Mazatlan: Tequila, tans and working stiffs

Mazatlan has the virtues and vices of any tourist destination. But all the bad stuff - or good, depending on how you plan to spend the evening - is buffered by the decency and solidity of a working town.

Unlike the hotel cities dreamed up by governments beholden to tourist dollars, Mazatlan, the second city of Sinaloa State, after Culiacan, has been around virtually forever, in one form or another. Today it takes on two personas, that of a beach and bar destination and of a commercial hub and home to about half a million people....