Emerald Star

We'd heard from friends that Altata was a great place. They were right. Altata is about 100 miles north of Mazatlan. It's at the north end of a shallow bay that is around 25 miles or so long. There are no hotels there, yet, but a lot of Mexicans have vacation homes there. We were there Easter week, so it was pretty lively. Music 24 hours a day and lots of people enjoying their week off. One night at about 4 a.m. I woke up and went out on the deck. The music sounded very familiar and it took a minute to realize what it was..... Frank Sinatra. Altata was really fun and we would have stayed longer if I didn't have a plane to catch in La Paz the following week.

The restaurants are right on the beach. At high tide the road, and parking spots, disappear. Some restaurants are actually in the water at high tide.

 Dinghy parking is in front of La Perla.

Shrimpers in the bay. They use a technique originally from Asia. The pangas have bamboo poles that support the sails and shrimp nets. They slowly drift downwind.

Most days we went to the undeveloped area across from town for a hike.

Luna on the flats at low tide.

Tiki having lots of fun.

After leaving San Blas we went to Mazatlan again and stayed about a week. No new pictures. We were in Marina Mazatlan at the north end of town. We took Luna and Tiki downtown and back a few times via "pulmonias". These are sort of like a really souped up large golf cart that are manufactured by Volkswagen. The dogs loved it.