We had intended to stay another day upon returning to Monkey Fist at Topolobampo, but being a sailing boat, our plans are strongly influenced by the weather. The wind was forecast to continue blowing from the North only for the next 36 hours and then die off so we chose to depart the following morning rather than leave a day later and motor all the way to Mazatlan, 200 nautical miles to the south. Generally we don't commit ourselves to timetables as this often lead to tears and misery because of the possibly of encountering adverse weather conditions, but on this occasion it was the opposite and so we were able to arrive in Mazatlan in time for the Carnival. Mazatlan is a city of over 400,000 people and holds one of the two biggest Carnival celebrations in Mexico, and it is BIG.

One thing that Mexican's really like is loud music - it is everywhere. Music so loud that you can't hear yourself think, let alone talk to anyone - from shopfronts, from cars and out of houses. All along the Malecon (a shorefront strolling path) there were stages set up every 100 metres (at least 12 of them) and in between there were beer (Coronas for $1) and food stalls and hordes of people. One of the features of the Carnival is the burning of an effigy of a person who is particularly unpopular with the general public (the "bad mood burning"). Last year they burned an effigy of Donald Trump, what a surprize ! The smart money was on a repeat performance and we weren't disappointed. The effigy was a composite one - Donald Trump on one side and on the other the US/Mexican Wall that Don wants to build. We were near the front of the crowd when it was brought in suspended by a small crane, the crowd was going wild and the fire department moved everyone back a few paces and then she went up to even more cheering.