¡Arriba, Arriba!

After a really lovely autumn season, the cool, gray and wet weather that is Vancouver's winter crept into town this week. It's time for us to get outta Dodge!

We typically like to winter in Thailand, but with the long travel times, jet lag and mosquitos that love to feast on Brenda, we've been looking for a more idyllic getaway spot.

Earlier this year we cruised out of San Diego down the Mexican Pacific coast, stopping in Cabo, Mazatlan and Puerto Vallarta. Cabo left us cold and felt like any of a thousand other resort areas that has been over developed to the point of losing all traces of its heritage.

Puerto Vallarta was better, offering us a taste of Mexico, but was still too touristy for our tastes.

Situated almost right in the middle of those two ports was Mazatlan, and just like Baby Bear's bed, we found this charming city to be just right.

During our brief shore excursion we learned that there are many Canadian expats (mostly from Alberta) living there. All of them that we spoke with had nothing but good things to say about the city.

When we got back to Canada we began researching flights to Mazatlan and learned that the majority of them out of YVR had a stopover in Edmonton or Calgary. However, discount airline, Swoop, offers direct flights from Abbotsford for literally half the price of a Westjet flight from YVR.

Our very kind neighbor, Jennifer, got up early and drove the one hour and fifteen minutes to bring us to the terminal in Abbotsford for our 11:15 flight.

We've flown no-frills airlines before in Europe and Asia and will soon find out how Swoop compares to the others.

As I sit here in Abbotsford waiting for our plane to depart, the westher outside is 6°C with drizzle. When we arrive in Mazatlan tjis afternoon it will be 24°C with an overnight low of 18°.

Tomorrow morning there is the weekly organic market at Plazuela Zaragoza, an eight minute walk from our accommodations, where we plan to stock up on oodles of fresh fruits and veggies to fill our larder.

And who knows, maybe after that we'll hit the beach.

Ain't life grand?Read more