Malecón de Mazatlán

The malecón is Mazatlán's seafront promenade, a walkway, bike lane and coast road that follows the Pacific from the foot of Cerro del Vigía and El Faro at the south end of the city up to the hotel zone in the north. Local sources put its length at about 21 km, which makes it one of the longest seafronts in Mexico. From south to north it runs as Paseo del Centenario, Paseo Olas Altas, Paseo Claussen and Avenida del Mar, and it passes Olas Altas, the fishermen's beach of Playa Norte, where boats land their catch, and the beaches of the Zona Dorada.

Its oldest stretch is the sea wall built at Olas Altas from around 1830 to protect the town from storms and flooding. Early in the 20th century the promenade was extended along Paseo Claussen and Paseo del Centenario, the latter marking the 1910 centenary of Independence, and it has been widened and modernised many times since, most recently before the 2018 Tianguis Turístico, Mexico's national tourism fair. It is the city's main public space: people walk, run and cycle it at all hours, families gather for the sunset, and banda music drifts out of the beach clubs. Every year it carries the Carnaval parades and sporting events such as the Pacífico Marathon and the triathlon.

The malecón is also an open-air gallery of monuments. The oldest is the Monumento al Pescador, nicknamed "los monos bichis" (the naked figures), by Mazatlán sculptor Rodolfo Becerra Gómez, unveiled on 20 November 1958 on Avenida del Mar and restored several times since: a fisherman about to throw his net beside a reclining woman, with a lighthouse. At the Glorieta Sánchez Taboada are the bronze Mujer Mazatleca, arms open on a three-metre pedestal, donated by Gabriel Ruiz, composer of the song "Mazatlán"; just to the north is the Monumento a la Continuidad de la Vida, a couple watching leaping dolphins over a fountain that is lit up at night. Farther along you pass El Venadito, the deer that stands for the city's name, the Pedro Infante statue at Olas Altas, the monument to the pulmonía taxi placed in 1998, and the Monumento a la Familia Mazatleca by Mazatlán artist Antonio López Sáenz, from 2000, near the Zona Dorada.