It is still there!!
From the top of the Freeman
Panorama of old beach
Playa at Olas Altas
Yesterday the crew of Faith joined the crew of Periclees and jumped onto a local bus headed for the old section of Mazatlán. We wandered past lots of history there and then ended up walking to the beach… the old section of the beach. Suddenly a bit of history was there in front of me; my history.
Many years ago, when I was a lad, my Uncle Munro, in particular, was traveling in Latin America often. Occasionally when he went south he added family members to the trip. On one of those occasions I was along as he came north from Guatemala and we ended up at the Freeman Hotel on the Olas Altas in Mazatlán. It was a great place to spend about week and, being summer, the water was warm but inviting to our small band of determined travelers. All in all it seems to me now that this was a prelude to many more visits. On one of the trips south “Tio Barfy”, a name he was tagged with on this trip having nothing to do with what it sounds like it does, loaded up seven or eight kids along with the appropriate notarized parental permissions and related documents and pointed the old (1956 or 7) two toned (blue and white) Ford station wagon toward Mazatlán. When he got the non-power steering vehicle to the beach he rented an apartment and the month that followed was spent at the beach in the morning, lunch at the apartment and charades during siesta time. There was time for reading and such but it was the mornings at La Playa and the Copa de Leche restaurant and bar that hit me again as a place I had encountered many times in the past. The funny thing was that I was recalling this particular trip even though I wasn’t along on it. Oh, there had been many others of like kind but I was remembering the excitement of my siblings when they told me about what a great time they had on this outing. It was so like what other times had been for me with Tio Barfy!! We didn’t have to do much to invent our own fun then.
The pictures are from the top of the sea wall and the top of the still existing Freeman Hotel (now a Best Western). A small note on the Freeman: as we went to the top floor we got off the elevator and walked the last two stories, passing the elevator motors, where we saw the plaque stating that the elevators had been installed in 1944.
3 comments:
Wow, what a trip down memory lane -- La Copa de Leche, and Apartamentos Freeman! The summer of '65 was memorable, for sure. I didn't realize you had been there with Uncle Barfy earlier, but knew that you and Lee missed the big Edmofest summer. Thanks for the great photos & memories.
OMG - that was the summer I took the train down with cousin Johnny from Long Beach and we stayed the last week with the crew, I think sleeping on the floor! Do you recall the vultures perched on the street lights outside the hospital. Munro thought that was great irony.
For some reason I remembered Lee & Johnny on the train, but not in Mazatlan. I'd forgotten about the vultures, but now it's coming back. I'll never forget all the jellyfish, though! Or the orange Fantas.
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