Observatorio 1873

Observatorio 1873 is a tourist park on top of Cerro del Vigía, a hill about 75 m high at the southern end of Mazatlán's old town, between the Paseo Olas Altas and the port. The hill takes its name from the lookout built here in the mid-19th century to watch for hostile ships and pirates: the watchmen rang a bell whenever a vessel arrived or left. In 1873 the post became the Mazatlán Observatory, doing meteorological and seismological work, and under Porfirio Díaz it was one of the two most important observatories of its kind in the country. Staff sent up balloons carrying instruments to measure temperature, rain and wind, and one of Mexico's earliest seismographs was installed between 1900 and 1910.

The observatory was later abandoned. Businessman Amado Guzmán bought the site and began restoring it around 2017; it opened as a park in February 2020, closed during the pandemic and reopened in March 2021, drawing more than 20,000 visitors in its first year. You go up either on the funicular, which climbs about 80 m in a little over two minutes with the Pacific below and won Elevator World's 2021 award for inclined elevators, or on foot up the roughly 100 steps of the "Caminito al cielo" stairway, with a compass rose and a statue of the Virgin.

At the top, the old observatory building now holds the Museo Siglo XIX, a small castle-like house furnished with period furniture, photographs and objects. Around it are an agave garden with more than 30 species of agave and cactus and a model distillery where you can taste mezcal, a hilltop garden of native trees with a koi pond and views of El Faro, an aviary for rescued birds and an iguana enclosure. The Skybar 360 on the roof stays open into the evening. At the foot of the hill, the Museo Nacional de la Ballena (MUNBA) opened in July 2024 with whale skeletons, and the Farolesa zip line runs 1,265 m from here across to Cerro del Crestón.