It's going to seem strange to say this, but I can kind of get into being dripping wet a lot of the time.

I had read a post Jonna made a long time ago where she said she kind of got into the heat. I really couldn't understand it at the time, but now I can.

This morning I vacuumed the entire house. I came back from walking the dogs already pretty wet. Then the activity of vacuuming turned me into a faucet. I was dripping everywhere, and I mean everywhere! I was dripping on the floor and my clothes were soaked. The only thing I disliked was when it dripped into my eyes. My glasses had big drops on them.

Afterwards I took a shower and (of course) changed my clothes. A nice loose dress and long undies. For the rest of the day, depending on my activity level I was either dry or dripping. Or something in between.

We have air conditioning in the bedrooms and office and for an hour this afternoon I turned it on. But then it was time for a dog walk (they don't have a backyard anymore, after all!) and the dripping started again.

Later, I got sidetracked on the computer and forgot about shutting the blinds, and started dripping again! (Do you see I now have a menu bar underneath the header graphic at the top of the page?)

Then it was dinner time, and another walk, and I am still dripping even though we just turned on the air. Give me five minutes and I'll be nice and cool. Later, a nice cold shower, and bed.

I told you all in a previous post that my career was in property management. One of the main things property managers do is to make sure the structure stays sound....protect the roof, keep water out, etc. But my work life was in the Pacific Northwest where wood is used for everything! It will rot if it gets wet! My new life with cement and tile is taking a bit of getting used to.

I get aggravated by bad planning. They do this a lot around here...the patio needed to have a lip at the doorway so the water will flow towards the drain - I get that part. But why not install the door so all the water that hits the door doesn't flow down and into the house?

I'm not satisfied piling towels where there are problems, so I had to figure out a work around. I took two of the metal seed guards from our bird cage and they keep 95% of the water outside where it belongs.

Our kitchen window is another case of bad planning somewhere in the last century. See the scupper (downspout thing) that dumps its water right on top of the window? Grrrr. So I took one of the plexiglass inserts to the seed guards and taped up the bottom of the window. As part of our backyard renovation we are going to have a long roof for this side of the house that will keep all three windows on this side nice and dry.

Here's another funny solution. Above our office, upstairs, there is a long wide window that I just love because it turns the stairwell into a chimney and evacuates the hot air nicely. But if it gets to raining hard the water will bounce up and in. I needed a way to be able to close them - fast - without running to the garage for the ladder. So, if you look carefully you'll see that each window has a piece of cord tied around the handle which are hanging down in the center of the doorway right now, since the windows are closed. Kind of dumb looking but it works! (It kind of reminds me of a contraption I built as a kid so I could turn the light switch off from my bed when I heard my mom coming...)

It has been raining a lot the last few days. We're ready for it to stop and give us a couple days to dry out, but really, we're not complaining. Everything is green, the streets are clean, and the dams are filling up. That's good.

Rainy season is in full swing here in Mazatlán. We've been trying to learn to read the sky to have some idea if rain will come, or not. It's a new vocabulary of clouds and air feel and what the birds are doing that we are trying to learn.

I'd been ready for the rainstorm Saturday night. All the windows were shut, a few things were moved out of the way that would get wet, and a couple of problem windows had towels at their base. When we got up Sunday it was still a bit drizzly, but it cleared up as the day went on, and turned into a beautiful evening.

This morning we had already let the dogs know we were heading out for a walk when all of a sudden it started raining. It's been raining for more than an hour now and I have no idea if it will stop shortly or not. Ni modo!

Below is a video from this morning of our cinnamon hummingbird having a bath in the rain. It is almost like having a pet bird - he is in our patio about 80% of the time, and he really does seem to chirp more when he sees us.

Rainy season is thunder and lightning storm season here in Mazatlán. With most of the rain coming at night, that means most thunder and lightning comes at night.

I've been up this morning since 5 am. Lightning started flashing and I had forgotten to put the little folded cardboard shim in our bedroom window, so it was rattling. Then Henry got worried and jumped on the bed. I was awake so I decided to shut down our computers (we leave them on to combat the humidity) and let the dogs out before it started raining.

Of course we had been up late last night playing old Tom Waits music (New Coat of Paint, The Heart of Saturday Night, Ol' 55, The Ghost of Saturday Night), and talking while drinking wine (me) and tequila (Paul.) Way too late to be up at 5 am.

Then I made a cup of espresso, grabbed my knitting and went to sit on the couch in the office, which is the only furniture the dogs are allowed on. Henry trembled next to me, flinching at each flash of lightning. He is way worse when there is a lot of thunder, but there wasn't much this morning.

So, it's now 6:30 and I am tired. I know I can't go back to sleep, so I guess today will be a siesta day for me. How can I learn to sleep through these little storms? I just wish I wasn't such a light sleeper.

July and August are vacation months for the Mexican people. And where do they like to go? The beach, of course!

Mazatlán has been filling up with Mexican tourists, and the it feels very festive and fun. And different than in the winter, when it is full of American and Canadian tourists. For one thing, there are more cars, since many of them drive here. For another, they do at least some of their own cooking. You should have been at Mega yesterday morning, it was a zoo!

