Mazatlan 2014 - Day 2: Cigars and Stuff

   Slept fairly well last night.  Dale and I were both up early.  It was beautiful to watch the ocean waves from the balcony as it lightened up.  Speaking of ocean waves, it was also lovely listening to them while falling asleep last night as well as waking up to them this morning.  They are very powerful sounding - sometimes as loud as thunder - yet also very comforting to hear.  I think it must have something to do with their rhythm.  Dale told me about the first time he slept near the ocean.  When he moved to Washington D.C. when he was 17, his parner at the time, John, took him for a vacation at Rehoboth Beach in Delaware.  He said falling asleep to the waves was such a memorable and peaceful thing.  He still remembers what a wonderful sleep he had that night.

   Around 9:30 a.m. I took a long walk along the beach - probably about 40 minutes.  It was gorgeous and I got a lot of nice photos and even took a couple videos.  One was of the waves and the other was of some pelicans flying overhead.  Dale took a run through the golf course and we met up by the pool.

   Lunch at La Paloma again.  I had a tuna steak and Dale had chicken.  We started with the fish ceviche.  The seafood is so amazing here.  Dale tells me that Mazatlan is a shrimping port.

   Took another excursion into town today in search of cigars and also to stop at Mega for dinner fixings.  Dale found a reliable cigar shop online.  I use the word reliable since the area is known for having a lot of counterfeit Cuban cigars.  There wasn't an address online but it was supposed to be across the street from a big hotel.  We plugged the address of the hotel in the GPS and found it with no problem.  Finding the cigar shop however was a much more difficult matter.  We searched a five block stretch across from the hotel and found nothing.  We checked inside the hotel and they knew nothing about any kind of cigar store.  

Just prior to lighting up.

   We decided to give up but on our way back to the car we ran into a street vendor selling all kinds of knick knacks but also having a selection of cigars.  I was pretty sure they were fake but decided to give them a try for lack of any other options.  The gentleman vendor told me it was 500 pesos for a box of five but that, for me, he'd part with them for 400 (about 40 bucks).  I figured if they were halfway passable they'd still be fun to smoke.  Well, they were far from passable.  In fact they were god-awful.  Dale and I hit the pool after drinks and dinner and it was there I lit up.  Bad, bad, bad.  I figure if the cigars weren't worth the 40 bucks then at least the story I got out of the whole thing was.

   Dianne had called just after we got back from our trip into town with the name of the cigar store John goes to when here.  She also said I was welcome to any in John's stash.  Maybe I'll try one tomorrow.  They're not in a humidor and I think they've been here a while but even if they're a little dry they've got to be better than the shit I was sold today. LOL