November 5, 2007

Full of tacky souvenir stores, boozing college students and 2nd tier hotels, Mazatlan occupies the lowest rung on the Mexican resort town ladder.

We can say this confidently now that we have spent time in all of Mexico' major resort cities: Cabo San Lucas, Puerto Vallarta, Acapulco and Cancun.

However, Mazatlan is without a doubt the best resort town to camp in given the: (1) quality, number and location of the campsites, and (2) the perfect climate - hot during the day, but not too hot, cool enough at night to sleep well.

But this may be changing.

La Posta RV Park, where we had camped on the way down, was about 1/3 of the way to being a Mega grocery store.

And other campsites in Mazatlan, especially Mar Rosa, are in such desirable locations on the beach, that it is hard to imagine that the owners will be able to resist the sweet deals offered by developers for much longer.

(La Posta RV Park is just one of several urban campsites in Mexico that has recently closed or will be closing in the near future, an unfortunate but understandable trend.

Others that we are aware of are Acquamarina in La Paz, Baja and the Oaxaca Trailer Park in Oaxaca City, which was not closed when we were there but it is a quarter of the size it used to be and feels more like a construction site than a trailer park).

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Mazatlan was our second stop after our week of blissful, easy hotel-living at the Sheraton Buganvilias Resort in Puerto Vallarta.

We had spent the first night after leaving Puerto Vallarta at the Paraiso Amor campsite in San Blas. We had stayed there on the way south and it is one of the most picturesque overnight spots of the trip.

Retracing the route we had taken down several months earlier also allowed us to sample once again our favourite nourishments.

And just like returning to the “cake lady” in Barra de Navidad had been a mission, so was getting our hands on the oversized-licuados (fruit shakes) at the stand on Avenue Rafael Buelna, across from where the La Posta RV Park used to be.

We made the licuado stand our first stop on arriving back in Mazatlan.

Given that we couldn’t return to La Posta RV Park, we opted for the smaller but equally popular San Fernando RV Park.

Key Facts & Figures:

-Paraiso Amor campsite: $12/night
-San Fernando RV Park: $10