Paul and I read the paper every day and today had a couple of interesting bits that I thought you might be interested in:

The Secretary of Tourism listed the most popular destinations for Mexican tourists in the summer - the figures below are estimates for 2008.

Makes sense to me since Acapulco and Veracruz are pretty easy driving destinations from Mexico City.

Then, there was an article on the cleanliness of the beaches. The water was tested at a number of beaches and the cleanliness is measured by something called "enterococos." I tried to look it up and can tell it is some kind of bacteria but don't know much more than that. Here are a few statistics:








The beach testing information was provided by Greenpeace. Recommended enterococos level should be less than 100 enterococos/100 ml.

The article didn't say the cause of the bacteria - summertime waters are warmer and I am sure bacteria occurs naturally as well as due to human causes. I would like to know more about this, unfortunately the article in the paper didn't explore it in depth.

We are happy that Mazatlán's beaches seem to be extremely clean. And the 311,552 tourists expected this summer are probably happy about that, too.

• After shower baby powder is a must
• The only seats that get much use are those under
  ceiling fans
• Sometimes you go grocery shopping to cool off
• The dogs will lie down only within fur ruffling
  distance of the fan
• You give up vacuuming in between maid visits
• You know why all cookies and crackers are packaged
  in single serving bags
• Wearing a dress makes you want to snitch your
  husband's cotton mid-thigh undies
• Taking the dogs for a walk early in the morning is
  the only way
• Waistbands get wet first
• Dripping and mopping is considered polite
• The middle of the day is inside time
• You remember to put down the shades on the
  west side in the afternoon
• You use zip lock bags for everything
• Maybe you actually would wear a mu-mu
• Basil in a pot can actually get too much sun
• You actually would rather have a glass of cold
  water than anything
• You will keep on writing your blog post even when
  perspiration runs down your back

We woke up this morning because the bedroom was stuffy and it turned out the power was off so the ceiling fan wasn't running. Unusual but not that noteworthy.

But when Paul got up to open the window we saw it was wet outside. Misting. No, raining! Sort of. More a drizzle than anything.

But with the power off there was no chance for coffee so we leashed up the dogs and headed out. The air was smooth and warm with an undercurrent of cool. It felt wonderful.

We moved to Mazatlán in late September last year. Since then it has rained only four times - until today. Now things are rinsed off and once the sun comes out it should feel nice and clean.

The picture at the top was taken at Olas Altas - and the ship in the background is a Baja ferry.

It's starting to heat up here in Mazatlán...it's supposed to be 33 C (91 F)today and 59% humidity. We are still sleeping with the windows open and fans on - we aren't in a hurry to get into air conditioning at night. It still cools off pretty nicely at night, thank goodness.

We have great ventilation in our house but most of the time for the last few days the thermometer has been around 84 F inside. We're fine with that temperature as long as we can have a breeze - either natural or from a ceiling fan. We do drink a lot of water and iced tea to stay hydrated, and don't walk too far if we can help it in the middle of the day.

People have lots of strategies to beat the heat. The woman at the top of this post is walking with an umbrella - a popular choice here. People carry cloths to blot perspiration. The woman below had an unusual choice - a box on her head!


Me? I like to have a tall glass of Campari and tonic or Campari and orange juice. Very refreshing!

Sunsets in Mazatlán are almost always spectacular. I don't know how that can be, but it is true. We love to walk over to the malecon in the evening to watch...it is a communal experience with lots and lots of people doing the same thing.


Right now in Washington State (where we came from) the sun rises at 5:19 am and sets at 9 pm...and in Mazatlán the sun rises at 6:19 and sets at 7:48. Being this far south means that there is less of a swing in number of daylight hours. I've also noticed that the sun is setting further North every day.


Living so close to the water is wonderful - I feel way more connected to the earth - as in Planet Earth - than I ever have before. Swimming, watching sunsets, seeing fish jump, and the salty wet air really make me feel alive.

The weather is heating up a little here in Mazatlán, and we have started turning on the ceiling fans. I just love how much cooler you can feel with just a little air movement.

Our house has great flow-through ventilation, and there always seems to be a breeze that will whip from the front gate through the house.

Last September and October - our first here in Maz - we did pretty well in the heat and humidity. We found that if we stayed out of air conditioning we felt the heat less than if we went back and forth. Although some days we would go into the bedroom and turn on the air conditioning for a half hour and would feel refreshed.

Anyway, this year we are going to see how we do only heading into the bedrooms (our only rooms with air conditioners) to sleep. Most of the city does it, so why can't we? We'll let you know how it went come November.

Life is returning to normal at our house now that the birds are gone. We have food in the fridge, laundry is done, and I am only slightly behind in my Spanish homework. I have all day tomorrow, ha ha!

We decided to head down to the malecon and have a beer while watching the sunset. It was a bit cloudy but the sunset was still beautiful.

The Mazatlan Malecon at Sunset


I don't even know where to start this post - so much has happened and Paul and I have been talking non-stop.

