Mazatlan

Confident about the quality of Mexico´s buses, we took an overnight one from Uruapan to Mazatlan - just 13 hours! (Did I mention Mexico is pretty big?) OK if you can sleep, but we made the mistake of booking seats right at the front, just behind the driver. He was playing his Mazatlan music - called La Banda, it´s traditionally "tuba dominated and exuberantly-spirited" according to the guide book. Basically its full of saxaphones, trumpets and clarinets and a fair bit of um-pa, um-pa, um-pas. - not the little orange variety!
Not exactly music to go to sleep to, but as Sophie pointed out, whatever keeps the driver awake!

Despite this and a change of bus at 2am (we got our sleeping bags out at this point as the a/c was begining to freeze the bones) I actually slept more than I thought.

We awoke in Mazatlan, which is a port town/resort on the west coast, and set about getting some accomodation sorted. I left Sophie with the bags and went searching - we take it in turns. The cheaper places the guide suggested were all pretty rough, especially the one owned by a Mexican Rab C Nesbitt!

But on my trek I stumbled upon the Hotel del Rio, a very basic place (and a bit crawley), but vitally it has A/C.

Its very hot and humid here and there isn`t a great deal to see, but there are some nice beaches and we found a lovely restaurant called El Shrimp Bucket - tasty food served with a smile, and believe me that´s rare!

The seaside part of Mazatlan reminds me of expat Spain, only substitute Brits for Americans. Although we did overhear some Mancunians in a bar - well you can´t have everything!

A swim in the sea and a photo of the sunset and we`ll be on our way thank you. We`re making our way to Copper Canyon. Lets not muck around!