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When a friend does you
a favor, you want to be able to return it, right? In the case of Mazatlan,
the city rolls out the red carpet for a weekend every November to greet
a very special group of out-of-town friends. They are the travel agents
and wholesalers who consistently send their clients to this resort. Some
hail from Canada, some from the U.S., and some come from Mexico City and
other major population areas throughout the Republic. The annual Friends
of Mazatlan weekend is a time for the local hotel association and tourist-related
businesses to say “gracias”. The thank-yous always include some special
treats for the VIPs, who fly in from their respective locations for three
days of sightseeing, updating and enjoyment. This year’s version, the
seventh, was no exception to the pattern. The visitors arrive on a Friday
and checked into their lodgings in various Golden Zone hotels. They then
were whisked to the Hotel El Cid Marina for a gala dinner al fresco by
the swimming pool. Among local folk on hand to greet the visitors at the
party were a few members of the press, some local travel and tour operators,
and municipal dignitaries including Alejandro Hig-uera, the mayor, along
with several members of the municipal council. On Saturday, the group
breakfasted from a sumptuous buffet at the new five-star Pueblo Bonito
Emerald Bay. Then everybody board-ed buses for the half-hour trip to El
Quelite, the little town on the northernmost fringe of the municipality
(county) of Mazatlan. Like Concordia and Copala, El Quelite is a historic
enclave founded in the 1650s, with several well-preserved 19th-century
homes. As the buses pulled up, a typical Sinaloa banda was playing regional
tunes while charros from the area set their horses to dancing in the cobbled
streets. Dr. Marcos Osuna, who heads the effort to promote El Quelite
as a visitor attraction, headed the welcoming committee. This was a prelude
to a brief
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charreada,
a display of exceptional horsemanship in the town’s charro ring. The rodeo-style
event included brahma bull riding and roping, and a demonstration of the
“paso de la muerte”, a daring feat in which a rider jumps from one galloping
horse to another. At the town’s soccer field, the visitors watched a shortened
version of the ancient ball game called ulama. The game utilizes a 9-lb.
ball the size of a child’s bowling ball, and the players thwacking this
densely packed rubber missile back and forth using only the side of the
hip—not an easy achievement as this demonstration proved. While seated in
the stadium, the visitors also saw rope tricks, regional Sinaloa dances
and a mock cockfight—El Quelite has one of a handful of hatcheries in all
of Mexico that specializes in breeding these fighting roosters. Some of
the VIPs elected to stroll to the hatchery, talk to Hector Enciso Saracho,
the proprietor, and inspect his operation. Tours toEl Quelite are offered
regularly by local tour companies, and while not every excursion includes
the events mentioned for this special Friends of Mazatlan day, there are
a variety of permanent attractions—a little cheese factory and a bakery
offering local breads and goodies among them. El Quelite sits just north
of the Tropic of Cancer, as a monument on Highway 15 proclaims. This is
the northern boundary for a large variety of tropical birds. There also
are petroglyphs in the area. Visitors wanting to birdwatch or hike and photograph
the pre-Columbian petroglyphs can find accommodation in one of the town’s
two bed & breakfast inns. Returning to Mazatlan on this day, the Friends
of Mazatlan contingent gathered later for an extraordinary dinner party
at the 31 de Marzo Fort. This structure was never really a fort, it was
built by Presidente Porfirio Diaz around the turn of the 20th century to
commemorate Mazatlan’s victory over would-be invaders during the French
intervention of 1864. The evening at the fort included a pre-dinner chamber
concert by four musicians of the Orquesta Sinaloa de las Artes from Culiacan,
a buffet featuring the culinary specialties of several of the city’s top
chefs, and popular music by the well-known Mazatlan group, Los Hermanos
Osuna. On Sunday, the city’s guests chose from a variety of optional activities—deep-sea
fishing, golf, leisure time in the sun. And on Monday, they all flew home
with renewed knowledge of Mazatlan that they can use to describe this resort’s
attractions to their clients. |
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