Escuinapa, Sinaloa – town of bicycles and mangos

*I’m always looking forward to Sam Quiñones’ posts. He finds the extraordinary in the common. Now, he’s started to tell his stories with video. VL

By Sam Quiñones, A Reporter’s Blog

I’m just back from Mexico where I spent a few days in the town of Escuinapa.

Escuinapa is in Sinaloa – a state with a heavy burden caused by the drug war and the fearsome cartel that bears the state’s name.

Here’s a video I made with an alternative view of the area. (I’m loving working video for another kind of storytelling, though clearly I’m still a technical babe in arms. Feel free to subscribe to my video channel, True Tales Video.)

I spoke there at a tourism conclave.

It was great to return to Mexico these last few days. I hope to go back a lot more now that I’m no longer with the LA Times.

I was also in Mazatlan, also in Sinaloa, and a couple hours away. Mazatlan is my favorite Mexican resort town, largely because along with spectacular beaches, there’s actually a city with real life going on. Its Old Town is one of the nicest in all of Mexico, and it’s hard to beat the pulmonias (golf cart taxis) as a mode of transportation.

More from there later.

But I was very happy to help present the new book by my friend, Arturo Santamaria, the sociologist who introduced me to the topic of beauty queens in Mazatlan.

De Carnaval, Reinas y Narc0 is about how beauty queens, beauty contests and drug trafficking all work together in Mazatlan and in Sinaloa.

Great stuff. Weird and wonderful stories.

This article was originally published in A Reporter’s Blog.

[Photo courtesy of Sam Quiñones]

 

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