Carpe Diem #1567 Mazatlan ... first miles into Mexico

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

We are on a "haiku-ing" journey along the Pan American Highway and we have arrived at Mexico, the "entrance" to Middle America. Here in Mexico we will visit the rich history of this country and while going on on the Pan American Highway we will make trip back into time ... to for example the Mayan culture.

Today we visit Mazatlan and I found a wonderful litho by Seemann (1858):

Mazatlan Mexico

Let me tell you a little bit about Mazatlan. Mazatlán is a city in the Mexican state of Sinaloa. The city serves as the municipal seat for the surrounding municipio, known as the Mazatlán Municipality. It is located at 23°13′N 106°25′W on the Pacific coast, across from the southernmost tip of the Baja California Peninsula.

Mazatlán is a Nahuatl word meaning "place of deer." The city was founded in 1531 by an army of Spaniards and indigenous settlers. By the mid-19th century, a large group of immigrants arrived from Germany. Together, with the hard work of the Natives, they were able to develop Mazatlán into a thriving commercial seaport, importing equipment for the nearby gold and silver mines. It served as the capital of Sinaloa from 1859 to 1873. The German settlers also influenced the local music, banda, with some genres being an alteration of Bavarian folk music. The settlers also established the Pacifico Brewery on March 14, 1900.

Mazatlán is also known for being the hometown and center of Banda sinaloense, a musical genre which began to develop in the XIX century and is now one of the most popular music genres in Mexico.

The above music-video is of Mexico's renown female singer of Banda, Jenni Rivera. Listen to the music and let it take you into Mazatlan's history and let the music inspire you.

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until December 24th at noon (CET). I will try to publish our next episode later on.