, churros, nachos made with little taquitos instead of chips, and a ton of hot dogs! Our favorite vendors were the guys selling fake mustaches, beards, and colorful mohawks.

Before we knew it there was a mini parade led by a truck carrying what looked like Spongebob Square Pants with broccoli looking hair. They had lots to say over the loudspeaker about this character and then all of a sudden they lit him on fire/blew him up in a huge explosion! As there were pieces of Spogebob/Broccoli Head on fire floating through the air, we decided to skedaddle and check out the 8 bands that they had lined along the beach on Olas Atlas. All were really good but our favorite was Skandolo. This is a sample of their music from a different performance.

At 10pm all of the bands stopped playing and it was time for everyone in the crowd to take their places for the Naval Battle fireworks show. We were packed in like sardines just four rows back from the edge of the beach and a mere 50 feet away from the mortars. Lucky us. 45 minutes later we found that we were also directly underneath the exploding fireworks. Everyone around us started screaming, not out of awe, but out of fear. Ashes were falling in our eyes, embers were falling in our hair, our faces were getting pelted with firework shells, and we were constantly engulfed by smoke. “It is dangerous. It is the Mexican Way,” we were told later by a local. I’m not sure what kept us from moving to a safer vantage point, but we stayed put for the entire show.

We were directly underneath the low fireworks in this video.

After the grand finale, the bands started playing again and we stumbled out of the smoke in a daze. As we left we passed a line ½ mile long waiting to enter the band area. Things were just starting to heat up but we were done. It took us 2 hours to get home through the crowds.