Tonight, Dale made reservations for us to listen to her friend Rob Lamonica play at Héctor’s Bistro. This is the same friend we listened to at Macaws.

That didn’t work out quite as we planned as we didn’t realise that we needed to reserve an exterior table and instead ate inside, wondering when the heck the music was going to start!

We arrived at six and were promptly impressed by the upscale ambiance at Héctor’s and glad that we were a tad more dressed up than we normally are!

Unfortunately, they don’t have a liquor license, so we couldn’t have beer. Dale had thought that she’d been given permission over the phone for us to bring some, so I had a few in my purse, but we were told that they’d be shut down if an inspector came in and saw a beer on the table. Bummer. She opted for ice water and I had a limonada with mineral water. Funny how I am not a mineral water fan, but I love it in a limonada. Limonada is always more expensive than beer, but here the difference was only 5 pesos, versus 10 at Carmelita’s.

The menu was a little pricy, but still had plenty of options below 150 pesos. Dale had eaten not too long before and is a vegetarian, so I suggested that she get the roasted veggie platter for us to share. This proved to be absolutely delicious, lots of different roasted veggies drizzled with a balsamic reduction and served with whole grain sour dough toast. Dale and I were both excited by the basil. 😀

I decided to have a laugh and order their pastrami sandwich, not expecting to receive anything even remotely resembling a pastrami sandwich. I was right. 🙂 It was a fancy roast beef sandwich on whole grain bread with cheese, Dijon mustard, and a crunchy sour gherkin in the middle, served with a side of bitter greens. It was delicious, with a wonderful mixture of textures (the bread was divine) and flavours. Not something I’d want again, but worth the 130 pesos just for being different from anything else I’ve eaten since I got here.

With the tip, our total bill was 305 pesos; very reasonable for such high quality fare! I do the same thing here that I do in Canada and the US when I pay with cash, tell the server exactly how much to bring back so I don’t have to worry about coming up with the right change for the tip. I must be using the right words because I’ve never had a problem being understood (eg. doscientos por el cambio) and am usually told ‘muy bien, gracias’ (very well, thank you).

We finally figured out that we needed to go outside to listen to Rob and we did so for almost an hour. It was just him on his keyboard doing easy listening stuff. Having barely slept last night, I have to confess he almost put me to sleep. 🙂

Near eight, Dale suggested with walk down to Olas Altas to sit on the sea wall and have a beer from my purse while listening to the waves. That sounded good, so we said goodbye to Rob and walked the few blocks down.

On the way, we pondered the name Olas Altas. I knew that Altas is high and Dale’s best guess for Olas was waves. She was right!

We debated for a bit if we’d get in trouble for having a beer on the seawall, laughing that the courthouse was right behind us, then remembered that we’ve seen people walking around with open drinks during the day. So we discretely cracked open a can of Tecate each, a six-pack of which I recently received as a thank you. It was delicious and a nice change from the Pacifico, with a bit of a spicier finish. I’d brought the beer in my insulated Walmart bag with a bottle of frozen water, so it was still very cold!

We both marveled at the wonder of our life, to be sitting on a seawall in Mexico in absolutely perfect temperatures in early December to be comfortable in short sleeves (and NO BUGS), listening to the waves and feeling safe and secure walking around the neighbourhood so late.

When we were done with our beers, I suggested we go back to Plaza Machado for the leg stretch (just a couple of blocks) and then get a pulmonía back, not quite ready to call it an evening. Dale agreed.

The plaza was not the happening place it was on a Friday night, with almost no merchants and no restaurant tables on the street. I bought ice cream from a cart (coffee, mmmm) and Dale decided to try their tequila flavour (mmm). She still has trouble with the coins and the ice cream gals and I had such a laugh as we did our best to sort her out.

It’s so hard to hang onto small change here and the best she could do was 100 pesos, for which they did not have change. I managed to convince her to part with her 10 peso coin to go with the 1 and 2 pesos coins she had to get to the 20 peso cost of the ice cream. She was holding onto the 10 peso coin for the panga, dreading making them give her 92 pesos in change.

I made her head spin when I reminded her that I owed her for the half of Rob’s tip so I would pay for the pulmonía with a 100 peso note, get 50 pesos back, and pay for both our panga tickets with the 50 peso note, which would require only an easy 34 pesos in change and if she insisted, she could later pay me back the 8 peso advance. Have I lost any of you yet?! 😀

We had our ice cream and then went to negotiate a pulmonía ride. The driver was adamant that it be 50 pesos and I said that I paid 45 pesos last time and I wasn’t paying a centavo more this time. The thing is, I only had a 100 peso note, so I knew that giving me 55 pesos in change was going to be a challenge and I’d end up paying 50 anyway, but I wanted to play the hard nosed residente. We pretended to walk away and the guy called us back. When we arrived at the embarcadero and I told him 50 in change was fine, he was happy.

So that was a Wednesday night in Mazatlán’s centro histórico. Very quiet, balmy, unhurried, and unpopulated, a nice break from the unrelenting noise of Isla, incredibly enough. I’m actually starting to think about looking for a rental in Maz for next year instead of coming back to Isla. I can get used to the street noise. It’s the dogs and roosters that are ruining my nights…

Unfortunately, my iPhone camera sucks and most of my pictures came out blurry. Last time I go out and rely on it for photos. 🙁 It’s nice to have as a backup, but nothing beats my beat up old Pentax Optio W90.