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!