SHOPPING EXPEDITION TO THE SUBURBAN MALLS; THE MOVIES
Monday, 21 November 2005

Tired this morning. It’s not like we just completed a long voyage and are happy to be in port. Nope. I’m tired from and of shopping. This city living is tough.

We head into shore yesterday with the intention of buying a French press-coffee pot to replace the one that was shattered on the way across from La Paz along with a few other sundries. We also aim to take in a movie. (On shore at the Club we admire the huge marlin that someone has landed; according to the posting for the tournament, this one is 217 pounds, a real giant. That fisherman is going to be taking home some real prize money. We are told that the fish is actually sold to a fisher buyer.) We catch a bus that takes us up the beach roads to Sabalo where the newer parts of Mazatlán are and where the malls and big-box stores live.

We have forgotten that 20 November is a national holiday in Mexico. OK, so it was Sunday anyway. In Mexico the mercado and the bigger stores are always open anyway on Sundays. But smaller shops are closed and, as we pass the stadium, a huge crowd of families is dispersing. There are many teenage boys in ill-fitting and unfashionable band uniforms and carrying instruments and teenage girls in tight-fitting, very fashionable gymnastic clothing and carrying themselves to attract attention. A lot of these kids are at the mall later.

Our first stop was to be an internet café at the mall. It is closed. We then decide to hit the movies here while the matinee prices are still in effect. There seems to be only three movies playing in all of Mazatlán at present: Harry Potter; Harry Potter; and, Harry Potter. They are dubbed in Spanish. In addition there is Chicken Little (in Spanish) and the Revenge of Zorro (in Spanish now or in English if you fancied waiting around till 2135). We give up on the movies here and promise to look elsewhere.

The next stop is to buy a new memory stick since the one I have seems to be damaged. Upstairs in a very nice Mexican department store we find a young man who not only speaks quite good English but is very helpful. Since according to him, too, the old stick is damaged, we simply buy a new 128 MB stick for about $35.

In the course of talking with him we ask him why 20 November is a national holiday. Is it to celebrate the defeat of the French occupiers? (No. That is celebrated on Cinco de Mayo.) Was it Independence Day, then? (No, that’s celebrated on 16 September.) He didn’t know. He asked his colleagues and only one of them had any idea.

The story behind it as follows: Francisco Madero, a wealthy liberal from Coahila, campaigned in 1910 for the presidency against the Porfirio Díaz, who became president (read “dictator”) in 1876 and ruled for 33 years. Madera’s chances of winning, however, were so good that Díaz had him jailed during the campaign. When he was released on 20 November he called for the people to rise up in revolution. Armed forces under Francisco “Pancho” Villa took Ciudad Juarez and Díaz resigned. Madera was elected president a year later in November 1911. Madera was still unable to contain the factional fighting, which was basically between his own brand of liberalism and more left-wing efforts led by Emiliano Zapata aimed at redistributing the haciendas of the rich to the peons. The factionalism opened the way for conservatives to bring Madera down, have him executed and replaced with another dictator, Huerta. This fragmented the country even more. Somewhat uncoordinated but bitter revolutions were going on all over Mexico: led by Obregon in Sonora, Carranza in Coahila, and Villa in Chihuahua. Zapata was also fighting the government. After years of pillaging and plundering across the country, Huerta’s forces were defeated and he was forced to resign in 1913. The unsettled, confused and violent period lasted some 10 years and set Mexico’s economic development back decades.

OK, so the man’s colleague didn’t know all that; I got it out of a book. Since all the big stores are open today, though, I asked the man, in his late twenties, what he would be doing today if he hadn’t had to work. “Oh, go to the beach, I guess.” A lot of his fellow citizens went shopping, however.

I am still determined to get a coffee pot and pair of flip flops for the showers and cheap sandals if I can find them. We go outside and flag down one of the open-air taxis that are typical for Mazatlán. Many are pickup trucks with upholstered benches in the rear and a colourful canvas tops. Ours was a white five-seater designed to fit on a VW chassis. For Pesos 20, which we negotiate in advance, he drives us the several miles to Wal Mart and discusses life on a boat with us. This is all in Spanish and, although a struggle, we have a good time. Wal Mart is exactly like a Wal Mart in the U.S.A. It is full of customers and, compared to downtown stores, has a range of goods that is overwhelming. I feel like a citizen of the DDR when the Wall came down and permitted visits to West Germany. I find flip flops but it appears that the “winter” range of shoes is on sale now. I shall have to find them at the mercado, where I saw them the day before.

We buy some groceries and catch a bus for the mile over to the Soriana’s. I don’t know who is behind this chain, but it is nationwide and big. Everywhere they have signs on their goods comparing their lower price with that of Wal Mart’s. So at least one chain that is not waiting to be bulldozed by Wal Mart. Of course, Soriana’s is about as much like Wal Mart as you can get.

There is a Cineplex next door. Harry Potter, Harry Potter, Revenge of Zorro, Harry Potter (all in Spanish with no English subtitles). You get the picture. We give up on the movies.

We catch a bus back down to the other end of town to the boat. We are totally wiped out from tramping those endless aisles of consumer temptations. We haven’t taken in a movie, haven’t found a coffee pot anywhere, have bought no sandals, didn’t get any of the other items we were looking for except the flash stick, and our feet hurt.