Acaraje!!!

My friend Jessica just got her brazilian street food business running! Check out her web site: http://brasilstreetfood.com/

batting practice

The guys we hang out with down here are all obsessed to a certain extent with baseball. Bambino plays in a league and his brothers Willy and Arturo go to the batting cages at least once a week.

Here's my first time in the batting cage. Note that I've never really swung a bat before. I did have to play softball in gym class and occasionally tried to hit balls with my brothers in the back yard but never had any instruction. I think I'm probably one of the few people to trip over a ball in the batting cages...ball speed was 45 mph.

if you didn't break something you aren't really surfing

Monday I was waiting out in the line up at Olas Altas (water was confused, waves were crap) and FH, who had just ridden in was like "good one behind you!" So I laid down and started to turn my board (I was facing out to sea) but the wave suddenly jacked up and was rolling right at me. I was sideways and looked at FH. He looked horrified. I thought "jump off the board" but, since I'm cocky, I then thought "I can catch this thing!"

Needless to say I got slammed by the wave and ended up in the washing machine (never go into a wave sideways on a surf board). Rolled over 5 times before surfacing (that wave was by far the biggest, over 6 feet, and fastest of the day) and miraculously I was totally okay. I didn't even swallow any water.

...except that, after walking 5 miles to and from another beach this afternoon, I realized that (I think) I broke my toe. FH thinks I hit it on the surf board fin. He said "you're like that doll in your room, made outta paper".

Anyway, we're having a great time and food as usual is amazing. For dinner monday (I had to limp to the restaurant) we had chicken tostadas and the grand total for dinner for both of us was $4.50. Everything was home made.


And, here's a pic of my toe.

Took a few days off surfing - going to tape my toe tomorrow and see how it goes

 Tomorrow I'm going to post some pics of the shenanigans that went on tonight. Our friends down here in Maz took us to a batting cage to hit some balls. The place is also a bar and they didn't seem to mind that no one was wearing a helmet in the cage and I was in there filming with my gopro....

explosions for jesus

FH and I arrived in Mazatlan yesterday, and, neither of us being religious, were shocked to find out a big party was going on at the malecon (board walk in the centro historico). To celebrate easter the city throws a huge shin dig culminating in a "naval battle". While I'm not sure what a naval battle has to do with jesus, since he didn't die at sea, I was excited to see the battle.

As it would turn out, there weren't any naval ships. It was just a set up of fire works on either end of Olas Altas beach that were being fired into the centro historico. It was still exciting, but not for the reasons you might expect.

before the fire works there was a small, 3 truck parade - that's not a topless lady, just a statue of one

mariachi band plus some women in skimpy costumes

 

the fire works set up on the side of olas altas where we normally surf - yes, they had a fire extinguisher - safety first - by the time the show started there were lots of people standing on this sea wall, about 10 feet away from the fireworks - there were cops, but they were busy texting

our maz friend Bambino seemed surprised that the show did not start on time - about 15 after the scheduled time, as some of the fire works were about to be engulfed by the ocean, this guy came out to light the fire works - I took a pic of him halfway through the show with burning embers on his shirt but the pic is too dark to see anything, unfortunately

the show started out as normal fire works shows do...

...a few fireworks high in the sky...

then they lit off these fireworks, which shot straight into the sky - you can see people in the crowd running away from the sea wall as a huge burning ember lands on the side walk

the next firework they shot off sprinkled even more embers into the crowd...

...and into the street

In any case, no one was injured and all seemed to be having a great time. Unlike the US, there was no price gouging and FH and I had a dinner of vampiros for $7, and the total cost of beer for 5 of us was about $11. We left the party at 1130 and I was surprised to see people just arriving at that hour. The singing and festivities went on until about 530 in the morning (I know this only because the noise would wake me up when my ear plugs fell out). The malecon was clean this morning and there were no signs of the party (not sure how they did that).

To be cautious we went to the beach at stone island today because FH thought they might have hosed off the malecon into olas altas, potentially causing the water there to be full of bacteria.

Tomorrow surf's up at olas!