Basically, Paul knew right away that he could live in Mazatlan. I wasn't so sure because my vision of our life in Mexico was in a place that had fewer gringos. I wanted the challenge of navigating without a safety net and was also leery of the way you might get prejudged by locals as one of the nasty kind of gringos even if we aren't.

But then I realized that having others to talk to in English will really help us make the transition since a sense of isolation could really make life hard. We need friends, and we can't wait for the year or two we expect it to take for us to become fluent enough to make Spanish-speaking friends.

Queretaro actually helped us realize that Mazatlan is right for us, for now. We loved the Centro, and the cleanliness, and we absolutely fell in love with a house we saw. But ultimately we realized that a city like Queretaro is a growing commercial city and that people rush-rush somewhat like the US. (Although the weekend is a different story) We just wouldn't feel as relaxed there.

San Miguel de Allende was wonderful. We could probably be very happy there - but we would have to spend more on housing than we really want to, and it would be just a more expensive place to live.

One of our concerns is how hard it is to reach somewhere for friends and relatives from the US...and Mazatlan really is hard to beat. There are people who I feel certain will come to visit us in Mazatlan who just wouldn't be comfortable navigating airports in Mexico City or Leon.

The thing that bugged me about Mazatlan at first is the hotel zone. It is crazy, overrun with fanny-pack wearing gringos laughing too loud and roaming from Carlos & Charlie's to Senor Frog's. There is even an Applebee's coming soon! I really feel bad for them if that's what they think Mexico is...but some of these folks do come to Centro (you can tell by the all-inclusive wrist bands) so perhaps some do see that there is more to Mexico than the hotel zone.

There are also cruise ships that come to town, and when they are in town the prices jump in the shops I've been told.

The hotel zone is pretty much just North of town. Cruise ships are South. Centro, regular shopping, parks, and the beach are accessible easily from the historic Centro easily.


View North from the Lighthouse Area

What Mazatlan has is a way for us to enter our life in Mexico without too much isolation. We can take language classes. There is an English library. The Venados play baseball there. (That is a big one) We can drive there in 5 days from Washington. Alaska Airlines flies direct for $520 round trip. Houses near Centro are affordable. The malecon is right there! We will bicycle in the morning, hike to the light house, or walk the dogs on the long tree lined boulevard. There are tons of places to walk. The fresh shrimp is incredible. The market has wonderful vegies. There are a couple of vegetarian restaurants and GREAT pizza. The beach! Whales! There is such a nice breeze off the water! We can just keep our Honda van!

We have looked at enough houses to know that we can find something perfect for us. Or have it made perfect. And we know that when and if the time comes to move on, we would be able to sell our place since we always have such a positive response to the way we decorate, etc.

There are a few negatives about Mazatlan, but really not many. It gets hot in the summer, but that is when we might head to the US to visit or inland to travel and visit. Or just read a book in a shady spot. I still want to see Jalapa, Cuernavaca, San Luis Potosi and Tepozlan. Paul hasn't been to Guanajuato, Morelia or Patzcuaro. And housing prices are reasonable enough in Mazatlan that we should have money available for travel.

What this trip showed us is just how much we love Mexico and how we want to be there like crazy.

Now that we've decided on our first home in Mexico, we can really start figuring out the details.

It's been a crazy winter here in Washington but the snow finally melted and the sun came out on Saturday.

Paul's daughter had been visiting from New York City for a few days, and Saturday we headed to Seattle to deliver her to her friends. It was so sunny we decided to take a walk on the malecon at Alki Beach (I know, they don't call them that here!) and stopped in to Salty's for drinks and a view of Seattle.

(click picture to enlarge)

This is a picture of the front piece of our property. Kind of looks like a Christmas card, doesn't it?

We've had snow on the ground for the last week, and another snowstorm hit this morning. Paul is working from home...the weatherman says it will turn to rain by this afternoon. We really hope it does since we have to pick up Paul's daughter at the airport this afternoon. It hardly seems possible that we could be hoping for rain!

Both Paul and I have lived in the Northwest most of our adult lives and we can never remember a winter like this. We have had either torrential rain, windstorms where we lost power for days, or snow.

All of you down in Mexico can smile to yourselves that you're missing this kind of mess! The occasional volcanic eruption or hurricane are the kind of weather problems I will gladly trade for this cold!

The 227 days that remain on our countdown clock are our guess-timate of when we will be able to leave the Pacific Northwest if everything goes according to plan. Our biggest challenge is the sale of our house, but there are a number of challenges we'll face along the way.

The first big one for me is making it through this winter.

We just came through three and a half days without power after an incredible windstorm.

We have loved our ten acres, our garden, our pond, and the various critters we have kept and still keep - but - and this is a big BUT - we have had it with the cold.

We had our fireplaces going day and night to keep ourselves, our dogs, and our parrots warm. The temperature outside was in the mid 20's at night and the low 40's during the day. I guess we should feel lucky we didn't lose power when it was colder than that!

Anyway, we are ready to move to Mexico for a lot of reasons. The weather is just one of them.

-Nancy